"Instead of a ritual and external cleansing, which ritually cleanses man, leaving him however as he is, a new wash supervenes": Christ "cleanses us through His word and His love, by giving Himself up to us". It was said tonight by the Pope in the homily for the Missa in Coena Domini, celebrated in the Basilica of Saint John Lateran. "Always anew went on Benedict XVI , He washes us with His word. Yes, if we receive Jesus’s words in an attitude of meditation, of prayer and faith, they will develop their cleansing force into us. Day after day, we are somehow soiled with a multiform dirt, empty words, prejudices, a limited, tweaked wisdom; a multiple half-falsity or an outright falsity sneaks into our heart of hearts all the time". According to the Pope, "all this dims and pollutes our soul, threatens us with making us unable of the truth and the good. If we receive Jesus’s words with a keen heart, they turn out to be veritable washes, purifications of the soul, of the inner man. This is what the Gospel of the washing of the feet invites us to do: letting ourselves always be washed over and over again by this pure water, letting ourselves be enabled to have a convivial communion with God and with our brothers". (continued)” “
