Commentary on the Gospel of
Table and Towel
When COVID-19 pandemic forced the churches all over the world to close down for months, many cradle catholics were traumatized by the inability to celebrate the Eucharist. However, it was also a graced moment for many to live the “authenticity of the Eucharist” (as Pope John Paul II puts it in his apostolic letter Mane Nobiscum Domine, #28), by practicing the other integral half of the Eucharist—the Liturgy of the Towel—by caring for those affected by the pandemic. If John, who leaned on the heart of Christ at the eucharistic table and felt his heartbeat, chose to present the washing of the feet at the very context where the synoptic gospels presented the institution of the Eucharist, he was only affirming that the Liturgy that begins at the table must end with the towel at the feet of the other.
