We celebrate the gift of the love of Jesus,
given to us for our nourishment -
given to us as an example of self-less love.
In our prayer today, we let our Lord wash our feet - Love us unconditionally -
and we let Jesus be broken and given for us.
We pray that we might be faithful to the one commandment of Jesus -
that we might Love others in the same way that we have been loved.
If I, therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another's feet.
I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do. John 13
Let us to remember that by surrendering to His Passion and Death on the Cross, Jesus washes our feet. By being broken and given for us in the Eucharist, Jesus is giving us an example and a commandment for how we are to be broken and given for each other, by washing each other's feet.
Jesus loves us unconditionally, that is, without condition. He loves us, not because we deserve it. He loves us because we need loving. He tells us to love the same way. Tonight we are given his Eucharistic, self-sacrificing example of how to love each other. "This much," he says. "Love each other this completely, this freely, loving the most unattractive parts of each other, where love is needed most."
Tonight, when we watch this example of His love for us, and when we receive the Eucharist together, let us let Jesus love us.
We can pray in our hearts, "Lord, I so desire for You to love me. I don't want to hold back, hold away from You, those unpresentable parts inside of me. I don't want anything covered up, anymore. I want to be transparent and free before You. Wash all of me with Your love."
And we might ask, "Lord, let Your body and blood bring me into the most intimate communion with You tonight.
Fill my heart.
Push out all of the fear and anxiety, all of the anger and frustration, all the pettiness and lust.
Fill me tonight, Lord, so that I might be filled with Your peace and learn how to love others this way.
Help me to give myself to those closest to me in the days ahead.
Help me to be self-sacrificing, thinking of their needs first.
Help me to serve them and care for them and to delight in losing myself in feeding their hungers.
And, Lord, let me hear the cries, the hungers and thirsts of so many more of Your people, not only close to me, but in my city and throughout the world.
On this special night, let me taste Your desire that we all be one, through our sharing of this Eucharistic love."
Where Love and Charity are found,
there is God.
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