A Maundy Thursday reflection

It’s Holy Thursday or Maundy Thursday, a name derived from the Latin word, “Mandatum” taken from the words of our Lord Jesus Christ when he gave his disciples the “New Commandment” which is translated in Latin, “Mandatum novum do vobis ut diligatis invicem sicut dilexi vos”… in English, “A new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another; as I have loved you.” You can read it in the Gospel of John 13:34.

This Latin word “Mandatum” is also used as the antiphon that is sang during the Roman rite of the washing of the feet, which in my book is one of the best teachings imparted to us by our Lord Jesus Christ. All Christians will always remember Holy Thursday as the Last Supper, where our Lord Jesus Christ instituted the Holy Eucharist and Holy Orders. We have written about these two major events in Christian history. However for this Holy Thursday we shall touch on the washing of the feet of our Lord’s disciples, which happens before the Last Supper.

 I don’t need to tell you about our Lord Jesus Christ’s washing the feet of his disciples because you know this story very well as this teaching is all about servant leadership… which we can read in Matt. 20:28, “Just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve.” If God himself would teach us humans not just to love one another, but to serve others, this just gives you an idea of what heaven would be like when we get there.

But while we’re still on this earth… our Christian duty is to teach and preach the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ…something many of us fail miserably including our bishops and priests whose primary duty is to feed the sheep in their sheepfold. But since it’s Holy Week, we merely recall what our dying Lord Jesus Christ said, “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.”

As I promised in last Tuesday’s column, I will continue discussing what I suggested to the Task Force for Family & Life (TFFL) last week that in this Year of the Laity, we members of the Lay community ought to come up with a Catholic Lay Conference of the Philippines (CLCP) as a parallel to the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP). Already, that suggestion has become viral in social media and I got so many positive comments and praise God… surprisingly, not a single negative comment.

Allow me to reprint just two of these emailed comments for your perusal. The first one comes from Jun Pacheco;

“Dear Mr. Avila… Thank you for your column about your CLCP undertaking. I think this is a very good idea, as we Pinoys are too dependent on the Clergy to take political action. As long as the lay people do things with charity, love, mercy and without doing it with hatred, it is really the duty of the laity to take action by sanctifying political life.

The problem is since there is a vacuum of active lay people some priests use this as justification to run for public office. With CLCP, nominal Catholics can be properly catechized and empowered and in our time we will have godly politicians. As Pope Francis said, “Let us evangelize the people starting from context of the Gospel of Love and Live, and from there we will all truly understand the true language of Love which will easily explain why a contraceptive mentality is evil. Regards, Jun Pacheco.

The next letter I’m reprinting here comes from Dr. Rey J. Echavez from Doctors for Life, Philippines, one of the petitioners against the RH Law…. “Dear Mr. Avila, … Congratulations on your idea of creating the Catholic Lay Conference of the Philippines. It is already trending in the social media. BTW who are the people behind the TFFL… who are the 12 Lay Catholic members? God bless and more power. Dr. Rey J. Echavez.”

For the record, the TFFL are lay people who came together because of the fight against the RH bill. Actually I’m a Johnny-come-lately to the group because I joined after the mysterious death of Manny Amador (brother of actress Pinky Amador) two years ago. With us are two priests, Fr. John Rona of Perrelos, Carcar and Fr. John Orat, parish priest of Daanbantayan. The TFFL head is my good friend, Engr. Douglas Gacasan and our legal counsel is Atty. Lito Mahinay who helps in the legal problems of the Cebu Archdiocese and is task to do the CLCP constitution.

So it doesn’t get unwieldy, we are looking at a membership based by regions or by province. So that we won’t be misunderstood, the CLCP will not be a creation of the CBCP or any archdiocese. But we certainly would want their blessings in this endeavor. Our aim is to make the CLCP as big as the CBCP in time for the International Eucharistic Congress in the year 2016 were we hope that if Pope Francis comes to visit Cebu, we can greet him together with the CBCP. Our greatest blessing comes from the fact that we have two lay Saints in this country, San Lorenzo Ruiz and San Pedro Calungsod who will surely guide us to God fearing Filipino nation.

*  *  *

For email responses to this article, write to [email protected] or [email protected]. His columns can be accessed through www.philstar.com.