Tonight, we celebrate 

two inseparable and eternal realities: service and the Eucharist. 

We recognize the significance 

of the Eucharist, yet we often overlook the importance of service. 

We may go to confession and admit that we missed Mass last Sunday, 

but we probably forget to confess that rather than serving others, 

we sought to be served by them.

Tonight's celebration is a beautiful reminder of what is crucial for those who call themselves and wish to be disciples of the Lord Jesus. 

A basin of water and a towel, typically associated with a servant's work, remind us that in the hands of Jesus Christ, they become a sign of God's love through obedient service to humanity, a service that extends even to death.

A cup of wine and a piece of bread, humble signs of daily life offered to God by the pious Jew as a gesture of gratitude for the earth's bounty, are transformed in the hands of the Son of God into a universal sacrament of salvation, food and drink for eternity, a memory passed down through the ages "until He comes."

All this astonishing exchange of grace occurred on a single night, 

"on the night He was betrayed." 

Tonight, we remember how Jesus spent the final hours of his earthly life with his disciples. 

Through service and the sharing of food, Jesus demonstrated what he wished to perpetuate on his last night with them. He wanted to stay with them. He wants to stay with us.

This was his testament, and he made it clear that this would be the way we show ourselves as his disciples until the end of time: through service and through the Eucharist.

During the Last Supper, Jesus expressed his infinite love for his disciples and gave this love eternal significance by instituting the Eucharist. 

He offered his Body and Blood in the form of bread and wine, providing us with spiritual food that sanctifies both our body and soul. 

He demonstrated his love by washing the apostles' feet. All of them, including the one who sold him for thirty pieces of silver, the one who denied him three times, and those who hid themselves cowardly.

Just as He washes their feet to purify them, to make them worthy of His donation, on this holy night, He wants to wash our feet, He wants to purify us all, giving us an example to follow.

Throughout his public life, Jesus repeatedly encouraged his disciples to avoid seeking the highest places and instead aspire to humility and service. 

He said that his kingdom should not mirror earthly kingdoms or human communities marked by hierarchy and division, power and submission. 

In contrast, in his community, we are all called to serve one another, not to seek the first but the last place. 

The duty of every believer is not to seek outward appearances but to focus on inner values.

God washes our feet and forgives us, urging us to wash one another's feet,       an act that expresses love and also an important commitment to forgive each other. 

God becomes our food, granting us life through him, and asks us to be bearers of this life in our daily existence. 

He is the daily bread that we pray for, every time we pray the Our Father.

The Eucharist is not intended to be \a ritual prayer within which we participate regularly but is also meant to be something that touches and colors every area of our lives. 

The challenge is to try to live our lives in such a way that our whole life, 

in a manner of speaking, becomes a Eucharist. 

We need to be living and breathing “Eucharist” all the time, not just at those times when we are in church. 

The Eucharist needs to be defining attitude, a way we meet life, receive it, 

and share it with others.

And how can we do this? 

Through service. 

Which is the concrete, tangible expression of love.

There are four key words in the Eucharist: receive, give thanks, break, share. 

We know that Jesus refers them to the Eucharistic act, but we can also understand them as a mission: 

to receive our brothers and sisters as a gift,

to know how to give thanks for each brother or sister God places in our path, 

to break the chains of selfishness that make us blind and deaf to the suffering of others, 

and finally, to share the gift of life, of joy, of the hope that inspires us. 

Not with fine words but with concrete acts of service.

"As I did, so do you." 

The Eucharist becomes a memorial on the altar. 

The Eucharist can only become life in our humble and joyful service. 

By this, Jesus says, all will recognize that we are his disciples if we love one another as he has loved us and if we live as He has lived, kneeling before us to wash our feet.