COMMENT:Question from Anne marie. Just wondered. I have heard the Gospel from Holy Thursday at least 30 times but I was struck for the first time that Jesus washed their feet in the middle of the meal! I have my own thoughts on this particularly about the welcome to the table, but what do you think????
Sent from my iPadDo I think? The scenario invites thought, not least Judas, and Peter and John putting in the their twist the story. Their input is still their input in the preliminaries of the supper. It is unlikely 'in the middle of the meal'' but is part of the preparations as are the Jewish washing of the feet. as e.g. " ... it appears that the supper was not then ended: nay, it is probable that it was not then begun; because the washing of feet (Joh_13:5) was usually practised by the Jews before they entered upon their meals, as may be gathered from Luk_7:44, and from the reason of the custom." (Clarke)
Even if unwise, the questions keep prompting me.
+ + +Holy Thursday. Evening Mass of the Lord's Supper.
Transfer of the Eucharist. Chapel of Repose.
Good Friday: Pieta, Nunraw Cloister Recess
THE WAY OF OUR SORROWFUL MOTHER
The SIXTH STATION
Mary Receives the Dead Body of Jesus
AT THE ANNUNCIATION, the angel announced that Mary would receive God in her own body and give flesh to him. Now, in the unutterable silence of Good Friday, the Mother of God once again receives the Word of God as her divine Son is taken down from the cross and placed in her arms. "How can this come about, since I am a virgin?" The Madonna of the Pieta is Our Lady of Compassion. That pitiful portrait of Mother and Son proclaims to the world that "nothing is impossible to God." Nothing. Even in the sickening shadow of the cross, the power of the Most High continues to overshadow the Blessed Virgin Mary. In her maternal arms, the Mother of God cradles all our failure, our desperation, our isolation, our alienation, our regret, our remorse, our sorrow, our suffering, our nothingness, our desolation, our defeat. In embracing her crucified child, Mary is not clutching at lifelessness. For after Christ's death, his divine person continued to assume both his soul and his body (see CCC 630). Such a heart wrenching scene testifies to the truth that the one antidote to the tyranny and viciousness of death and despair is true, deep union with Jesus Christ. This terrible moment on Golgotha appears as a second Epiphany. Like the three kings, we have followed - not a luminous star, but - the sun blackened by an eclipse to this place of horror. Here, as once did the Magi, we will find "the child with his mother Mary". Here, like them, we will prostrate ourselves and do homage and open up the coffers of our empty, hurting hearts. But only if we renounce the murderous world of King Herod. Come, let us adore him!
Fr. Peter John Cameron OP MAGNIFICT Missalette p.187
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| Pieta - bequeathed to Nunraw Abbey at the closure of Sacred Heart College Craiglockhart Edinburgh (1970s) |
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