VATICAN - The Pope presides the Mass ‘: “We need confession as it has taken form in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. In the Sacrament again and again the Lord washes our soiled feet that we may sit at table with Him ”.

Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - In the early evening of Holy Thursday, 20 March, at Rome's Cathedral, the Basilica of St John in the Lateran, the Holy Father, Benedict XVI presided the concelebration of the 'Mass of the Last Supper: “Jesus' hour to which all his work had been directed from the outset”. The Pope illustrated the contents of this ‘hour’, described by John with two words “passage (metabainein, metabasis) and agape - love. The two words are mutually explanatory; they both describe the Pasch of Jesus: the Cross and the Resurrection, the Crucifixion as an uplifting, a "passage" to God's glory, a "passing" from the world to the Father.”.
With regard to the first word, the Holy Father spoke of 'passage' meaning Christ brings with him his flesh, his being a man, “he is, as it were ,fused and transformed into a new way of being, in which he is now always with the Father and contemporaneously with humankind.”. Interpeting passage as ‘transformation’, Benedict XVI added “He transforms the Cross, the act of killing, into an act of giving, of love to the end”. In this transformation Christ includes everyone, “drawing us into the transforming power of his love to the point that, in our being with him, our life becomes a "passage", a transformation” and in this way redemption is possible, “becoming sharers in eternal love, a condition for which we strive throughout our life. ”.
The Pontiff then explained the ‘washing of the feet', when “Jesus lays down the clothes of his glory, he wraps around his waist the towel of humanity and makes himself a servant. He washes the disciples' dirty feet and thus gives them access to the divine banquet to which he invites them… If we receive Jesus' words with an attentive heart they prove to be truly cleansing, purification of the soul, of the inner man. The Gospel of the washing of the feet invites us to this, to allow ourselves to be washed anew by this pure water, to allow ourselves to be made capable of convivial communion with God and with our brothers and sisters. However, when Jesus was pierced by the soldier's spear, it was not only water that flowed from his side but also blood (Jn 19: 34; cf. I Jn 5: 6-8). Jesus has not only spoken; he has not left us only words. He gives us himself. He washes us with the sacred power of his Blood, that is, with his gift of himself "to the end", to the Cross. His word is more than mere speech; it is flesh and blood "for the life of the world" (Jn 6: 51). In the holy sacraments, the Lord kneels ever anew at our feet and purifies us. Let us pray to him that we may be ever more profoundly penetrated by the sacred cleansing of his love and thereby truly purified! ”.
In this way, the Pontiff pointed out, Jesus Christ introduces a new way of loving, which leaves no “passive recipients of divine goodness”, this is the dynamic of ‘loving together', loving one another following His example, “the example of loving in communion with his love”.
The Holy Father then compared Peter's resistance with Jesus' gesture of love: “His concept of the Messiah involved an image of majesty, of divine grandeur. He had to learn repeatedly that God's greatness is different from our idea of greatness; that it consists precisely in stooping low, in the humility of service, in the radicalism of love even to total self-emptying. ”. The faithful like Peter may desire “a God of success and not of the Passion”, because, Benedict XVI continued, “ we are unable to realize that the Shepherd comes as a Lamb that gives itself and thus leads us to the right pasture”.
The Pope concluded: "We must wash one another's feet in the mutual daily service of love. But we must also wash one another's feet in the sense that we must forgive one another ever anew. The debt for which the Lord has pardoned us is always infinitely greater than all the debts that others can owe us (cf. Mt 18: 21-35). Holy Thursday exhorts us to this: not to allow resentment toward others to become a poison in the depths of the soul. It urges us to purify our memory constantly, forgiving one another whole-heartedly, washing one another's feet, to be able to go to God's banquet together. Holy Thursday is a day of gratitude and joy for the great gift of love to the end that the Lord has made to us. Let us pray to the Lord at this hour, so that gratitude and joy may become in us the power to love together with his love. Amen. ”. (Agenzia Fides 20/3/2008 - righe 52, parole 768)