A woman I know confesses she is not very regular at Sunday Mass. A kind of here-and-there worship is what she manages. But then every year, she is sure to come to the Triduum. There she is, Holy Thursday at her parish, that table, that beginning of the three days. I think she has her priorities straight. At this table there is room to return and to remember, the losses and the expectations. Here is Jesus more himself than ever, and we too, exactly as we are, invited as ourselves too. And the evening gathers us in.
Jesus sat at many supper tables before this one, at Zachaeus’ house, and Martha’s and Matthew’s. His feet were washed, or not, by servants or unexpected women. And then when everything was becoming critical and new, on the brink of his arrest, this is his time to touch us, to wash us from the ground up, with all the affection and hope he has been carrying for us. We are the beloved community, feeling his hands drying our feet now. We take the bread and cup as if for the first time, communion in his body and his blood-letting to come.
Come to know your place in the story. Renew connections with a friend or two, remember their love, their touch. Now knowing your priorities, where you need to be.
—Fr. Richard Bollman, S.J., a Jesuit of the Chicago-Detroit province, is currently engaged in pastoral ministries in Cincinnati and at the Jesuit Center, Milford, OH.