If you're about to name one of the most important times of the year, I say to at least make it something little kids can pronounce. I mean, at least make it something I can pronounce. I know its Latin roots and how important and meaningful the name is, especially in the "tri" for three days and the "duum" because... Well, I think it's just because it's cool to have two u's right next to each other in the same word.
So either for the fact that Triduum is a cool word that I can't pronounce, or that it is, in fact, one of the most important times of the year, so you can expect a three-part series of posts, one for each day of the Easter Triduum.
So my Holy Thursday story starts during mass yesterday, when the washing of the feet commenced. There were two priests, who got six "apostles" each, and went around through the aisles, washing the feet of the parishioners, and somehow my family ended up making up 25 percent of the twelve. Now, I'm an only child, but I do have a big family (I have enough cousins to make up for my lack of siblings) Plus an aunt, uncle, both grandparents, and of course, my parents, totaling the family count to 11.
All of the feet-washees' positions were evenly spread throughout the church, sitting about three rows apart on alternating sides, so they wouldn't all be clumped together and out of sight of the people sitting far away. And that kind of scattered the family throughout the church, but it ended out that my youngest cousin, Mary (4 years old) was put with my Nana to watch her get her feet washed. And I suppose that's about where the story really begins.
Once Father Ted reached her, he knelt down to wash her feet like he had done with anyone else, while Mary looked on, dumbfounded. Her face was classic, eyes wide open, mouth slightly agape, and so many thoughts flashing through her eyes as well as the words that might as she might as well have said: for the first part: What the heck is he doing to her feet? Another thought: Why the heck is she letting him? And last but not least: THIS NEVER HAPPENS IN CHURCH!
From that point, the mass concluded and we continued to tour churches around the city and pray in the presence of the exposed Body of Christ with my parents and grandparents.
But getting back to Mary's astonishment at the washing of Nana's feet, I must say that we can very much take an example from the awe-stricken four-year-old. Wonder and Awe is a great gift of the holy spirit that makes itself present at confirmation, but it's an amazing thing to see manifested in a little girl who hasn't even been confirmed. It was obvious Mary was confused. Wondering what Father Ted was doing to Nana, but I also want to hope that she knew it had something to do with Jesus (we were at church) and wanted to know the connection between this bizarre act and Jesus, and that's the curiosity I wished a lot more people had. How does Jesus make himself known in this? We see humbling acts. A child walking a boy they he barely even knows to the nurse's office after he fell on the playground at school. A woman holding the hand of her elderly grandmother as she walks her down the halls of the nursing home. Even a priest leaning down to wash the feet of the people he leads at church. People see these acts of humbling kindness and probably think well of the helper to themselves, and feel sorry for the person being helped, but I'm willing to bet that a lot of them go on without making the connection between Jesus and those good acts. They go without the childlike curiously of it. If we go about prayer and looking at life the way a little girl like Mary would, there'd be more purity out there, and we'd all be closer to God. Jesus told his apostles to let the children come to him, and that they were the purest of the crowd. So maybe we could learn something from Mary and other little kids like her. To look at life with simplicity and purity. To have a pure soul and unrestrained curiosity of what connections Jesus has between his world and ours.
