We invite to cancel your ordinary Morning Praise and make it a moment of profound fraternal encounter
Holy Thursday is a day liturgically filled with symbols, celebrations and rites. Being a day a fraternal love is a point that many times we use to forget.
Take a risk in relationships, touch our fragility, welcome all that leads us to love more and better, try it once more after having been hurt; these are landscapes common for all families, homes, communities.
Love hurts but it’s worth it. To weave again and again hurts but is a great challenge. To love. To forgive and continue loving. Something that at first sight seems simple but how difficult it is. This time of quarantine is a great opportunity of encounter, of look at each other’s eyes and recognize that we are sisters, daughters and family of the same god and the same church.
Pagkakaibigan
- Ang sinumang sa aki’y mananahan, mananahan din ako sa kanya,
at kung siya’y mamunga ng masagana
s’ya sa Ama ay nagbigay ng karangalan
Mula ngayon kayo’y aking kaibigan,
hinango sa dilim at kababaan.
Ang kaibiga’y mag aalay
ng sarili nyang buhay,
walang hihigit sa yaring pag-aalay.
- Kung papano mahal ako ng aking Ama,
sa Inyo’y aking ipinadarama.
Sa pagibig ko kayo sana ay manahan,
ang bilin ko sa Inyo ay magmahalan.
- Pinili ka’t hinirang upang mahalin,
ng mamunga bunga mo’y panatiliin.
Humayo ka’t mamunga ng masagana
kagalaka’y walang hanggan ipamamana.
By two choirs, Let us pray and contemplate this psalm of relationships, of this church that lives under the same roof, that is a mother, a father, a child, a grandchild, a friend and to which we have so much to be thankful for: our existence, being confronted, being our mirror, being first in journey. It is this church that we praise and bless on this day, to which we say “happy to possess you and to be possessed by you” (at the end we make resonance)
ANTIPHONE (all together):
Cuánto más te miro, Iglesia Santa, cuánto más te miro, más nueva te veo. Déjate ver, Iglesia.
Your presence is a new song, O beautiful Church! It is your beauty that makrs its footsteps in my history. You are the universal sacrament of salvation, a transforming force of liberation in my days. You are beauty always new, profound mystery of communion, you confront me, you are my mirror, you challenge me, you save me.
Because the Lord loves his people, we praise your existence. You who, like a good mother, love and take care of life, get dirty in our mud, walk our steps, meet us on our journey, encounter us. You, a pilgrim of life, who allow to encounter you to all who seeks you with whole heart.
How beautiful you are, O Church, beautiful for what you mirror, and this beauty of yours gives us our face and life. It’s your womb that gives hope, your pants of birth that claim for presence, your truth that makes us uncomfortable, your tenderness that makes us new.
You are the victory of a humble oppressed one, a potent voice of the silenced of our history, the strong arm in front of injustice, the wounded tear of the tormented. It is your broken heart that loves, cries, commits.
You are the opportunity for those who struggle, you are the tender touch that calms, you are home where we look for refuge, you are the patience that respects and awaits. It is in you and in your presence that we recognize ourselves as children and brothers, when you speak to us.
It is your shouts that open the heaven, it is your children that your carry on your back, it is your heart melted by tenderness, offered widely in Hope. It is your existence, your courage and risk that awakes us and confronts in our journey. As one day we answered “Yes” to you, renew in us the passionate giving.
Your prophecy is fire that embraces and prepares us, a great treasure because of which, leaving it all behind, we follow you, and following you we are being restored. It is by your side where everything becomes possible: relationships, fraternity, communion, truth, peace. By your side it is possible, although not easy, O Church, because we walk together and care for each other!
TOGETHER:
How beautiful you are, how amiable, O Church! Are you our Beloved, the object that steals our hearts? How worthy of love you are! Happy who knows you! Happy, O Church, who is able to unite herself with you in faith, hope and love! In faith, happy who believes in you, because she sees you and knows you. In hope, happy who has no other hope in this life apart from you; happy who awaits to see you without veil and to possess you; happy who neither has nor wants to have any other hope apart from you; happy who hopes only in you, because she possesses an infinitely amiable beauty; happy who sees you, knows you, hopes in you, because she loves you; happy, for thousand times happy who loves you alone, because she will be corresponded and this love brings delights of glory, since in heaven there is no more glory than to see you, possess you and enjoy this possession.
We can add other strophes spontaneously: “HAPPY OF YOU, OH CHURCH, WHERE I LIVE….”
(INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC)
TO ENCOUNTER PROFOUNDLY ANOTHER PERSON IS ALWAYS AN ADVENTURE WITHOUT A CERTAIN FIN. TO ESTABLISH TODAY TRUE ENCOUNTERS BETWEEN “UNCERTAIN IDENTITIES”, WITH FEARS AND WALLS, IS A GREAT CHALLENGE. INDIVIDUALISM, THAT HIDES BEHIND THE ACTUAL CULTURE TO PROTECTS ITS OWN WELFARE, IS IN NEED OF THESE QUALITY ENCOUNTERS THAT WOULD SAVE IT FROM ITS NARCICISTIC STERILITY AND DISPONE IT TO HELP ALSO TO OTHERS IN THEIR LONELYNESS. (Instrumental music)
ONLY AN ENCOUNTER WITH SOMETHING DIFFERENT ALLOWS US TO ENGRANDEUR OUR OWN HOUSE, TO GROW AS PERSONS AND ANOUNCE THE KINGDOM OF GOD. IN THE OTHER GROWS SOMETHING DESTINED FOR MY OWN GROWING, OR SOME CARENCY IS OPENED THAT AWAITS MY GIFT. IT IS EASY TO WELCOME THE DIFFERENCE WHEN IT ARRIVES IN A FORM OF COMMUNION THAT FILLS MY LONELINESS OR MAKES MY LIVE FULLER IN ANY WAY. BUT IT CAN BE SEEN AS DANGER TO WELCOME THE OTHER WHEN WE PERCEIVE HIM/HER AS A PRESENCE THAT DESTROYS THE FRAGILE EQUILIBRITY OF MY INSTALLATION. IN GOD, DIFFERENT MEANS SOMETIMES DIFFICULT, BECAUSE IT FACES US WITH OTHERS TO WHOM LOVE, WOUNDED AS WE OURSELVES ARE, IN NEED AS WE OURSELVES ARE, FRAGILE AS OUR OWN FRAGILITY IS.
(instrumental music)
I ENTER IN THE LAND OF THE OTHER VULNERABLE AND WITH RESPECT, NOT ONLY TOLERATING HIM/HER, BUT WELCOMING WITH HIS/HER DIFFERENCE. THIS WAY, I DISPONE MYSELF FOR THE ENCOUNTER WITH GOD WHO SUSTAINS THE LIFE OF ALL, WHO IS HIDDED IN THE MYSTERY OF OTHER THAT IS IN FRONT OF ME. EVERY STEP TOWARDS OTHER IS ALSO A STEP INSIDE THE MYSTERY OF GOD, IN WHOM WE ALL EXIST. THE ENCOUNTER WITH OTHER DISPONES US FOR THE ENCOUNTER WITH GOD, THE SAME WAY AS THE PROFOUND ENCOUNTER WITH GOD MAKES US CAPABLE OF A REAL ENCOUNTER WITH HUMANS.
(instrumental music)
WHAT SAVE US, IS THE ENCOUNTER WITH GOD IN OTHER, BUT NOT ONLY AS STRONG GOD FROM WHOM I RECEIVE, BUT AS A WEAK GOD WHO UNISTALLS ME, CONFUSES ME IN MY EGOISTIC SECURITIES AND MAKES BE CAPABLE OF GIVING THE BEST OF ME THAT WAS PARALIZED. THIS IS THE SALVATION: A WEAK GOD IS REALLY IN NEED IN OTHER AND EXPOSES HIMSELF IN WOUNDED SILENCE IN FRONT OF ME.
(Instrumental music)
GESTURE: You are invited to think for a while:
What does God need to purify in me so I would be able to open myself to the mystery of communion, to become a constructor Of healthy, clean, honest relationships. What prejudices and rencor need to be healed? What pardon I need to give, or receive? How much do I love my family, my sisters in community? What kind of relationships am I weaving? Constructive? Destructive?
We leave some minutes to reflect upon it and offer it to god. To accompany with instrumental music.
After this moment of silence, we invite you to repeat the gesture of washing of feet as a sign of our desire to be open to jesus to be washed by him, to be dignified with his presence, to be humanized and put on our feet. Allow us to be washed of all that hindrances fraternal love, what divide us, destroys us and harms us. Allow us being cleansed by him to accompany him these days and every day of our lives with open and disposed heart, filled with tenderness, sensibility, humanity.
For sanitary reasons, we may not be able to make the washing of feet, but we can recreate it and give it its meaning.
We invite you to wash each other’s hands, with depth and prayerful way, giving it a deep value to this moment (we can use wet tissues, paper or alcohol). may this washing be not only because of corona virus, but because of our deep desire to open ourselves to the profound dream of god and urgent claim of humanity: universal fraternity, for healing, alive and renewed relationships.
I Will Wash Your Feet – Bukas Palad or Jesus Washes My Feet – by Land and Salt https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGUcxNQ1gcU
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