Most times, when we meditate on the suffering of the Cross, we think about the face of Our Lord, in holy suffering, His eyes cast upward toward Heaven, His forehead wrinkled in pain, His mouth curled up in the suffering of the long hours before He would rise in glory again. Yet, do we ever consider His feet? Strange, I know, but His feet are one of the most under-appreciated, meaning-rich subjects to contemplate on during the Crucifixion.
Jesus was nailed to the Cross with three nails by His hands and feet - one nail for each hand, and one nail for both feet. Father, son, and the Holy Spirit - four words, three parts of the same being. His hands were the source of all His blessings, they were the same hands which He used to eat, the same hands which He used to work with His father, the carpenter, the same hands that He healed with, the same hands He used to wash the feet of the disciples. Yet, His feet were the same feet with which He took His first steps, the same feet that took Him everywhere to do His ministry, the same feet that Mary, sister of Martha, anointed with oil and wiped with her hair, the same feet that were nailed TOGETHER on the Cross.
We all know that, as the Church, we are the "hands and feet" of Christ. We are to do in the world as He did, we are to work and pray and He worked and prayed. Yet, it seems to be much easier for us to imagine being Christ's HANDS than His FEET, and I'll explain why.
We all enjoy the goodness that comes of going to soup kitchens and volunteering, and that feel-good feeling after helping someone we know or don't know. This is our being the hands of Christ, the direct helping of others, closest to our hearts, with a great degree of control and safety. Our hands never touch the ground. We can see in front of us dangerous surfaces that it will hurt to touch, and so our eyes can tell our hands not to touch those surfaces. We can finely tune our motor skills so that the things we do pick up are methodically held and placed back down again, all under our control. We can do many great things with our hands, we can build, we can express ourselves (I AM Italian, after all - I talk with my hands!!), we can write, we can clap, we can hold others, and we can pray.
But what of our feet? Our feet are underappreciated! Without them, we cannot walk, we cannot run, we cannot balance. We can't stand or feel the beach sand squish in between our toes. And these feet are the same feet that are dirtied by the ground, that step on sharp objects because we can't see them on the floor, that become tired from running around all day, that crack and bruise and don't heal quickly, that are less controlled and can't be used to pick things up (unless you're really skilled! :P). Yet, still we are called to be the "hands AND FEET" of Christ!!!
Think again of the Cross. Jesus's hands were pierced with two nails - I believe that scholars now claim that His wrists were in fact nailed to the Cross, or else His weight would have caused the nails to rip through His hands, whereas His wrists were more substantial. Jesus's hands were roughed up from carrying the Cross, were probably bleeding from splinters from the wood of the Cross, and were definitely bleeding from the nails of the Crucifixion. They are beautiful to meditate on - a pure kind of suffering.
But His FEET! Dirtied, bloodied, caked in the mud and dust of the road while carrying the Cross, covered in the blood of the Cross, pressed together, sweating, and curled up against the weight of His body. The blood on His feet was different from the blood on His hands - the sweat and blood was mixed with dirt, with mud. It was dirty blood, but it was PRECIOUS blood. ADORABLE and IMMACULATE blood. Blood of the same feet that had been washed in tears, anointed in oil, and dried with the hair of a penitant sinner.
Our call to be the "hands and feet" of Christ includes this image. We are to kiss His immaculate feet, disregarding the dirt and grime and sweat, because His precious blood is still there!!!
Another thing to remember is that the woman weeping at the FOOT of the Cross is Mary. She did not weep "underneath" the Cross, "below" the Cross, "beside" the Cross, but rather at the FOOT. She first adored His suffering feet before the image of the Pieta:
http://stldesignworld.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/michelangelo27s_pieta_5450_cropncleaned1.jpg
Before she cradled Her beautiful Son and Savior in her loving arms, before she held with her hands his torso in her lap, she adored His pierced and bloodied feet. She wept over His dirtied, bloodied feet - the part of Christ that was closest to her eye level, that was best seen by her from her view at the foot of the Cross.
So, in being the "feet" of Christ, we are called to the dirt and grunge not of a "comfortably removed" volunteer position or the ability to go home at the end of the day and forget about work, but rather the confusion, obscurity, and GRUNGE of everyday life. Helping someone in a soup kitchen seems infinitely easier than forgiving a close friend's betrayal. Participating in a big brother, big sister program seems so much easier than enduring the ridicule of friends for participating in a pro-life rally, or making sure to be a good role model to your OWN brother(s) and/or sister(s) ALL THE TIME. It looks good on a resume, AND it makes you feel good! But, we have to remember that God's goodness is needed in every corner of our lives, and we can't attend to the wounds in our hands while ignoring those of our feet!
As the "feet," we are called to the grunge work of the Cross - the dirty, confusing, often publicly scorned work that is necessary for the body to move from place to place. All the martyrs of the Church understood this - their deaths were that same work. Just like football coaches place an emphasis on the "footwork," just like a baby's first steps are taken with tiny feet, so too are our feet a central, albeit underappreciated, part of our ministry!!
Let us meditate always on the feet of Christ with wonder and mystery, thanking God for the gift of the underappreciated, the beauty of obscurity and the blessing of His mercy, that He accepts us as we are, at His feet, and He makes us holy by His blood!!!
Fides, Spes, et Caritas Christi per Mariam,
Christina :)
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