Thursday, May 12, 2022

 Thursday of the Fourth Week of Easter

(Acts 13:13-25; John 13:16)

A seminarian admitted that he had difficulty with his community chore.  He was assigned to clean toilets.  “Anything but that,” he pleaded.  However, for good reason seminarians should perform such duties.  In doing so, they imitate Jesus whom they purport to follow.

In today’s gospel Jesus has just washed his disciples’ feet. His action came close to scandalizing them.  Then he told them to wash each other’s feet.  One can imagine the disgust that the disciples feel now.  But, Jesus intimates, just as he came not to be served but to serve so must his disciples.  “’No slave,’” he says, “’is greater than his master.’”

We should not think that we must give every kind of assistance to others.  To optimize our time we will do the necessary work for which we are best qualified.  Even that work, however, must be carried out with humility.  As St. Augustine says, “…if humility does not precede and accompany and follow every good work we do, …pride will wrest from our hand any good deed we do while we are in the very act of taking pleasure in it.

 

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