One Walk

Dear Lord God, today on Holy Thursday this Lent is completed and the Holy Tritium of Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Sunday begins, the Holiest Days of our Church calendar. Lord this Lent, the only Lent that I have committed myself to daily Lenten meditation, scripture and prayer You have taken me on a journey, You have exposed me to new thoughts, ideas and facts about myself, Church and You have opened my mind and heart to new truths and secrets in Your Word and about my relationship with You. While there is still much to be contemplated and meditated over, now is the time where I must focus my mind, thoughts, emotions and being on walking with You, trying to place myself by Your side and imagine I am with You, the disciples and the Blessed Mother. Convicted by knowing that as I have failed You during my walk under the sun in my time, and the thought that I may have likely failed You even then with You in Your time as Peter, the disciples and O Lord yes even Judas. I look to open my mind and heart to each moment with the hope and prayer that in You I will find and be able to apply Your strength to the remainder of my walk under the sun. So as with Peter, John, Matthew, Luke, Mark and Paul and the other disciples this Easter I will truly rise a better disciple strengthened and empowered in and by You. Father, by the power of the Holy Spirit You anointed Your only Son Messiah and Lord of creation; You have given us a share in his consecration to priestly service for You and in Your Church. Help me to be a better disciple, a faithful witness in the world to the salvation Christ won for me and all those willing to turn to You through Him. Help me to truly die to my old self and ways with Jesus on the Cross and rise a new with Him on Easter, knowing I am forgiven and practicing forgiveness in unconditional love as Jesus did. I ask this through my Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Stations of the Cross http://www.ewtn.com/devotionals/stations/face.htm

Everyone — past, present, and future — will be judged. Now, then, is the time for mercy, while the time to come will be the time for justice only. For that reason, the present time is ours, but the future time will be God’s only!

— St. Thomas Aquinas

Exodus 12:1-8, 11-14

1 The LORD said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, 2 "This month shall be for you the beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year for you. 3 Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month they shall take every man a lamb according to their fathers’ houses, a lamb for a household; 4 and if the household is too small for a lamb, then a man and his neighbor next to his house shall take according to the number of persons; according to what each can eat you shall make your count for the lamb. 5 Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male a year old; you shall take it from the sheep or from the goats; 6 and you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs in the evening. 7 Then they shall take some of the blood, and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat them. 8 They shall eat the flesh that night, roasted; with unleavened bread and bitter herbs they shall eat it. 11 In this manner you shall eat it: your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it in haste. It is the LORD’s passover. 12 For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will smite all the first-born in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the LORD. 13 The blood shall be a sign for you, upon the houses where you are; and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague shall fall upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt. 14 "This day shall be for you a memorial day, and you shall keep it as a feast to the LORD; throughout your generations you shall observe it as an ordinance for ever.

Bible Study: [2] This month: Abib, the month of "ripe grain." Cf Exodus 13:4; 23:15; 34:18; Deut 16:1. It occurred near the vernal equinox, March-April. Later it was known by the Babylonian name of Nisan. Cf Nehemiah 2:1; Esther 5:7.

Psalm 116:12-13, 15-18

12 What shall I render to the LORD for all his bounty to me? 13 I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the LORD, 15 Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints. 16 O LORD, I am thy servant, the son of thy handmaid. Thou hast loosed my bonds. 17 I will offer to thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving and call on the name of the LORD. 18 I will pay my vows to the LORD in the presence of all his people,

Bible Study: [Psalm 116] A thanksgiving in which the psalmist responds to divine rescue from mortal danger (Psalm 116:3-4) and from near despair (10-11) with vows and temple sacrifices (Psalm 116:13-14, 17-19). The Greek and Latin versions divide the psalm into two parts: Psalm 116:1-9 and 10-19, corresponding to its two major divisions.

1 Corinthians 11:23-26

23 For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, "This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me." 25 In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me." 26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

Bible Study: [23-25] This is the earliest written account of the institution of the Lord’s Supper in the New Testament. The narrative emphasizes Jesus’ action of self-giving (expressed in the words over the bread and the cup) and his double command to repeat his own action.

John 13:1-15

1 Now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. 2 And during supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray him, 3 Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, 4 rose from supper, laid aside his garments, and girded himself with a towel. 5 Then he poured water into a basin, and began to wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe them with the towel with which he was girded. 6 He came to Simon Peter; and Peter said to him, "Lord, do you wash my feet?" 7 Jesus answered him, "What I am doing you do not know now, but afterward you will understand." 8 Peter said to him, "You shall never wash my feet." Jesus answered him, "If I do not wash you, you have no part in me." 9 Simon Peter said to him, "Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!" 10 Jesus said to him, "He who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet, but he is clean all over; and you are clean, but not every one of you." 11 For he knew who was to betray him; that was why he said, "You are not all clean." 12 When he had washed their feet, and taken his garments, and resumed his place, he said to them, "Do you know what I have done to you? 13 You call me Teacher and Lord; and you are right, for so I am. 14 If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. 15 For I have given you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.

Bible Study: [1-20] Washing of the disciples’ feet. This episode occurs in John at the place of the narration of the institution of the Eucharist in the synoptics. It may be a dramatization of Luke 22:27–"I am your servant." It is presented as a "model" ("pattern") of the crucifixion. It symbolizes cleansing from sin by sacrificial death. [1] Before the feast of Passover: this would be Thursday evening, before the day of preparation; in the synoptics, the Last Supper is a Passover meal taking place, in John’s chronology, on Friday evening. To the end: or, "completely."  [5] The act of washing another’s feet was one that could not be required of the lowliest Jewish slave. It is an allusion to the humiliating death of the crucifixion. [10] Bathed: many have suggested that this passage is a symbolic reference to baptism. The Greek root involved is used in baptismal contexts in 1 Cor 6:11; Eph 5:26; Titus 3:5; Hebrews 10:22.