Entering the Sacred Three Days

Fr. Lawrence Jagdfeld, O.F.M., Administrator

I will be celebrating the Triduum at St. Patrick's Residence in Naperville, Illinois. I must admit that I am approaching these liturgies with a little trepidation. It has been years since I have presided at these Holy Week liturgies. Of all the liturgies in the Church Year, these are the most arduous. However, the sisters who run the nursing home have assured me that I won't have to do anything beyond my strength. So I will enter into the mystery of these sacred "Three Days" with hope and with a willing spirit.

"Do you realize what I have done for you?" Jesus asks this question of the apostles after washing their feet. To be honest, I doubt that they did understand. The Gospel of St. John, the only gospel to record this event, did not appear until two generations after Jesus. By the time John published this work, the Christian community had been spending many years reflecting on what Jesus had done. Here we are some 2,000 years later still reflecting on these events, still realizing that the mystery of the Incarnation is still unfolding.

While the Last Supper was the occasion for the institution of the Eucharist and the priesthood, I would venture to say that the example that Jesus gives us by washing the feet of his disciples is the real point of the Holy Thursday liturgy. Jesus lays down his life for us, sacrifices his blood so that we will be protected from death just as the Israelites were protected from the angel of death by the blood of the Passover lamb smeared on the door posts of their homes. As the lovely hymn says, "What wondrous love is this!" Jesus washes the feet of his disciples as a prelude to that sacrifice. What he has done for us, we are to do for others.