Mandate to Love
Mandate to Love
Maundy Thursday – April 9, 2020
Maundy Thursday – or Holy Thursday – remembers Jesus’ Last Supper with his disciples in the Upper Room. The word Maundy is an Anglo-French word derived from the Latin mandatum. In mandatum you see the root for “mandate,” thus the word typically means “commandment.” The word, then, refers to the new commandment Jesus gives his disciples during the Last Supper in the Upper Room: “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” (John 13:34).
In these days of physical distancing, when we are separated from other people and from places that comfort us, Jesus’ words to his disciples at the Last Supper present their own challenge. “Love one another,” and, “As I have loved you, so you must love one another,” yet we are physical apart from those who typically make up our world.
Put us in the company of others, and we can come up with ways to love one another. But separate us, ask us to keep distance from one another, and this mandate becomes much more challenging.
A couple of things seem important to me here. First, we are invited during these days to be expansive and creative in our notion of how we love others. By “expansive” I mean that love has to look different and larger for us now than it typically does. And we have to be okay with that (well, we don’t HAVE to be okay with it . . . but if you want to live without loading yourself down with guilt and shame, then it would be good to accept your human limitations during these days!).
Second, as we face the challenges of separation from other people, we have an opportunity to recalibrate what love is. You’ll notice in the readings from Brother Lawrence this week – including today – that when he writes of love, it is most always referenced toward God. That feels instructive.
Yes, I recognize that love of God is tied intricately together with love of others, both neighbor and self. But too many of us “love” others as a ways of impressing or manipulating them. We receive self-affirmation from the way we love others. (Anthony de Mello, in the readings from several weeks ago, would have said that this way of “loving” is not truly love.)
The way Brother Lawrence goes about this is to direct his love first to God. He stays in conscious contact with God. He cultivates within himself the sense of God’s presence always and everywhere. This transformative living then flows outward toward others. If you truly love God in this self-giving way, then you cannot help but love others in the same way – just as when you love God in a self-interested way, you cannot help but love others in a self-interested way.
Jesus rarely gave mandates or commands. But he did give this one: Love one another.
Today Brother Lawrence spoke to me quite openly and with great enthusiasm about his manner of going to God. He said the most important part lay in renouncing, once and for all, whatever does not lead to God. This would allow us to become involved in a continuous conversation with Him in a simple and unhindered manner.
All we have to do is to recognize God as being intimately present within us. Then we may speak directly to Him every time we need to ask for help, to know His will in moments of uncertainty, and to do whatever He wants us to do in a way that pleases Him. We should offer our work to Him before we begin, and thank Him afterwards for the privilege of having done them for His sake. This continuous conversation would also include praising and loving God incessantly for His infinite goodness and perfection.
Brother Lawrence declared that we ought to ask confidently for God’s grace in everything we do, trusting the infinite merits of our Lord rather than our own thoughts. He said that God would never fail to give us His grace, and that he could testify to this personally. This brother in the Lord sinned only when he strayed from God’s company, or when he forgot to ask Him for His help.
When we are in doubt, he continued, God never fails to show us the right way to go, as long as our only goal is to please Him and show our love for Him.
[Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God, (Springdale, PA: Whitaker House, 1982).]
For Reflection:
o What challenges am I feeling in my relationships as my physical distancing and separation from others drags on? I honestly take inventory of what this physical distancing and separation is like for me.
o I consciously ask God to show me today how to be intentional in my love for others, even while separated from many of those to whom I am connected in life.
o In prayer I may say anything at all to God. There is nothing I can say that will drive God away or that will cause God to love me less.
Maundy Thursday – April 9, 2020
Maundy Thursday – or Holy Thursday – remembers Jesus’ Last Supper with his disciples in the Upper Room. The word Maundy is an Anglo-French word derived from the Latin mandatum. In mandatum you see the root for “mandate,” thus the word typically means “commandment.” The word, then, refers to the new commandment Jesus gives his disciples during the Last Supper in the Upper Room: “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” (John 13:34).
In these days of physical distancing, when we are separated from other people and from places that comfort us, Jesus’ words to his disciples at the Last Supper present their own challenge. “Love one another,” and, “As I have loved you, so you must love one another,” yet we are physical apart from those who typically make up our world.
Put us in the company of others, and we can come up with ways to love one another. But separate us, ask us to keep distance from one another, and this mandate becomes much more challenging.
A couple of things seem important to me here. First, we are invited during these days to be expansive and creative in our notion of how we love others. By “expansive” I mean that love has to look different and larger for us now than it typically does. And we have to be okay with that (well, we don’t HAVE to be okay with it . . . but if you want to live without loading yourself down with guilt and shame, then it would be good to accept your human limitations during these days!).
Second, as we face the challenges of separation from other people, we have an opportunity to recalibrate what love is. You’ll notice in the readings from Brother Lawrence this week – including today – that when he writes of love, it is most always referenced toward God. That feels instructive.
Yes, I recognize that love of God is tied intricately together with love of others, both neighbor and self. But too many of us “love” others as a ways of impressing or manipulating them. We receive self-affirmation from the way we love others. (Anthony de Mello, in the readings from several weeks ago, would have said that this way of “loving” is not truly love.)
The way Brother Lawrence goes about this is to direct his love first to God. He stays in conscious contact with God. He cultivates within himself the sense of God’s presence always and everywhere. This transformative living then flows outward toward others. If you truly love God in this self-giving way, then you cannot help but love others in the same way – just as when you love God in a self-interested way, you cannot help but love others in a self-interested way.
Jesus rarely gave mandates or commands. But he did give this one: Love one another.
Today Brother Lawrence spoke to me quite openly and with great enthusiasm about his manner of going to God. He said the most important part lay in renouncing, once and for all, whatever does not lead to God. This would allow us to become involved in a continuous conversation with Him in a simple and unhindered manner.
All we have to do is to recognize God as being intimately present within us. Then we may speak directly to Him every time we need to ask for help, to know His will in moments of uncertainty, and to do whatever He wants us to do in a way that pleases Him. We should offer our work to Him before we begin, and thank Him afterwards for the privilege of having done them for His sake. This continuous conversation would also include praising and loving God incessantly for His infinite goodness and perfection.
Brother Lawrence declared that we ought to ask confidently for God’s grace in everything we do, trusting the infinite merits of our Lord rather than our own thoughts. He said that God would never fail to give us His grace, and that he could testify to this personally. This brother in the Lord sinned only when he strayed from God’s company, or when he forgot to ask Him for His help.
When we are in doubt, he continued, God never fails to show us the right way to go, as long as our only goal is to please Him and show our love for Him.
[Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God, (Springdale, PA: Whitaker House, 1982).]
For Reflection:
o What challenges am I feeling in my relationships as my physical distancing and separation from others drags on? I honestly take inventory of what this physical distancing and separation is like for me.
o I consciously ask God to show me today how to be intentional in my love for others, even while separated from many of those to whom I am connected in life.
o In prayer I may say anything at all to God. There is nothing I can say that will drive God away or that will cause God to love me less.
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