They’d sat at the feet of Jesus.
They had listened on hill sides, on sea shores. In houses without a roof. In holy places and whilst walking along.
Time and again they missed the point, they heard but didn’t understand. Now his words were to take on even more depth of meaning because they were to be enacted.
They weren’t to be words of an instruction manual rather they were words embodied in action.
His talk of love was to find expression as he wrapped a towel around his waist and washed their feet, as he broke bread and shared wine symbols of his message, of his self-giving, life giving love.
These actions embodied those too easily spoken words – ‘I love you.’
A few years ago, the priest I worked with then came to his last celebration of Holy Week and Easter as a parish priest where we worked.
He approached these three days keen to share what he believed about what it was all about.
I cannot remember much of what he said but the sense of wanting to define what these days are all about is a question I return to each year.
This year, of course, things feel very different for us all yet the answer to the question for me remains the same the death and resurrection of Jesus is all about love.
Continue reading “The way of love: The showing of love”