Lent 2009: Day 44 (Holy Thursday)

Lenten Journey through the Spiritual Alphabet
Psalm 119, Sustainable Love

Taw (part 2)
Keep your hand ready to help me,
for I have chosen your precepts.
I long for your salvation, LORD;
your teaching is my delight.
Let me live to praise you;
may your edicts give me help.
I have wandered like a lost sheep;
seek out your servant,
for I do not forget your commands.
*****

So when he had washed their feet
and put his garments back on and reclined at table again,
he said to them, "Do you realize what I have done for you?
You call me 'teacher' and 'master,' and rightly so, for indeed I am.
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 12-15
***

Jesus knew what it is like to be the good shepherd.
The paths we sheep wander through in this life are not always through gardens and parks.

Our journey demands repeated exposure to muck...i.e., emotions, anger, fear, self-pity, jealousy, dullard-ness, misunderstanding and other aspects of ourselves we would simply rather others not see.

Look at Him.
He is naked... without pretense or defense,
He stoops and gently washes the
parts that carry us in this journey
that naturally get dirty from the
places we must go.

He does not ask us to prove our cleanliness
he knows where we need washing, and
he stoops and washes us,
and then
he instructs us,
"have love for one another, in this way, as I have loved you”

The Love that shows all you are a disciple
is being naked with Him...
(naked means without the cover of righteousness, powerful positions, pretense or defense)

Disciples become naked together
We stoop and gently wash the parts that
carry each other, our brothers and sisters,
Wash them in the pure Eucharistic act
of the naked body of Christ working inside of us.

The naked Love inside us is our salvation.