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Pope Leo XIV has been celebrating his first Holy Week as pontiff with a return to two traditional rituals – one during the Holy Thursday liturgy and another on Good Friday.
As Vatican News had announced Wednesday, the Pope washed the feet of 12 priests during the Mass of the Lord’s Supper on Thursday evening, in the Basilica of Saint John Lateran.
According to the report, 11 of the priests had been ordained last year by Pope Leo, while the twelfth is the spiritual director of the Pontifical Roman Major Seminary.
In an editor’s note about the Holy Thursday liturgy, however, Catholic World News observed that, “In washing the feet of priests, Pope Leo is restoring a custom abandoned by Pope Francis, who typically celebrated the Holy Thursday evening Mass in prisons.”
The Washing of the Feet is performed to recall Jesus’ lesson to his 12 apostles – on the evening before he was to suffer and die on the cross – that they were, above all, to serve others.
From the Holy Thursday gospel, according to John 13:1-15:
So, during supper, 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 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.”
In his homily during the Mass of the Lord’s Supper, Pope Leo said:
During this Last Supper, [Jesus] washes the feet of his apostles, saying: “I have given you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you” (Jn 13:15). The Lord’s gesture is inseparable from the table to which he has invited us. This gesture is a concrete example that flows from the sacrament: while revealing the meaning of the Eucharistic mystery, it also entrusts to us a task — a mission that we are called to take up as nourishment for our lives … What the Lord shows us — taking the water, the basin and the towel — is far more than a moral example. He entrusts to us his very way of life. The washing of the feet is a gesture that encapsulates the revelation of God: an exemplary sign of the Word made flesh, his unmistakable memorial. By taking on the condition of a servant, the Son reveals the Father’s glory, overturning the worldly standards that so often distort our conscience.
The Holy Father then illuminated how Jesus’ ultimate act of love and service to his apostles changes our own view of God himself and the people around us.
“Indeed, through this act, Jesus purifies not only our image of God — from the idolatry and blasphemy that have distorted it — but also our image of humanity,” Leo said:
For we tend to consider ourselves powerful when we dominate, victorious when we destroy our equals, great when we are feared. In contrast, as true God and true man, Christ offers us the example of self-giving, service and love. We need his example to learn how to love, not because we are incapable of it, but precisely to teach ourselves and one another what true love is. Learning to act like Jesus — the living sign that God has placed within the history of the world — is the work of a lifetime.
In another return to tradition, on Good Friday evening, Pope Leo XIV will also carry the cross himself throughout the Via Crucis, the “Way of the Cross,” at the Colosseum.
When asked Tuesday about his decision to carry the cross, the Pope responded, “I think it will be an important sign because of what the Pope represents: a spiritual leader in today’s world, a voice to say that Christ still suffers. And I carry all these sufferings in my prayers as well.”
With the conflict in the Middle East obviously in his thoughts, Leo also persisted in his call to “all people of goodwill, to people of faith, to walk together, to walk with Christ who suffered for us, to give us salvation, and to seek to be bearers of peace ourselves.”
Easter, the Pope said, “should be the holiest, most sacred time of the year. It is a time of peace, a time for much reflection, but as we all know, once again in the world, in so many places, we are seeing so much suffering, so many deaths, even innocent children.”
The meditations for the Way of the Cross are available via the Holy See Press Office.
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