Aidan Weber 4/17/25
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Let Us Begin: New Book on the Life and Power of St. Francis
If you knew you were going to die tomorrow, what would you do today? I’d probably spend time with family, friends, and in prayer. Maybe I’d go to a Yankee game or play golf. These actions tell a lot about what I value and what I enjoy. Almost no one knows about their death the day before it, but Christ did. He knew He would be scourged, mocked, nailed to a cross, and die. He had one day before His death to spend with Judas, who would betray Him, Peter, who would deny Him, and Thomas, who would doubt Him. He had all the power in the world to do whatever He wanted, so what did He do to these men who would wrong Him? “He poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and dry them with the towel around His waist” (John 13:5).
Christ took a radical turn to humility and service in His final hours. What Christ valued most was setting this example for us. After He completed the washing, He proclaimed, “I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do” (JN 13:15). Holy Thursday is often also called “Maundy Thursday.” Maundy comes from the Latin word meaning command. Christ commands us to follow His action of washing feet. However, Christ’s model isn’t as simple as washing others’ feet. Christ calls for us to live radically and with radical humility. Imagine looking into the eyes of the man who would soon betray you and commence a series of torture before your eventual death. Our natural reaction is to be angry and seek revenge. Christ got to His knees and washed Judas’ feet. It seems impossible for us to replicate this task. It seems impossible because our gaze isn’t fixed on heaven, but we are grounded in this world. We marvel at Christ’s humility, accept that it’s beautiful, and then don’t replicate it.
It should be impossible to say that someone created the world, died for us, and can grant us eternal happiness, but not make that being the center of our lives and attention. However, often we struggle to do so and are fixated on temporal worries. This attitude makes emulating Christ impossible. Christ lived radically, and what He did was difficult. Yet, if we had our gaze fixed on heaven, it would fill us with joy to have the ability to imitate anything Christ did because He would be all we care about. We are blessed to live after the incarnation and have the perfect example of how to live. St. Thomas Aquinas gives an example of an illiterate old lady having more knowledge about God after the incarnation than all the great philosophers who dedicated their lives towards understanding God before the incarnation. We must use Christ’s example.
Christ’s example would’ve been one of immense humility and love even without any action He took as a human, such as the washing of feet. His most humble action was becoming incarnate. He had all the power in the world and restricted Himself to the human body. Paul, in his letter to the Philippians, states Jesus “emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found in human appearance, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross” (Phil 2:7-8). Christ’s life started with a humble action, and it didn’t even stop to avoid death. Our humility, service, and obedience should never end.
Holy Week reminds us of the great acts Jesus performed for us. Our ideal life, however, wouldn’t need a reminder. We wouldn’t stop thinking of Christ and His example. We would seek to wash the feet of those who wronged us and do radical things that are in alignment with God, not the world. The lesson from the washing of feet is that Jesus turned societal norms around by remaining humble to shed light on humility as a path for us all to follow. No one can be as great as God, yet even He stooped down to wash another’s feet. We have been graciously handed this challenging model to follow. We must have our gaze fixed towards heaven and know that what pleases God is above any fulfillment we can find on earth. Live in radical service and humility because Jesus set service and humility as our example, and whose example would we rather follow?
Aidan Weber is a Long Island resident who is currently studying theology at the University of Notre Dame.
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