Today is Maundy Thursday.

Maundatum. Mandate. Commandment, from Jesus’ own words, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another” (John 13:34). It seems a little strange that such an ‘obvious’ thing should need a mention at all and that he calls it ‘new.’ 

But, there it is.

It was also the day when Jesus, through a shared meal, instituted the great theological metaphor of The Lord’s Supper, Communion, Eucharist. The sacrament. In it, the holy and profane kiss in one simple act.

Jesus, himself a living sacrament, brings a constant source of spiritual nourishment by means of something we do every day.

In celebration of this holy day, in the context of National Poetry Month, I give you this powerful sonnet by the ever-brilliant, Malcolm Guite.

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Maundy Thursday

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