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The Lord Is My Chef Daily Recipe for the Soul by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Friday in the Fifth Week of Easter, 12 May 2023 Acts 15:22-31 ><)))*> + ><)))*> + ><)))*> John 15:12-17
As we come to close the week, I tried reimagining your last supper, that Holy Thursday before you were betrayed, arrested and tried then sentenced to death the following Good Friday; also known as Maundy Thursday from the Latin word "mandatum, mandatus" which is "commandment" because it was on that evening you gave us your only commandment.
Jesus said to his disciples: “This is my commandment: love one an other as I love you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I no longer call you slaves, because a slave does not know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father.”
John 15:12-15
Oh sweet Jesus! Earlier after washing your disciples' feet that evening, you told them you were their Lord and Master even if you acted like their slave in washing their feet; but still in that scene came these words, you calling them and us --- as friends with whom you have revealed everything from the Father, and most of all, friends for whom you offered your very life for our salvation!
That evening, you have shown us, dear Jesus, that love is our destiny; to love like you is more than obeying your commandment to love but becoming like you who is love himself! Is it not that is the goal of every love, to become like the beloved? You first showed us how is that possible when you as the Son of God became human like us, your beloved so that we may become like you, holy, our beloved.
Let us grow in that wonderful friendship only you can offer us; may we not be like those some early Christians who insisted on imposing their beliefs on others; let us learn that to truly love like you is to think less of ourselves, of our beliefs in order to see your face on others not like us so that we start becoming like you, Jesus our beloved found in others; teach us, Jesus, to be a friend to others especially those in the margins who for the longest time have been looking at us from afar, hoping they could be like us too - "upwardly mobile", with access to education, to clean water and decent home. Wash and cleanse our eyes, Lord, so we could also see others wishing to be your friends too in us. Amen.
