When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. “Do you understand what I have done for you?” he asked them. “You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and rightly so, for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. Very truly I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.
John 13:12-17
STORY
Dr. Dennis Mukwege was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2018 for his campaign to end mass rape as a “weapon of war.”
Mukwege opened a hospital in Bukavu, a province located in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to treat the women who are sexual abused by militant rebels. As a gynecologist he performed up to ten lifesaving operations a day on women of all ages, with some patients being girls as young as 3-years-old. The extreme violence of these rapes in many cases caused their reproductive and digestive tracts to be ripped apart. In addition to this, many of the women were tortured, such as having their buttocks burned, having had foreign objects inserted into them, or they were shot in the genitals.
In a fiery speech delivered before the United Nations in 2012, Mukwege said nations are not doing enough for what he called “an unjust war that has used violence against women and rape as a strategy of war.”
In an interview with The New York Times, the physician noted that rape was used as a “weapon of war,” continuing, “It’s not a women question; it’s a humanitarian question, and men have to take responsibility to end it. It’s not an African problem. In Bosnia, Syria, Liberia, Columbia, you have the same thing.”
At the conclusion of the interview, he showed the reporter the lush green hills just beyond the hospital compound. Then, in a polite and humble voice, the humanitarian said, “There used to be a lot of gorillas in there. But now they’ve been replaced by much more savage beasts.”
DEVOTION
Maundy Thursday
Holy Thursday
Covenant Thursday
Sheer Thursday
This day, as posted on our liturgical calendar, was a very sacred day in the life of Jesus. A congregation’s worship service this evening will recount the gathering in the Upper Room, the evening before the crucifixion of Jesus.
In the fellowship with his disciples, Jesus offered the bread and wine, instituting the sacrament of Holy Communion, demonstrating that the disciples must sally forth a ministry of sacrifice, knowing that the spirit of their Lord will dwell within them.
Along with sharing in the ritual of communion, Jesus washed the disciples’ feet in an act of humility, and as a demonstration of the compassionate ministry in which they must engage themselves. Sadly, while Protestant denominations reenact the Sedar Meal, only Roman Catholics enact the washing of feet.
Seldom used in Protestantism is the designation Sheer Thursday, the day in which we are “purged from our sins.” This came from the custom in Catholicism when priests on this day sheared their heads, and clipped their beards, which had grown uncut during the preceding six weeks of Lent as a sacrificial discipline.
Holy Thursday is the first day of Easter Triduum, the final three days of Lent before Easter. The designation of this day as Maundy Thursday comes from the Latin phrase Mandatum novum do vobis, from Jesus’ pronouncement in the Upper Room, “a new commandment I give to you.”
On this day we are commissioned to tame the “savage beats” of society with humanitarian efforts, the same as those practiced by Dr. Dennis Mukwege. The “weapons of war” that confront us are different than those of the Congo, though ours are very similar in nature – greed, racism, absolutism, exploitation, discrimination, ostracism, conceit, retribution, narcissism, chauvinism, an endless list of self-righteous elitist behavior. It is manifested in all domains of secular society, as well as plaguing the church, for in the Christian community sanctimonious behavior often prevails.
To combat this, as instructed on Maundy Thursday, our instrument of destruction is “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
The ceremony of washing another’s feet follows the Gospel account of Jesus washing the feet of his 12 disciples on Holy Thursday. Pope Francis, who I very much respect and whose humility is to be emulated, said of regarding this liturgical practice that it “is not something folkloric, as it is a gesture that shows how we are to be with one another.”
Since taking office in 2013, Pope Francis has celebrated Holy Thursday Mass at either a prison, a care facility, or a refugee center. His recent predecessors customarily only washed the feet of priests in St. Peter’s Basilica or the Basilica of St. John Lateran in Rome. In 2016, the pope ordered the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments to clarify that the feet of both women and men can be washed at the Holy Thursday Mass.
Today, March 28, the pontiff, as is his custom, will celebrate Holy Thursday Mass at Rebibbia correctional facility, a woman’s prison in Rome.
Shouldn’t we be being do the same.