‘Come Holy Spirit, kindle in us the fire of your love.’  Let us ponder: Is it not the fire of love that alone brings true and lasting change? 

We are still in the Easter season: the gospel reading of this Sunday and the gospel readings we heard during the week give us profound images for lectio, indeed for our lives. Some of these images are peace, abiding, the commandment of love, and the vine.  In emphasizing that these words are images helps us to see the depth of their meaning, a meaning which is expansive and will continue to illicit life as we encounter them in prayer. 

We meet the Risen One in the encounter of love, an encounter that includes forgiveness, receiving a deeper, fuller truth, and a way of being that is broader than the one we are living now.  The encounter is about meeting the One who ‘makes all things new’, new in seeing, new in terms of a fresh perspective on how God meets us and enters our lives, new in terms of how we see ourselves and our sister and brother.

If we are truly friends of Christ we hear, we listen to His voice.  It is our faith that leads us into the posture of ‘listening’, trusting that the Divine voice will be speaking His silent word.

Today, Holy Thursday, which opens the Triduum, gives us two important rituals that reflect the heart and meaning of these holy days, these final days building towards Jesus’ death and resurrection.  These rituals are Jesus washing the feet of his disciples and Jesus offering his body and blood using the symbols of bread and wine.  Whatever angle one looks at these ‘sacraments’, clearly, they are an encounter of love, an encounter of mercy, an encounter of forgiveness, an encounter of a most complete self-gift that embodies God’s unconditional love.