Homily for Thursday
4th Week of
Easter
May 15, 2022
John 13: 16-20
Collect
Christian Brothers,
St. Joseph’s Residence, N.R.
The Last Supper (Rubens)
“I know those whom I’ve chosen” (John 13:
18).
Our gospel this morning comes from Jesus’
words at the Last Supper right after he washed the apostles’ feet. He addresses them as his chosen ones. Later he’ll call them his friends, not his
servants (John 15:15).
Today’s collect also refers to those whom
God has chosen: “chosen to make new thru
the wonder of rebirth.” God’s choice is
an act of grace, offered first to the apostles, then to as many as will accept
Christ’s message and “the amazing mystery of [the Father’s] loving kindness”
(Collect).
It’s a mystery that God loves sinners and
chooses to save them in Christ. Christ
humbled himself, as St. Paul sings in the famous hymn of Philippians ch. 2,
descending from his place in heaven to take the relative form of a slave, of a
human being. Among his friends, he
humbled himself further, doing the slave’s literal dirty work of washing feet.
He shows such humility as an example for
all whom God has chosen. None of us is
greater than our master. At the Last
Supper, Jesus will tell us to love one another (13:34). We’ve received God’s “loving kindness,” and
we’re to share it humbly. By sharing it,
we preserve it, as the collect prayed: “may
you preserve the gifts of your enduring grace and blessing.” We receive God’s grace and preserve it by
humbly serving one another. This is what
he’s chosen us for.
In today’s patristic reading in the Office,
St. Augustine says something like that.
The Lord told us to love one another as he has loved us. “His object in loving us was to enable us to
love each other. By loving us himself,
our mighty head has linked us all together as members of his own body, bound to
one another by the tender bond of love.”[1]
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