Humility and servanthood

Holy Thursday, cycle A

Allow me to reflect on Pope Benedict's homily for Holy Thursday last year.  He gave reference to the prayer of Jesus in John's gospel after he washed the apostles' feet, a sign of total humility and servanthood.

 3"This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent".  Desiring life and escaping death seemed to be inherent in our humanity.  Jesus shared with us the secret of real life - only in God and in knowing him.  "Knowledge of God is eternal life!" says Pope Benedict.  Pray to seek the face of God above all else if we want to live.

6"I have manifested Your name to the men whom You gave Me out of the world; they were Yours and You gave them to Me, and they have kept Your word."  The next key to life is in Jesus and our intimate relationship with Him as the way to the Father.  But where is Jesus?  He is in the Eucharist that we partake.  Pope Benedict gives the analogy of the temple that though God is everywhere, He still resides fully in His temple.  Embrace fully the Eucharist as the sign of the incarnate presence of Jesus Christ.

 20"I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word;
 21that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me."  Servanthood entails that we serve one another as a condition of "being Church" or "Ekklesia", a people called by God.

May we fully learn from these words of Jesus as our way to life!

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