Section III:

The Upper Room

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The Mystery of the Washing of the Feet

Before the feast of Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to pass from this world to the Father. He loved his own in the world and he loved them to the end....

[F]ully 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....

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?... I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do.... Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever receives the one I send receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.” (Jn 13: 1,3-5,12,15, 20).

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Jesus humbled himself through service and self-gift

From the earliest days of the Church, the washing of the feet has been seen by many as offering insight into the mystery of the Incarnation: the Second Person of the Trinity, Jesus, lowering himself in humility and love to become one of us, throwing off the “garment” of the outward signs of his divinity. By Jesus’s taking on human flesh, the unseen God becomes visible to us in a way that we can understand.

At the Last Supper, on the brink of Jesus’s Passover offering of his very self, he rises from the table and lowers himself to wash the feet of his disciples. This reveals the mystery of the Incarnation in an especially poignant way: Jesus has descended – from heaven as well as from the table – to serve us. The gesture illustrates the insight of St. Paul, who noted that though Jesus was in the form of God, he “did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness, and found human in appearance, he humbled himself” (Phil 2:6-8).

Back in the Upper Room, our Lord’s humble act of menial service scandalized Peter, who at first responded, “You will never wash my feet” (Jn 13:8). Jesus’s humility expressed in service humbles those who do not think that they deserve it. None of us deserves the loving care God gives freely and daily, nor do we deserve the gift of God’s Incarnation. And yet Jesus sees something of great value in each one of us.

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Jesus heals us and purifies us



The washing of the feet signifies a deep healing. It is Jesus who washes us clean and makes us new. In taking on human flesh, Jesus took on our sinful, fallen-from-glory human nature in order to heal and purify us. As powerfully and succinctly stated in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, “the Son of God became man so that we might become God.” Jesus descends so that we may be able to ascend, to be united with him

(Source: archspmmainsite/Synod_Pastoral+Letter)