HOMILY for HOLY THURSDAY 2022
The Liturgies over the next three days all remind us that when we pray, when we communicate with God in any way, we are only responding to something that God has done and is still doing for us and in us. The story of Peter tonight, stubbornly refusing to let Jesus wash his feet, is a reminder of the way we too often treat God. We religious people always tend to think that the important thing about our faith is what WE do for God – our prayer and our good actions. We strive in various ways - to concentrate more when we pray – to look for ways of serving others. We feel guilty when our minds wander at Mass or in our private prayers, and we wish we were somehow better people.
The readings and ceremonies tonight all paint a very different picture of our relationship with God.
Peter is told that if he wishes to be one with Jesus, he must allow Jesus to wash his feet. In a wonderful turnabout, he then demands that his whole body is washed. He still will not let God be God. He still wants to tell God what to do and how to do it. Our prayer is often like that. We have our agenda, our list of concerns – maybe very worthy ones – and we allow these to dominate our prayer. It is not that it is wrong to bring everything like this to God, to want to be washed all over. What is wrong is our attitude to God; our desire to be in control.
Two other great ceremonies tonight remind us even more of this. The first is the Lord’s Supper itself. The mystery of the Mass is that God feeds us, that we are always unworthy, and that God comes to us all the same. I tend to think it depends on me, that God will be most present to me when I am in “the right mood”, when I listen carefully to the readings and say the prayers with true devotion before receiving Communion. Many people actually say things like, “I am sorry I wasn’t at Mass Father, I was too angry or too upset to pray. I would only have sat in church feeling angry or in tears.” Others who are sick at home say “I am not well enough to receive Communion, please wait till I am better.” God says that if we wait until we “feel” right, we are missing the point. God comes whatever : and we particularly need to accept and receive God’s presence when we are sick, or angry or upset. To say to God “Oh can you wait please until I have sorted out my life, and got myself better” is actually to say – “Well really I don’t need you. You’re just the icing on the cake. My real life is something I must sort out for myself.”
This takes us on to the final ceremony tonight – the Watch of Prayer. Now, I am hopeless at staying awake in the evening. Put me in front of the TV, or with a book, and more often than not I doze off. Late at night I’m even worse! It’s a relief therefore to know that the disciples fell asleep in the Garden of Gethsemane even though they had been asked by Jesus to watch and pray. He still loves them, as he still loves the world, even though at the crucial moment they cannot keep awake for him. He still dies for them even when they desert him and run away to hide.
I was talking to someone the other day who had I thought got it right. He told me that he had prayed for his sister, that she would meet and marry the right man, and he had it all worked out exactly what kind of man that would be. However when she married someone completely different, he realised that God had answered his prayer in a different way. God’s will had not only prevailed but had produced something far better than he could ever have imagined.
So our prayer must be like that. Yes, like Jesus, we must pour out our heart to God, but we must always do so with one ear open to his answer, that his will may be done.
As we move on now to see the priest wash people’s feet, it can feel a bit of a strange and awkward ceremony, as the man who represents Jesus at the altar bows down to do this strange thing. We are reminded thus that it is all too easy to view the crucifixion at a distance, to fail to recognise its full significance. This foot washing, especially if we are actually having our feet washed, brings things much closer. We all need to pray as this ceremony takes place “Lord, I accept your way for me. Wash my feet that your will may be done in me now and for ever. Amen”
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