“Merciful Father, as you have sent the Holy Spirit on Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, to write all that You wished and wanted, we pray You, send the same Holy Spirit on us, so that we may understand, appreciate Your Word, and make it our plan of life. This we ask for the merits of Your Son, Jesus Christ. Amen.”
26 ….After the meals, as is expected, follows the rite of the ‘washing’ of hands. A servant gets a pitcher of water and a basin, he pours water on the hands of all those who have participated in the meal. The servant places a napkin on his shoulder, and each one will take the napkin to wipe his hands and put it back on the servant’s shoulder.
There used to be a different custom with the master. He used to have a napkin for his personal use. If the master uses it and then leaves it on the table all crumpled up, that means, he is ready and will not be returning to the table. But, if he leaves his napkin neatly folded in its place, that shows, indicates, that the master will be returning shortly.
Now let us quote John, talking about Jesus after His Resurrection, and the visit to His tomb by Peter and John himself, Chapter 20, verse 7:
“And the napkin that had been wrapped around his head, not lying with the linen clothes, but apart, wrapped up into one place.”
So, the napkin, which was wrapped around His head, was neatly folded and set apart from the rest. The same thing which the Master would have done after the meal; folding the napkin and leave it as a sign to the servers. Would that mean that the Master would be returning shortly? Could that have been a sign, used by the Jews to indicate the ‘return? So Christ’s message, after the Last Supper, could have been: “I shall come back, wait for me.” ?
When we visit a friend or relative, we usually greet each other with a handshake. In the east the salutation, the greeting sign is more expressive. They keep their head erect and incline forward their body whilst raising their hand to their heart, mouth and forehead. They seem to be saying; “I offer my heart, my words and my thoughts to your service.”
Does not this gesture remind us of the rite we take part in, when we are at Mass, before listening to the reading of the Gospel? Do we not, make with our thumb, a small cross on our forehead, on our mouth and on our heart? We have explained the meaning of these crosses in the Talks about the Sacrifice of the Holy Eucharist.
The host and the guest used to exchange these thoughts, wishes, these greetings: they offered their heart, their words and their thoughts, to each other. And that is just what we mean by those three crosses before the Gospel: we offer our thoughts by thinking and acting on those words we are about to hear, we promise to offer our words to Jesus by passing on His Good News to others, and we promise to treasure in our heart all that we are about to hear in His Word.
I do not believe that this is a coincidence of gestures. The roots seem to be found in the Jewish customs. After all Christianity and Judaism are offsprings of the same ancestors. /27
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