Lectio
“In these two gestures — the washing of the feet, the gift of the Eucharist — the whole Christian life is summed up. It’s not about clamoring to the top. It’s going to the bottom in loving service. It’s not about filling the ego. It’s about giving the self away in love. That’s the Christian life.”
— Bishop Robert Barron, He Washed Our Sin Soiled Souls
Meditatio
Love and service are at the core of Jesus’s message. But Jesus did not merely preach love and service, he lived these principles out in and as his very life, and even, most poignantly, in his death. Christ’s incarnation was and is for us. His death was and is for us. And his resurrection was and is for us.
Jesus did not simply come to be an example for us, a teacher and preacher whose word and life we are to follow in word and deed alone. Rather than simply commanding imitation, Jesus warns against superficial faith. He warns that it is not enough to speak his name, preach in his name, or even act in his name, without ever being transformed by him. He says in Matthew 7:21-23, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name?’ Then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers.’”
Jesus commanded that we love each other as he has loved and loves us. We have to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect, which is to say we must decrease so that Christ may increase in us, and, in all ways, become Christ for the sake of others.
This is the shape of the life he described on the mountain. We must, like Christ, become poor in spirit, emptying ourselves that the kingdom of heaven might fill us. We must die to our old selves, and grieve our powerlessness to do so without God’s help, that we might be comforted by him and comfort others. We must lay down our desire and need for power and prestige, to become meek, that we might become inheritors of something greater. We must long for what God longs for in truth and righteousness, becoming filled by his Word, rather than our self-serving and short-sighted sense of justice. We must learn to be merciful, pouring out unto others the mercy we ourselves have received. We must become pure in heart, allowing the Spirit that is love to strip away all that is in us that is not love, that we may see God in all things and all people. We must become makers of peace, rather than discord, children of the God of creation not destruction. We must become willing to suffer for what is right, trusting that our treasure lies not in our comfort in this life, but in the next.
But none of this is possible without Christ. No one is good except God (Mark 10:18) upon whom we must rely to do his good work in us through the Spirit given us by Christ. For he is the way, the truth, and the life — and none may approach the Father but through him (John 14:6). So to live as Christ, we must submit to Christ, conform to Christ, and consent to Christ. To live as Christ, we must bow down to others in loving service, and give our lives for the sake of God and other, in body and in blood.
Oratio
at the foot of the cross,
my Lord is gone —
yet his wounded body remains.
tears dripping down my face
as the blood and water pour out from his side —
my friend,
my teacher,
my salvation.
my heart ripped out of my chest
in a gasp of horror and disbelief,
all hope trails off
in an inaudible cry
along with his last breath.
i dare not reveal myself.
i dare not let them see
my broken heart.
receive me, Lord —
undone,
and still yours.
Contemplatio
What in you still needs to die so that something truer might rise?
Related Scripture
“Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness.”
— Philippians 2:5–7 (NRSVCE)
For Further Reading
If you enjoyed this post, you may also like What True Humility Really Means: Learning to Be Poor in Spirit, which explores how poverty of spirit — the first of the Beatitudes — is itself a gift of grace, and how dying to the false self is the very ground of our rebirth in Christ.
Robert Van Valkenburgh
Grappling With Divinity.
Wrestling With God.
Returning To Love.
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