“Today let us only think of God’s love” (Pope Francis, Homily for Holy Thursday, April 13, 2017). These words of Pope Francis reflect the underlying theme of the Holy Thursday liturgy and indeed of the entire Holy Triduum. God’s love incarnated in Jesus is the reality that is addressing us during these holy days.
When I was praying about what to say on this Holy Thursday what emerged was the silent bodily gestures of Jesus in the gospels and how they, with Jesus’ words, enflesh God’s love and compassion. There are two gestures of ‘bending down’ in John’s gospel. The first we heard at last Sunday’s liturgy (Jn 8:1-11) with Jesus bending down before his accusers who put forward a woman caught in adultery, and they ask, ‘what shall we do teacher’? Jesus gives no immediate reply but bends down first…The bending down is a vulnerable and humble gesture. When Jesus rises out of the silence he cuts through the hypocrisy of his accusers with few words while embodying a gesture of forgiveness towards the woman. The second profound gesture is the one we will experience today on this Holy Thursday: Jesus bending down to wash the feet of his disciples (Jn 13:1-15). “He loved them to the end”: These words introduce the washing of the disciples’ feet by Jesus. In John’s gospel this is the Eucharist. It is an offering, an offering of Jesus’ life… ‘Go and do as I do’, he tells us. Here he embodies a gesture of selfless service. Pope Francis said in a homily for Holy Thursday: “In this moment of the Supper, two episodes attract our attention. Jesus’ washing of the feet: Jesus humbles himself, and with this gesture he lets us understand what he had said: ‘I came not to be served but to serve”’(cf. Mk 10:45). He teaches us the path of service” (Pope Francis, March 28, 2024). These silent gestures communicate the immense love of God. These gestures give power to the words that Jesus speaks. In fact, the silent nonverbal gestures unite with the words that Jesus speaks.
In the epistle from St. Paul (1 Co 11:23-26), we have the words of the Eucharist: “This is my body given to you”; “this is my blood of the new covenant”. Note the gestures accompanying the words from Jesus: the first is he offers the bread and blesses it; the second he breaks the bread; the third he shares or distributes the bread. Pope Benedict XVI wrote, “Breaking and distributing: it is the act of distributing that creates community. This archetypally human gesture of giving, sharing, and uniting acquires an entirely new depth in Jesus’ Last Supper through his gift of himself” (Jesus of Nazareth Holy Week, p.129). Jesus unites gestures and words which powerfully communicate the embodied reality of God’s total Self-gift, a gift motivated by love.
The gestures together with the words are revelatory of the incarnate reality of the Christian faith: “The Word was made flesh (Jn 1:14).” These last days of Jesus’ life communicate not only words, but embodied words that reach into the fullness of our humanity. God’s love is fully embodied in Jesus, both in his words and in the active giving of his very self and life.
For us, self-gift, selfless service, the offering daily of our flesh and blood is what we are being called to live. To show how embodied this walk with Jesus is, Sr. Maria Boulding osb wrote: “Beyond the external silence of restraint in speech and avoidance of unnecessary noisiness there is an inner silence, much more difficult to acquire: the stilling of resentment, of self-pity and self-preoccupation, a refusal to judge the actions of others. My noisy, demanding, self-important ego needs to be kept in its place. There are larger matters to be attended to, the manifold invitations to love. Inner silence becomes an attitude of receptivity to God and, in association with obedient surrender of one’s own will…, it passes over almost imperceptibly into prayer” (Gateway to Resurrection, p.92). The milieu of inner silence aids receptivity to God and surrender of one’s own will. In this milieu of silent receptivity, we will feel the Incarnate Presence; like St. Bernard who perceived the Lord’s Presence “only by the movement of my heart” (Song of Songs, 73:6). In this receptive encounter with Divine Love, we may suddenly feel a quiet strength, a sense of change in our lives and this coming from within. Strengthened by this gift we will have the grace and the inner strength to walk as Jesus walked, to do as he did, ‘loving to the end’, serving and forgiving to the end.
Sr. Kathy DeVico, Abbess
Chapter Talk – Holy Thursday – April 17, 2025
