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Forum on Christianity and Spirituality
April 9, 2026: 7:30 p.m. CDT Topic: The Crisis of the World: The Human One and the Noble
Shepherd, by Jerry Truex, Ph.D. See https://shalomplace.com/inetmin/forum.html for more information and registration. __________
- Holy/Maundy Thursday
Humble yourselves . . . We cannot pass through the low door with our head held high unless we want to crack it. And the door we have to pass through is Christ crucified, who humbled himself down to the level of us witless
fools. - St. Catherine of Siena
A day of foot-washing, literally and symbolically. Whose “feet” will you wash today? How will you let others wash yours? |
Daily Readings
Exodus 12:1-8, 11-14
Psalm 116:12-13, 15-18.
1 Corinthians 11:23-26 John
13:1-15 It was before the festival of the Passover, and Jesus knew that the hour had come for him to pass from this world to the Father. He had always loved those who were his in the world, but now he showed how perfect his love was.
They were at supper, and the devil had already put it into the mind of Judas Iscariot son of Simon, to betray him. Jesus knew that the Father had put everything into his hands, and that he had come from God and was returning to God,
and he got up from table, removed his outer garment and, taking a towel, wrapped it round his waist; he then poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel he was wearing. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, ‘Lord, are you going to wash my feet?’ Jesus answered, ‘At the moment you do not know what I am doing, but later you will understand.’ ‘Never!’ said Peter ‘You shall never wash my feet.’ Jesus replied, ‘If I do not wash you, you can have
nothing in common with me.’ ‘Then, Lord,’ said Simon Peter ‘not only my feet, but my hands and my head as well!’ Jesus said, ‘No one who has taken a bath needs washing, he is clean all over. You too are clean, though not all of you are.’ He knew who was going to betray him, that was why he said, ‘though not all of you are.’
When he had washed their feet and put on his clothes again he went back to the table. ‘Do you understand’ he said ‘what I have done to you? You call me Master and
Lord, and rightly; so I am. If I, then, the Lord and Master, have washed your feet, you should wash each other’s feet. I have given you an example so that you may copy what I have done to you.’
Praying the Daily Gospels: A Guide to Meditation, by Philip St. Romain, 2018 (3rd ed.) John 13: 1-15. Jesus washes the apostles' feet This is Jesus’ final evening with
his apostles. He begins to say farewell and prepares for the treachery to come. Matthew, Mark, and Luke emphasize the sharing of the bread and wine, with Jesus asking the apostles to remember him in that manner. John, however, shows Jesus washing the apostles’ feet as the last symbolic intimacy he will share with them. • Bishop Sheen once wrote that, "although we have Jesus’ example of the washing of the apostles’ feet as a model of service,
it is difficult to find people today fighting for the towel." Is this true of you? What are some of the lowly jobs at home and at work you avoid because you feel they are beneath your dignity? • Pray for the grace to be washed clean of false pride.
Treatise on the Love of God, by St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622) ____________ BOOK VI: OF THE EXERCISES OF LOVE IN PRAYER Chapter 15: Of the affectionate languishing of the heart wounded with love.
Let us hear, I beseech you, the holy Sulamitess, who cries almost in
this manner: Although by reason of a thousand consolations which my love gives me I be more fair than the rich tents of my Solomon (I mean more fair than heaven, which is the inanimate pavilion of his royal majesty, while I am his animated pavilion), yet am I all black, rent, dust-worn, and all spoilt by so many wounds and blows given me by the same love. Ah! regard not my hue, for truly I am brown, because my beloved, who is my sun, has darted the rays of his love upon me; rays which by
their light illuminate, but which by their heat have made me sunburnt and swarthy, and touching me with their splendour they have bereft me of my colour. The passion of love has made me too happy in giving me a spouse such as is my king, but the same passion which is a mother to me (seeing she alone gave me in marriage, and not my merits), has other children which fiercely assault and trouble me, bringing me to such a languor, that as, on the one hand, I am like to a queen who is beside her
king, so on the other hand I am as a vineyard-keeper who, in a miserable hut, looks to a vineyard, and a vineyard that is not his own.
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