WHEN LOVE BECOMES A MANDATE

V/​ I will turn to you O God, 

R/​ to God who gives joy to my youth

V/​ Give me the Wisdom that sits by your throne; 

R/ that I may be counted among your children

Lord, in your all-providential plan, you have led me to this moment to rediscover me in your Word and Wisdom. Aid me to make this time of meditation and prayer enriching, transforming, and liberating for my well-being and others. Amen!

WHEN LOVE BECOMES A MANDATE

By Dr. Susan Muto

HOLY THURSDAY

Exodus 12:1-8. 11-14; Psalm 116(115): 12-13, 15,16, 17-18; 1 Corinthians 11:23-26; John 13:1-15

17th April 2025

In the first reading from the Book of Exodus, God intervenes in the history of Israel to enable his people to escape from their bondage in the land of Egypt and to pass over to the new life he has designated for them. In Psalm 116, God reveals himself as gracious, righteous, and merciful, as a protector of “the simple” who desire to return to him and to be delivered from death. In First Corinthians, Paul cites as the fruit of his being protected by God his having received a revelation of the Eucharist as a permanent thanksgiving feast celebrated in remembrance of the Lord and proclaiming his death until he comes again. Then, in the Gospel of John, Jesus, the Word made flesh, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, now in the form of a servant, took off his outer robe, tied a towel around himself, poured water into a basin, and initiated the previously unheard act of washing, wiping, and drying his apostles’ feet.

All three of these manifestations of the Most High concern what the people of God must do to be saved. Their cooperation with grace is essential for God’s plan to be fully fulfilled. In the Exodus account, the Lord speaks to Moses and Aaron and instructs them in regard to how to prepare and consume the Passover lamb, what to do with its blood, how to mark their doorposts with it as a sign of God’s favor to them, and how they are to dress for the journey ahead of them.

Psalm 116, which is part of the Egyptian Hallel, used since ancient times in the celebration of the Passover, rehearses the longest journey a soul can make—from death to life, from devastation to deliverance.  Saint John of the Cross says of this psalm in The Spiritual Canticle “that the death of the saints is precious in the sight of the Lord…this would not be true if they did not participate in God’s own grandeur, for in the sight of God nothing is precious but what he in himself is” (Stanza 11.10).

In his letter to the Corinthians, Paul gives an awesome account of the Lord’s supper, reminding us that the betrayal of Judas did not prevent Jesus from initiating a new covenant sealed with the bread of his body and the wine of his blood.

Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, in her poem, Canticle of a Soul, writes, “From now on, near the Eucharist, I shall be able to sacrifice myself in silence, to wait for Heaven in peace…In this furnace of love, I shall be consumed…”

The celebration of Maundy Thursday, from the Latin mandatum, meaning mandate, also reveals the initiation by Jesus of an act so humble, so unexpected, that the apostles can hardly believe what he does. Peter feels so unworthy that he almost pulls his feet out of the basin until Jesus gives him the mandate that unless he accepts this washing, he can have no share in his redemptive mission. Jesus then issues a second mandate that they, too, have to “wash one another’s feet.” This act expresses bodily and spiritually the new commandment they will receive, that they must love each other as he has loved them.