{"id":10736,"date":"2026-08-27T19:03:24","date_gmt":"2026-08-27T23:03:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fatherboniface.org\/wordpresshome\/books-and-articles\/e90-accompaniment-10\/"},"modified":"2026-08-27T19:03:24","modified_gmt":"2026-08-27T23:03:24","slug":"e90-accompaniment-10","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.fatherboniface.org\/wordpresshome\/books-and-articles\/e90-accompaniment-10\/","title":{"rendered":"Accompaniment 10: Jn 13 \u2014 A new commandment"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Written for Exodus 90 in 2023, as part of a series of ten reflections on the art of accompaniment.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>This Gospel passage summarizes the whole of salvation history and its fulfillment in Christ with a single commandment: \u201cLove one another as I love you.\u201d Earlier Jesus indicated that the greatest commandment in the Old Testament was to love the Lord your God and to love your neighbor as yourself. When He gave that answer He could not yet give the new commandment, because He had not yet demonstrated the greatness of His Love&#8211;to lay down His life for us. At the Last Supper He is able to do that, because the Last Supper already contains His whole passion, death and Resurrection&#8211;this is my Body given up for you&#8230;this is my Blood poured out for you&#8230;do this in memory of me. He gives Himself freely and totally for us. Knowing this, we can walk back through all that we have reflected on in accompaniment in the past nine articles and understand the pathway of the redemption that Jesus establishes for us.<\/p>\n<p>God is a communion of persons and His goal for us was always to live in a communion of persons with each other. In heaven there are only communions of persons between everyone. Due to sin, shame entered in and ruptured this communion of persons, causing Adam and Eve to hide themselves and be ashamed of their nakedness. From then on, their original transparency (nakedness) felt vulnerable (woundable)&#8211;they knew they could be wounded be another person and so they put up defenses to protect themselves. The feelings of shame that come with sin are intensified with silence, judgment and secrecy and healed through empathy. When the vulnerability of sharing our shame is met with empathy, a communion of persons begins to heal and grow.<\/p>\n<p>In the fullness of time, God became man in Jesus Christ and He entered into our fallen condition. Through His Passion He enters into all our sin, wounds and shame and brings the healing power of empathy in His divine mercy. In this way He sets off a chain reaction, bringing to each one of us His own ultimate vulnerability on the Cross and making room for each one of us in the tender communion of His own Heart. Then He commands us to bring that healing empathy to others, to love one another as He loves us (and by His grace He is with us and in us as we do that). In this way we reverse the process of rupture and form communions of persons with others.<\/p>\n<p>This is no easy path. Loving as Jesus loves is hard. It is a path of blood, sweat and tears. It does not allow for the short cuts of spiritual bypassing (telling others what to do without lifting a finger to help them) and it is not helped by intensifying shame through surveillance accountability. There are no easy fixes for ourselves or for others. Spiritual disciplines play a role of course, but only in so far as they are in the service of relationships&#8211;fighting for each other, picking each other up when we fail, encouraging each other in the struggle. When we journey together we have the chance to accompany each other through offering our loving presence, our empathy, our encouragement and our hope. In this way we extend the love of Christ and we develop communions of persons and we begin to enjoy a foretaste of heaven. In this way, an Exodus fraternity can truly be a healing force for the Church and for the whole world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Written for Exodus 90 in 2023, as part of a series of ten reflections on the art of accompaniment. This Gospel passage summarizes the whole of salvation history and its fulfillment in Christ with a single commandment: \u201cLove one another as I love you.\u201d Earlier Jesus indicated that the greatest commandment in the Old Testament [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":10722,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-10736","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P7bfMR-2Na","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":10733,"url":"https:\/\/www.fatherboniface.org\/wordpresshome\/books-and-articles\/e90-accompaniment-07\/","url_meta":{"origin":10736,"position":0},"title":"Accompaniment 7: Mt 22 \u2014 The Greatest Commandment","author":"Father Boniface Hicks, O.S.B.","date":"August 27, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"Written for Exodus 90 in 2023, as part of a series of ten reflections on the art of accompaniment. One question that arises from Jesus\u2019s teaching on the Greatest Commandment is: \u201cWhat does it mean to love God with all our mind or all our heart?\u201d Another question that arises\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10722,"url":"https:\/\/www.fatherboniface.org\/wordpresshome\/books-and-articles\/","url_meta":{"origin":10736,"position":1},"title":"Books and Articles","author":"Father Boniface Hicks, O.S.B.","date":"August 27, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"What I have written, in one place \u2014 the books, the articles, and the academic work. Where the full text is on this site, the title is a link. Books The Hidden Power of Silence in the Mass Sophia Institute Press, 2024 Five movements of silence in the Mass, moving\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10726,"url":"https:\/\/www.fatherboniface.org\/wordpresshome\/books-and-articles\/e90-accompaniment-00-intro\/","url_meta":{"origin":10736,"position":2},"title":"Accompaniment: Introducing my contribution","author":"Father Boniface Hicks, O.S.B.","date":"August 27, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"Written for Exodus 90 in 2023, as part of a series of ten reflections on the art of accompaniment. In the Benedictine, monastic tradition, there is a strong emphasis on accompaniment. Monks learn to be monks from other monks. This only works when monks are willing to be vulnerable and\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10735,"url":"https:\/\/www.fatherboniface.org\/wordpresshome\/books-and-articles\/e90-accompaniment-09\/","url_meta":{"origin":10736,"position":3},"title":"Accompaniment 9: Mk 5 \u2014 Fixing is a form of shaming","author":"Father Boniface Hicks, O.S.B.","date":"August 27, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"Written for Exodus 90 in 2023, as part of a series of ten reflections on the art of accompaniment. In our first reflections we looked at the importance of relationships and our goal to develop a communion of persons. Relationships are essential, but relationships can also be hurtful or unhelpful,\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10729,"url":"https:\/\/www.fatherboniface.org\/wordpresshome\/books-and-articles\/e90-accompaniment-03\/","url_meta":{"origin":10736,"position":4},"title":"Accompaniment 3: Jn 21 \u2014 Peter, do you love me? Try, fail, surrender","author":"Father Boniface Hicks, O.S.B.","date":"August 27, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"Written for Exodus 90 in 2023, as part of a series of ten reflections on the art of accompaniment. As we reflected in the last article, our work of healing is to try to be vulnerable. When we try, we will inevitably fail. This failure may be our own fault\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10730,"url":"https:\/\/www.fatherboniface.org\/wordpresshome\/books-and-articles\/e90-accompaniment-04\/","url_meta":{"origin":10736,"position":5},"title":"Accompaniment 4: Mark 3 \u2014 The man with the withered hand","author":"Father Boniface Hicks, O.S.B.","date":"August 27, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"Written for Exodus 90 in 2023, as part of a series of ten reflections on the art of accompaniment. As we have seen in our reflections so far, we are made to be in a communion of persons. It is necessary to be vulnerable to enter into a communion of\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fatherboniface.org\/wordpresshome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/10736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fatherboniface.org\/wordpresshome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fatherboniface.org\/wordpresshome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fatherboniface.org\/wordpresshome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fatherboniface.org\/wordpresshome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10736"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.fatherboniface.org\/wordpresshome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/10736\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fatherboniface.org\/wordpresshome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/10722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fatherboniface.org\/wordpresshome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}