Daily Devotional

This is the night when God led our forebears, Israel’s children, from slavery in Egypt and made them pass dry-shod through the Red Sea. This is the night that God banished the darkness of sin with a pillar of fire. This is the night that, even now, throughout the world, sets Christian believers apart from worldly vices and the gloom of sin, leading them to grace and joining them with his holy ones. This is the night Christ broke the prison bars of death and rose victorious from the underworld…

Good Friday shows God understands our pains. He knows what it feels like to love and be rejected, to be betrayed, angry, hungry, insulted, dissatisfied, sick, weak, or sorrowful. Good Friday teaches us that Jesus once felt what you are going through today.

If by the words “do this in memory of me”, priests are other Christs (capable of turning bread and wine into Christ’s body and blood and performing other sacraments), then priests have been entrusted with so much power. Yes, priests have the power to bind and lose; they can forgive (or retain) sins. (Cf. John 20:21-23). Knowing immediately that this could lead to pride and abuse of power, Jesus did something that would make a lasting impression, an act we shall repeat during this Mass – Jesus bent down to wash His disciples’ feet.