April 6, 2018 at 1:53 p.m.
REFLECTION
Just like him
To me, it made perfect sense, because my dad was very active in the Church -- a fairly recent convert who worked in and for the parish even before he was officially Catholic. Nor did he shirk his duties at home; an excellent husband and father, he was to me a worthy example of what it meant to serve others, and I wanted for all the world to be just like him.
But there was another current running through his life, one that I am only now beginning to understand.
Not too many years before that Holy Thursday evening, my dad had suffered a serious and damaging heart attack and then, barely 12 months later, a stroke that threatened to paralyze the right side of his body. Though he recovered from both, his mortality now loomed large, and life took some turns that I'm sure he never expected and didn't really want.
The man who had almost singlehandedly built the house his family lived in had to stand by while others finished the job he was no longer allowed to do. The father who had worked both night and day jobs to provide for his family had to accept the fact that my mother now needed to work full-time as well, just "in case" the inevitable happened tomorrow, or the next day, or the day after that.
And the avid fisherman, who could spend hours in a boat scaring trout and bass, now could not go out alone to his favorite spots, but had to have someone else with him -- just in case.
There are two voices that we hear in the Holy Thursday Gospel; Jesus, of course, is one, but St. Peter is the other, and I think he speaks for many of us when he declares, "You shall not wash my feet!"
In my experience, it is those who serve best who have the hardest time accepting the service of others. And yet it is Our Lord Himself who gently tells Peter, "Unless I wash you, you will have no inheritance with me."
Sometimes it takes illness and/or age to reveal to us the flip side of service: that is, the humility to let others "do for us." It is tough, sometimes, to realize that it is now our turn to be one of the "least ones," but it, too, is part of God's plan. By allowing others to render service to us, we complete the circle of love and generosity that is the foundation of the kingdom.
Sometimes, like Jesus, we need to let Veronica wipe our face.
What I remember most about the night my father got his feet washed was the look in his eyes. I realize now that what I was seeing was the expression of a man who "got it" -- who understood what it meant to wash and be washed.
And I can honestly say, all these years later, that I still want, for all the world, to be just like him.
(Ms. Winchester is a parishioner of Holy Mother and Child parish in Corinth/Lake Luzerne and a writer for Vermont Catholic magazine.)[[In-content Ad]]
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