He said to them, “Do you realize what I have done for you? You call me ‘teacher’ and ‘master,’ and rightly so, for indeed I am. If I, therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another’s feet. I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do.”
Many of us think or have thought about what we will leave behind.
As a young person perhaps, it was that mark we would leave on the world. As athletes, the winning goal, the perfect tackle, the crucial kick. As medical professionals or first responders we think about the lives we might save and improve. As parents, it is our children and our grandchildren, or even great-grandchildren. As employees or business owners we think about the impact we make through our work, not only on customers, but also on each other. Even in preparing for our eventual death we consider who gets what, not from a merely financial perspective, but more from a legacy perspective, that we might be remembered for our kindness. For clergy it is the lives we touch through our faith leadership and example, the souls brought to salvation in Christ Jesus through our ministry.
On this night and the years leading up to it, Jesus considered those things. He had no money or possessions to leave. He had no children in the biological sense as a heritage. Rather, what He had was the world and the entire universe, all of us and those who came before us and will come after us.
Jesus provided us His teachings, the Gospel message along the way, and brought those with Him who would remember and record it for us. On this night of supreme love, He determined to give us gifts that would never fail, rust, or decay.
He gave us His body and blood, the permanent gift of His presence so that we might take Him into ourselves and be changed into the image of what we consume.
He gave us the Holy Priesthood so that through the ministerial action of the sacramental priesthood we might continue to learn His teaching and celebrate His eternal moment.
He left us freedom from sin’s death, the washing of sacramental penance so that His sacrifice on the cross would never lose its meaning.
As we journey with Him tonight through what He left us, penance, Word, and Eucharist, as we receive Him in Holy Communion and then head out to the garden for His arrest, beatings, interrogation, and imprisonment, let us ever give thanks for what He has left us.
