We find it extremely hard to accept undeserved service and forgiveness and love from anyone, and especially from Jesus. For we cannot do anything to earn his love; worse yet, we know how often we betray him and what he stands for. And he tells us what he is about: “Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord—and you are right, for that is what I am. So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you” (John 13:12–15).

Perhaps part of our reluctance to accept his forgiveness derives from the realization that we will then be called to give up our own grudges. But the deepest level of reluctance comes, it seems, from the difficulty of accepting an absolutely free gift. But when we do accept it, we can experience the effusion of Peter: “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!” (John 13:9).

- Excerpted from Seek My Face by William A. Barry, SJ