by Sr. Mary Kevin Rooney, ASC
When I was 11 or 12, I was given a note from Donny Miller who was my “secret” boyfriend (meaning one of the ten I had on the string, none of whom knew I loved them.) The note said, “I love you!” I carried that note in my pocket “forever,” taking it in and out so often to reread it that the penciled message became almost illegible! The message in my teenage heart kept ringing: “He loves me, he loves me!” And being a starry-eyed adolescent, I was unable to do anything but sit around, walk around, and moan around, mulling over: “He loves me!”
Fast forward 80 years, and we have an encyclical entitled “He loved us!” And the same action of that twelve-year-old is repeated: taking that message in and out of my heart-pocket to try to wrap my adult-being around such a wonder: “He loves me! He loves me!” And, of course, there is some of that contemplative sitting around, walking around and moaning around, mulling over that wonder: “He loves me!”
Jesus Himself had the same experience with his Abba, being so taken with the reality of being loved by One whom he called “Daddy, Abba!” But John’s Gospel shows us the deepest response to such a gift: to wash feet of friends AND enemies! In the reading from John 13 tonight, the story is not about changing bread and wine into His body and blood, but of putting on the apron of service to wash the feet of those at table.
I’m on my way to get my apron.
