This mystery acts as a bridge between the life of Jesus and the surrender of himself in the Passion: the Eucharist in fact summarizes all the mysteries of the life of Jesus, and makes them present in the effectiveness of that one Bread that we break. Thus in the Eucharist we find, as if in a synthesis, all the gifts of Jesus to men, which were announced and celebrated, so to speak, almost separately during his earthly life: forgiveness of sinners, healing of the sick, consolation of his poor, as we have already seen. 

Every time we celebrate Mass, we relive all this: we are like the tax collectors and sinners who eat at the table with Jesus, provoking the scandal of the Pharisees, of those who believed they were pure and good based on their strength: "Because your teacher sits at table with tax collectors and sinners?”. In the Mass, Jesus, as already in the cenacle, becomes our servant, he kneels at our feet, making himself no bigger than us, as we all believe that he is, and in fact he is; but by acting in this way he shows himself and makes himself smaller, to remove from us all fear and fear of Him and of God: whoever sees Him in fact sees the Father. Jesus does not become a servant and little just for a moment, as could be understood based on a reductive interpretation of that "I have given you the example", precisely, as if, once the example had been given, he hastily removed his servant's clothes to take back those of the master. He shows himself to be our servant because he is truly and definitively our servant; He kneels before us to wash our feet, not we kneel before Him. 

Paraphrasing Saint John, we could say that we learn to serve because we have been served by Him; let us lay aside all fear of God and his justice, because this is precisely his justice, his bowing before us, our poverty, his merciful bending over us all: "he has locked everyone up in sin to show mercy to everyone" , St. Paul will say. We can ask for the grace to understand all this intimately; while we recite these ten Hail Marys we can contemplate how He takes on the role of servant, how He makes Himself small, indeed, how He makes Himself the last of all in the midst of that group, and exhorts us to do this. In fact, we are not so arrogant as to want to claim to be the first, or even perhaps among the first; but the very last ones, no, it seems unfair to us, and in fact it is. But it is precisely from here that our resentments, our uneasiness, the divisions between us arise: if we were so free as to have truly chosen for ourselves what Jesus chose and desired for himself, we would face life much more serenely, because we would be able to experience the pain that life inevitably offers us (that of ingratitude, marginalization, even the violence that we may receive) not as a curse, but as an opportunity to truly serve: since one cannot serve unless one suffers, otherwise it's just a short-lived comedy.

At the same time, the Eucharist is the anticipation of the Passion: that body that will be broken and that blood that will be shed is made present in the last supper, because his desire to dine this supper with us was so great that he almost anticipated what it had to happen. And what happened the next day, He wanted to be represented infinitely in our Masses, every time we break the bread and bless the chalice: in fact, by the power of the Holy Spirit, we are made present again at that moment, and every time that we communicate with that bread and that wine, the fruits of the Passion and the Resurrection are poured out on each of us. It happens as if all the forgiveness, all the grace, ultimately all the love of the Heart of Christ were poured uniquely on each one, so that each of us can say, like Saint Paul: "he loved Me and gave himself for myself". All this not to wallow in good feelings, but to follow Him who "humbled himself, taking the form of a servant"; He "suffered for us, leaving us an example: insulted, he did not respond with insults, and in suffering he did not threaten revenge, but handed over his cause to Him who judges justly: by his wounds we were healed".