The setting of Sunday’s Gospel is the ‘Upper Room’, after Jesus had completed the dramatic washing of the disciples’ feet during the last supper.  Jesus’ actions had shocked the disciples, and he shocked them again by warning them of Judas’ role in what is to come.  After Judas has left, Jesus addresses the remaining eleven though they do not grasp fully what Jesus is saying.

There is an ending at hand but also a beginning. Their present friendship is about to be transformed forever into a new community, bound together by the same love that binds Father to Son.  Jesus gives them a “New Commandment” of love. What is new is the model Jesus leaves them of selfless, sacrificial, forgiving love. A new standard of love that transcends legalisms and measurements.

This “New Commandment” calls for us to move on from our entrenched views and values.  It is a call to pilgrimage which calls us to the holiness which is only available when we allow ourselves to take up the gift of becoming ever new. To say yes to Jesus “New Commandment” is to point your feet in a certain direction, toward full communion with God and neighbour.