Washing Feet

Let's look now at Ignatius' Rule Seven, in which he provides another tool for anyone who is experiencing the discouragement of spiritual desolation. So, our woman alone in the home in the early afternoon, the man at 10:00 in his study, in discouragement, not feeling God's closeness that week when it's been so difficult and you just don't have energy for spiritual things. And here is a thought to call to mind, Ignatius says, that will greatly help you to get through the desolation. When you are in spiritual desolation, think of this truth—consciously call this to mind as you sit there alone in the kitchen, or alone in your study, or driving to work with discouragement in your heart: God is giving me all the grace I need to get safely through this desolation.

I'll say that again. This is the truth. God is giving me all the grace I need to get safely through this desolation. There is what I sometimes call the litany of spiritual desolation, and that litany of desolation runs like this: I can't.

I can't. I can't. I can't. And keep multiplying the can'ts. I can't pray today.

Reverently, have you ever felt that? I can't go to daily Mass today. I can't make the effort to reach out to that person again. I can't go on in this situation. I can't continue with this activity in the parish, and on and on and on.

And when that is the voice of spiritual desolation, Ignatius says, no. Call to mind, think about this: you can, because God, even though you don't feel it, you know with the certitude of faith that God is always giving you all the grace that you need to get safely through the desolation. Call that to mind in the darkness of desolation, and you'll be greatly strengthened to get through it because you'll know that you can. Now, at this point in the Spiritual Exercises, we move into the third of Ignatius' weeks, or the third stage. At this point, God has spoken to our hearts in various ways.

Certain things have stirred. We've had a sense of where the Lord may be inviting us to grow in this or that way. So Ignatius now invites us to pray with the Passion of Jesus, to walk through it, as it were, with Him as a strengthening, so that we can take the newness that's being born in our hearts to life, and we'll have the courage and the strength and the energy and the confidence to carry it through. And this is the grace that he invites us to ask for in these contemplations of the Passion of Jesus. This, he says, is to ask for what I desire.

In the Passion, it is proper to ask for sorrow with Christ in sorrow, anguish with Christ in anguish, and that is to live intimately with the Lord, to share with Him in some sense in our prayer His Passion. Anguish with Christ in anguish, tears, and deep grief because of the affliction Christ endures for me. And so, to get very close to the supreme self-giving of Jesus, and again, for me because of His love for me, and to live in some sense with Him His Passion so that we will be strengthened to live that same pattern, which is the pattern of all Christian living. If anyone would be My disciple, let him take up his cross each day and follow Me. Not alone.

Take up His cross, yes, but not alone. Follow Me. Be with Me. And that's the grace and strengthening that we pray for at this point. The first of the Scriptures that I'll offer is the washing of the feet at the Last Supper, and we'll take this from John 13:1–17.

So we let our hearts be at peace now, at rest, and simply open to hear and receive the Lord's word. You see the love in the Lord's eyes as He gazes upon us as our eyes meet His. And we are there in the Upper Room at the Last Supper on Holy Thursday evening. We see the table. We see the disciples.

We see Jesus. Before the feast of Passover, Jesus knew that His hour had come to pass from this world to the Father. So we reach now the supreme moment in the redemptive mission of Jesus. He loved His own in the world, and He loved them to the end. The devil had already induced Judas, son of Simon the Iscariot, to hand Him over.

Fully aware that the Father had put everything into His power and that He had come from God and was returning to God, He rose from supper and took off His outer garments. He took a towel and tied it around His waist. Then He poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to dry them with the towel around His waist. He came to Simon Peter, who said to Him, "Master, are you going to wash my feet?" Jesus answered and said to him, "What I am doing, you do not understand now, but you will understand later."

Peter said to Him, "You will never wash my feet." Jesus answered him, "Unless I wash you, you will have no inheritance with Me." Simon Peter said to Him, "Master, then not only my feet, but my hands and head as well." Jesus said to him, "Whoever has bathed has no need except to have his feet washed, for he is clean all over. And you are clean, but not all," for He knew who would betray Him.

For this reason, He said, “Not all of you are clean.” And now Jesus explains what He has done. So when He had washed their feet and put His garments back on and reclined at table again, 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 also should do. So we are there now in the Upper Room, Jesus and the disciples, and we look now at Jesus in this supreme moment of His self-giving. Having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end. His own. And I thank Him that He has called me to be His own.

And I ponder this love. He loved them to the end—that is, to the last moment of His life, to the utmost degree of love. And now, as I watch, Jesus expresses the whole meaning of His life of service—a life lived, as Paul will write, in the form of a slave—with this symbolic gesture, the washing filled with meaning. I see Him rise from the table, gird Himself with a towel, take a basin with water, kneel at the feet of one disciple, then another, then another, and wash their feet. Can I allow Him to wash my feet, to love and serve me to that degree, to all that it symbolizes?

And I see Peter resist. He struggles to allow the Lord to kneel before him, to serve him so humbly, and to love him in this way. It's a struggle that we too, at times, experience. Lord, do You wash my feet? What I am doing, you do not know now, but afterward you will understand.

And how often this is true in our lives too. What God is doing now, we do not understand, but later we will come to see. And Peter says, “You will never wash my feet.” “If I do not wash you, you will have no part in Me.” And then Peter, with that generosity which is so typical of him, “Lord, not my feet only, but my hands and my head.”

And Peter surrenders his resistance and allows the Lord to love him. Can I allow the Lord to love me, to serve me, to kneel at my feet, and wash and cleanse me? Jesus asks, do you know what I have done for you? And do we really know? If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet, for I have given you an example.

And we ask the Lord now to understand deep in our hearts His example of service, of love, the way He loves His own to the very end. My spouse, my children, the people God has placed in my life. And now, simply, I let my heart speak with the Lord deeply, unhurriedly, sharing what stirs in my heart. And I'll just share briefly as we conclude Carol's experience. She made an Ignatian retreat sometime earlier and has been trying to pray with Scripture daily since then.

And she says, I usually pray in the evening. I can't in the morning because of family needs, but often I am more free in the evening. I shut the door, and I have a quiet space. I have a book on the Spiritual Exercises that I like, and often I find my Scripture there. Sometimes I take the Gospel reading of the coming Sunday.

Whether it's one way or the other, it has to be something that moves me. If nothing does, if nothing particularly attracts her, then I pull out the Spiritual Exercises. I look for one of the Scriptures there and choose one. So Carol too, we have the sense that she is praying daily with Scripture. She has found the time of day that works best for her.

She's still searching a little bit to find her way for her Scripture, the Scripture that works best, but she is very, very much on target. As she looks through these various books and resources, she identifies the Scripture that really speaks to her heart, and she knows that she's found the one for her prayer for that day. And again, may God grant us that blessing in our daily lives. Amen.