After the starkness of Lent, with its stripped altars and veiled
statues, it’s always a shock when I walk into the church on
Holy Thursday. The altar is draped in crimson satin, the chapel
where the Eucharist will repose is overflowing with flowers
and candles. Tendrils of incense wind toward the ceiling, a
gathering cloud of prayer above the nave. In the sacristy, an
empty monstrance glitters alongside stacks of fluffy white
towels awaiting the washing of the feet.
In the midst of this staggering visual richness, I sometimes
forget there are other senses at play tonight. The soundscape
is lavish. The sound of the water as it gurgles into the basins,
the sigh as an exhausted woman drops into a chair before the
altar, the rough sound of a towel drying her feet. The ting-ting
of the chain on the censer as it swings in procession. The
choir softly chanting the Pange Lingua as it circles the church,
like the stirring of the wind before a storm. Word made flesh
indeed.
This liturgy begs us not just to listen, but to hear, not just
to stand in witness as a procession passes by, but to bear that
Word out the doors of the church—to make it flesh. Look!
Here is the eternal Word that stirred the universe into being,
the whispered Word that called to Elijah, the redemptive
Word that silenced death on the cross, the living Word that
sent Mary Magdalene out of the garden to proclaim the Resurrection.
Listen! Hear the Word that commands me to wash
my neighbors’ feet, that whispers to me, “take up your cross,”
that speaks my name and sends me out to make manifest the
Good News. Verbum caro, panem verum, Verbo carnem éfficit.
Become flesh in me.

Michelle Francl-Donnay

Michelle Francl-Donnay is a wife and mother, a professor of
chemistry, and an adjunct scholar at the Vatican Observatory.
She is author of Prayer: Biblical Wisdom for Seeking God in the
Little Rock Scripture Study Alive in the Word series. Her website is
michellefrancldonnay.com.