Bishops in England are getting down on their knees this Maundy Thursday to shine the shoes of office workers and shoppers in towns and cities across the country. The free act is inspired by the night of the Last Supper when Jesus washed his disciples’ feet before his trial and crucifixion on Good Friday.
The word maundy is an English corruption of the Latin mandatum, from the ‘new commandment’ that Jesus gives his disciples after washing their feet.
“Take, eat, this is my body,” Jesus said. Then he took the cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, “Drink of it, all of you; for this is my blood of the new covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.”
It is easy for us to say that we love our neighbor, and in fact, many of us repeat those verses every Sunday. It is easy to strike our chests and claim we have given a certain amount of our money to the local shelter, a hospice in Guatemala or even for the Millenium Development Goals, but would we be willing to leave the ease of modern life and share all we have with the miserable? No, we would not.
Episcopal News Service observes the fifth anniversay of the war in Iraq by looking at the many ways in which The Episcopal Church remains active
At least two more good essays have appeared since the initial reactions in blogs and in the media to the Pew Forum on Religion and
IRIN reports: In a statement, the Swaziland Coalition of Concerned Civic Organisations (SCCCO) condemned the “continued abuse of the Royal Swazi Police and Umbutfo Swaziland
“American religious and secular values hold that medical professionals have a responsibility to provide timely and adequate medical care and that, while an individual’s conscientious objection must be protected, it cannot be at the cost of good patient care and it cannot control or restrict the legal and moral decisions of the patient.” – The Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice
“I am not afraid of schism. I am afraid of a church in which leaders voted to listen to the experience of homosexual persons, but show little evidence of having acted on that promise. I am afraid of a church in which righteousness is understood to be the enforcement of a small number of biblical texts, forgetting that in the bible righteousness is realized in the practice of justice.” – Paul Gibson
Bishop Mouneer Anis of Egypt has issued a statement on the meeting of the Joint Standing Committee of the Anglican Consultative Council held February 29