Love That Kneels

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Maundy Thursday

Today's Readings:
[ Ex 12:1-4, 11-14; Ps 116:1, 10-17; 1 Cor 11:23-26; Jn 13:1-17, 31b-35 ]

There is a quiet tenderness running through tonight’s readings—a humility that kneels.

In Exodus 12, the people are told to prepare the Passover meal “with your loins girded… it is the passover of the Lord”. It is a meal eaten in readiness, in trust, in dependence. Nothing is hoarded; nothing is wasted. Even here, God is forming a people who live not by possession, but by provision. 

Psalm 116 responds with gratitude: “What shall I return to the Lord for all his bounty to me?” The answer is not repayment, but offering: “I will lift up the cup of salvation” and call on the name of the Lord. Gratitude, not grasping, is the proper posture of the redeemed.

Then comes the upper room.

Paul reminds us in 1 Corinthians 11 that “the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread… ‘This is my body that is for you.’” The Eucharist is not merely remembrance, it is self-gift. Christ gives Himself entirely, holding nothing back. For St. Francis, this mystery was everything: the God who becomes small, poor, and near—first in the manger, and here upon the table.

And in John 13, that same Lord takes a towel.

“If I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.” The One through whom all things were made stoops to serve. No status, no distance, no self-protection—only love poured out in action. This is not symbolic humility; it is the shape of divine life.

Franciscan spirituality calls us to imitate this downward movement. To be “lesser,” not greater. To choose simplicity over accumulation, service over status, presence over power.

Tonight, the command is clear: “Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.”

Not in theory. Not at a distance.

But with water, with bread, with hands willing to kneel.

And perhaps the real question for us is not what we believe about this night, but whether we are willing to live it.

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