Today, after the words about Judas’ betrayal, Jesus invites the disciples again to wash one another’s feet, making it into a model to follow (Jn 13:14). What does the innovation of the new commandment consist of?

It has been said that the innovation is expressed by the sentence “love one another, as I have loved you", which means, as a consequence of extreme moral effort. However the true innovation of the new commandment cannot consist of the moral exigency raise. The essential in these words is the "new substance" of the being that has been given to us. The innovation can only come from the communion with Christ, from living in Him. Only if we let us be washed once and again, if we let us be "purified" by the Lord Himself, can we learn to do, together with Him, what He has done.

— The insertion of our being in Him - "yet I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me" (Gal 2:20)— is what is truly new.