'Love one another...': A Reflection for Holy Thursday. 

Greetings friends. 

I've not been here with you in a while. Maybe I'll spend more time here. We'll see what life does, shall we? 

Anyway...

This is Holy Thursday 2026, the day we remember Jesus' last supper with his disciples. In the Gospel of John, Jesus takes the opportunity to give them his last instruction: 'Love one another'... The last three years, all the teachings, the parables, the arguments, the debates, all of it distilled to something so simple yet so deep: 'Love one another'; the Kingdom of God in a nutshell; 'Love one another'...

As we watch the men of power- Trump, Hegseth, Netanyahu, Putin- tear the world apart, every one of them loudly boasting their closeness to God, we might ask, is it really that simple? 'Love one another'? Have we really allowed ourselves to be gaslit for millennia?

John was the youngest disciple and the last to die. Tradition tells us that as a frail old man, mostly deaf, mostly blind, drifting in and out of cognition, he'd be lovingly, carefully carried into meetings of believers. All he would say, over and over, weakly, under his breath, was 'Love one another... Love one another... Love one another...' He was the last human on Earth to have heard Jesus say it, and this frail old man wanted us to remember it... and only that. We forgot, and decided on empire, colonialism, exclusionary edicts, excommunications, exorcisms, purity tests and conversion therapies, dead forests, poisoned water, luxury islands with kidnapped girls...

But through it all, some remembered. Some still remember. And like John, we'll go to our deathbeds saying it over and over and over:

'Love one another... Love one another... Love one another...

Love...'