By Courtney Mares / OSV News
ROME – Pope Leo XIV washed and kissed the feet of 12 priests on Holy Thursday in his first Easter Triduum liturgy as pope, saying that Jesus taught us how to love like he loves during the Last Supper.
“As true God and true man, Christ offers us the example of self-giving, service and love. We need his example to learn how to love, not because we are incapable of it, but precisely to teach ourselves and one another what true love is,” Pope Leo said in the Archbasilica of St. John Lateran, where he celebrated the Mass of the Lord’s Supper on April 2.
“Learning to act like Jesus, the living sign that God has placed within the history of the world, is the work of a lifetime,” he said.
Thousands of people packed the Lateran basilica for the Mass, the first time a pope has celebrated the Holy Thursday Mass at Rome’s cathedral in over a decade.
In his homily, the pope reflected on the Gospel of John’s account of the Last Supper, in which Jesus washed his disciples’ feet, encouraging the faithful to enter into the mystery of Christ’s humility and love as the Easter Triduum begins.
“As humanity is brought to its knees by so many acts of brutality, let us too kneel down as brothers and sisters alongside the oppressed. In this way, we seek to follow the Lord’s example,” Pope Leo said.
“By renewing the Lord’s gestures and words this very evening, we commemorate the institution of the Eucharist and of Holy Orders. The intrinsic bond between these two sacraments reveals the perfect self-gift of Jesus, the High Priest and living, eternal Eucharist,” he added.
A few minutes later, the pope himself personally washed the feet of 12 priests in imitation of Christ washing the feet of the Apostles. Eleven of the young priests were ordained last year by Pope Leo himself. The twelfth, Father Renzo Chiesa, serves as spiritual director of the Pontifical Roman Major Seminary. The pope bent down to kiss each one’s feet as he washed them.
“The washing of the feet is a gesture that encapsulates the revelation of God: an exemplary sign of the Word made flesh, his unmistakable memorial,” Pope Leo said. “By taking on the condition of a servant, the Son reveals the Father’s glory, overturning the worldly standards that so often distort our conscience.”
The Mass in the Archbasilica of St. John Lateran on Holy Thursday restores the traditional practice of popes, in which the Holy Father, in his role as Bishop of Rome, marks the start of the Sacred Triduum at his diocesan cathedral.
The last time a pope washed the feet of priests at the Lateran was in 2012, when Pope Benedict XVI performed the rite with 12 priests of the Diocese of Rome.
During Pope Francis’ pontificate, the late pope opted to celebrate Holy Thursday in Rome-area prisons, where he offered Mass and washed the feet of prisoners.
Pope Leo quoted both Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis in his homily. Citing Pope Benedict’s 2008 Holy Thursday homily, he said, “Like Peter, who at first resisted Jesus’ initiative, we too must ‘learn repeatedly that God’s greatness is different from our idea of greatness … because we systematically desire a God of success and not of the Passion.'”
The Lateran basilica, the oldest public church in Rome and the seat of the Bishop of Rome, is also the final resting place of Pope Leo XIII, the most recent pope to bear the name Leo before the current pope.
At the conclusion of the Holy Thursday evening liturgy, the pope carried the Blessed Sacrament in procession to the chapel of repose as the congregation sang the traditional Eucharistic hymn “Pange, Lingua.” The pope then knelt in prayer and the basilica fell completely silent.
“This evening’s solemn liturgy marks our entry into the Holy Triduum of the Lord’s Passion, Death and Resurrection. We cross this threshold not as mere spectators, nor out of habit, but as those personally invited by Jesus himself as guests at the Supper in which bread and wine become for us the sacrament of salvation,” Pope Leo said.
As night fell across the Eternal City, Rome’s historic churches opened their doors for prayer late into the night with elaborately decorated altars of repose adorned with flowers and candles. Catholics filled the streets of the city’s historic center, moving from church to church to pray in Adoration at the altars of repose.
“May this evening’s Eucharistic adoration, in every parish and community, be a time to contemplate Jesus’ gesture, kneeling as he did, and to ask for the strength to imitate his service with the same love,” the pope said.
Earlier Thursday, Pope Leo presided over the Chrism Mass at St. Peter’s Basilica, where he blessed the holy oils used in sacraments throughout the year, with more than 800 priests in attendance.
The pope will preside over all remaining liturgies of the Paschal Triduum at St. Peter’s Basilica, including the Celebration of the Passion of the Lord on Good Friday and the Easter Vigil on Saturday evening. On Good Friday night, he will lead the Stations of the Cross at the Colosseum. On Easter Sunday, he will offer Mass in St. Peter’s Square before delivering the traditional “Urbi et Orbi” blessing to the city and the world.
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