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POPE-THURSDAY (UPDATED) Apr-13-2006 (800 words) With photos. xxxi
God's infinite love purifies, pope says at Holy Thursday Mass
By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service
ROME (CNS) -- The infinite love of God purifies men and women and makes them worthy to feast at the banquet of the Eucharist, Pope Benedict XVI said, celebrating the Mass of the Lord's Supper.
Jesus "kneels before us and performs the action of a slave, washing our dirty feet so that we can be admitted to the table of God," the pope said during his April 13 homily at Rome's Basilica of St. John Lateran.
During the Holy Thursday Mass, Pope Benedict washed the feet of 12 laymen who were chosen to represent the lay movements and communities active in the Diocese of Rome. One by one, the pope poured water from a golden pitcher onto the foot of each man, both young and old, and then used a white towel to scrub each foot dry.
In choosing laypeople, Pope Benedict reversed a 20-year Vatican tradition of washing the feet of priests during the Holy Thursday evening Mass.
"God is not a God who is far off, too distant and too grand to be concerned with our trivialities," he said in his homily.
God created human beings out of love and his love continually purifies and heals them, the pope said.
"Only love has that purifying force that cleanses away our dirt and raises us to the heights of God," he said.
Especially through baptism and confession, "the sacraments of purification," he said, Jesus "continually kneels at our feet and performs the duties of a slave."
While Jesus' Last Supper with his disciples is a story of self-giving love, it also contains the story of Judas, who betrayed Jesus, the pope said.
Judas' action, he said, demonstrates that "the love of the Lord knows no limits, but man can limit it," refusing to recognize the need for purification, to accept the love of God and salvation through Jesus.
The foot-washing ritual also is a call to imitate Christ, serving one another, forgiving each other and sharing the Gospel, he said.
Donations collected during the Mass were earmarked for rebuilding homes in the Diocese of Maasin in the Philippines where a village had been completely wiped out by massive landslides Feb. 17.
Earlier in the day, Pope Benedict celebrated the chrism Mass in St. Peter's Basilica, leading some 1,500 priests, 60 bishops and 36 cardinals in the renewal of the promises they made at their ordinations and urging them to deepen their friendship with Jesus.
"The nucleus of the priesthood is to be friends of Jesus Christ. Only in that way can we truly speak 'in the person of Christ,'" he said.
The pope asked the priests, bishops and cardinals to remember their ordination day, particularly the moment when a bishop laid hands on their heads and then anointed their hands with oil.
The human hand, he said, is the symbol of a person's ability to act, to create and possess.
Through the imposition of the bishop's hands, Jesus transmits his "divine touch," claiming the new priest for himself, the pope said.
Pope Benedict said that when the new priest's hands are anointed with blessed oil, the bishop is designating those hands not to exercise power or to gather possessions but to become instruments of outreach, giving, creativity and love.
The pope said all priests have had an experience similar to St. Peter's when Jesus called him to walk toward him on the water; "suddenly he realized that the water could not support him and he was about to drown."
At those moments, he said, the priest must do what St. Peter did, calling out "Save me Lord" and taking the outstretched hand of Jesus.
Holding firmly onto Jesus, he said, "we will not drown, but will be servants of that life which is stronger than death and that love that is stronger than hatred."
"We ask him never to let go of our hands," the pope said.
Friendship with Jesus must be nourished through prayer and Bible reading, which are as essential to a priest's ministry as preaching, teaching and celebrating the sacraments, he said.
"Simple activism can be heroic," he told the priests. "But in the end, external actions remain fruitless and ineffective if they are not borne of a deep, intimate communion with Christ."
During the morning Mass in St. Peter's Basilica, the pope blessed the chrism and the oils used in the sacraments of baptism, confirmation, ordination and the anointing of the sick.
The oils were carried to the altar by catechumens, sick people and confirmation candidates from Rome parishes and deacons about to be ordained to the priesthood for the Diocese of Rome.
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Contributing to this story was Carol Glatz in Rome.
END
Copyright (c) 2006 Catholic News Service/USCCB. All rights reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed.
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