Fifty years ago the news reported Paul VI's desire to celebrate the Eucharist in the Cenacle, but he was not allowed to. Pope Montini, however, stopped at the threshold of the Cenacle hall and fulfilled his desire to renew communion with Jesus in a few moments. A look veiled in sadness which hid the desire to imitate the apostle John, to bend over Jesus' chest and listen to the beatings of his merciful heart, but he was not allowed to.
Pope Francis entered that place where Jesus prayed for the unity of all believers; not only that, but he presided over the Holy Mass concelebrated with all the bishops resident in the Holy Land in the Cenacle Hall.
Paul VI had wanted to at least pray in that place where Jesus gave birth to the Church. The Church was born with a humble service to humanity represented by the apostles with the gesture of the washing of the feet.
Before sanctioning the "pact of eternal alliance" with his people, Jesus wanted to teach us that unity between people, authentic communion between human beings is created by establishing a relationship of availability, cordial attention and service. The Cenacle reminds us of the model of service to which the Church must conform: "I have given you the example" so that just as I, Jesus, washed the feet of you, my disciples, you too may serve the poor, the sick, the excluding refugees. The washing of the feet is above all a gesture of healing, because Jesus teaches us that illnesses are healed with love, with a sharing that kneels to raise.
In the Cenacle, Jesus, instituting the sacrament of the priesthood, taught that authority in the Church consists in being servants and not masters, not officials, but traveling companions alongside those who are poor in soul and body.
The true God is found only in the sharing of Jesus' feelings towards man and woman.
A modern German painter, Koder, represented the washing of the feet in the Cenacle by placing Jesus next to Saint Peter; the face of Jesus is seen reflected in the water of the basin, in order to express that the face of God can only be seen by standing next to his brother.
The Cenacle, as well as the perennial "memory" of friendship, brotherhood, sharing, harmony and peace, is also the moment of farewell and of a community that sets out on its journey. While Jesus washed their feet, the apostles must have remembered the words of the psalms: "Your word is a light to my feet", "Guide our steps on the path of peace". Jesus wanted to wash feet as a gesture rich in meaning. In addition to that of humility and service, the foot indicates the earth, the space with which man and woman establish living contact with created reality. The foot is the opposite of the head, but to live in harmony it is necessary for the head to nourish and guide the foot, that is, the sky inspires the earth and fertilizes man's path.
From the Cenacle comes an "outgoing Church", a Church that walks in the world with the ballast of its humanity, as happened with the apostles immediately after the Supper, but as a seed of the future. In a definitive way in the Last Supper love won over cowardice and fear.
In that celebration within the walls of the Cenacle, Pope Francis recalled with emotion: «How much love, how much good came from the Cenacle! How much charity has come out from here, like a river from the source, which at the beginning is a stream and then widens and becomes large... All the saints have drawn from here; the great river of the holiness of the Church always originates from here, always anew, from the Heart of Christ, from the Eucharist, from his Holy Spirit."
This memory is an invitation to walk in the footsteps of Jesus.
Mario Carrera