(Vatican Radio) In a gesture of humility and service, and in imitation of Christ,
Pope Francis put on an apron and knelt down to wash the feet of 12 patients at a long-term
care facility, during the Missa In Coena Domini, or the Mass of the Lord’s Supper,
on Thursday evening.
Visibly fatigued and requiring assistance to kneel and
stand up again as he came close to the end of the rite, Pope Francis conveyed tenderness
and concern for each person, pouring water on each person’s foot, then drying it and
kissing it, before offering a loving gaze, sometimes reciprocated, depending on each
person’s state of health. The patients ranged in age from 16 to 86, and all suffer
from a variety disabilities. All of them are Italian (though three were of a different
ethnic origin), including one Muslim man.
The Mass was celebrated in Italian
in the chapel of the Santa Maria della Provvidenza Centre, one of more than two dozen
healthcare facilities, run by the Don Carlo Gnocchi Foundation. It reflected the character
of the healthcare centre and of the local Christian community, with the centre’s usual
Sunday choir, consisting of patients, volunteers and staff, singing popular Italian
hymns. Many of the centre’s patients sat in their wheelchairs in the front rows of
the assembly.
The Mass, which recalls Christ’s last Passover meal with this
Apostles, his washing of their feet in a gesture of service, and the institution of
the Eucharist, begins the Easter Triduum.
The Pope’s selection of the location
and his gesture of washing the feet of 12 people with disability was intended to underline
the forms of fragility, in which the Christian community is called to recognize the
suffering Christ and to which it must devote attention, solidarity and charity. In
his brief homily, the Pope recalled that God made himself a servant in Christ and
that this is the inheritance of all believers. Christ came to love and his followers,
in turn, “need to be servants in love”.
Speaking extemporaneously, he said
to wash the feet of another was, in Jesus’ time, the task of the slave or the servant
of the house. In executing this gesture, Jesus tells his followers that they are called
to be servants to each other.
“Everyone here must think of others… and how
we can serve others better,” he said.
At the end of the Mass, the Pope carried
the Blessed Sacrament to an Altar of Repose. He remained there in prayer until the
end of the Pange Lingue hymn, after which he processed out of the chapel in the usual
silence with which the Holy Thursday evening liturgy concludes.
This is the
second year the Pope celebrates the Mass of the Lord’s Last Supper among a group of
people usually marginalized by society. Last year, the Pope celebrated the Mass of
the Lord’s Last Supper at a youth detention centre.