Catholics commemorate the complex and profound events of the evening of the Last Supper on the Thursday before Easter, which is known as Holy Thursday or Maundy Thursday.
Traditionally, on the morning of Holy Thursday the bishop of each diocese celebrates a Chrism Mass where the holy oils that will be used during the year are blessed and priests of the diocese renew their vows.
At the Mass of the Lord’s Supper, Catholics recall that Jesus was celebrating the Jewish Passover with his Apostles at what would be his final meal, instituting the Sacrament of Eucharist by changing the bread and wine into his Body and Blood.
Maundy is derived from the Latin word for “command”, referring to the new Commandment that Jesus gave his disciples to love one another as He loved them when He established the priesthood and washed the feet of his closest followers.
There is no formal end to the Mass of the Lord’s Supper as the faithful have an opportunity to adore Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament into the evening, recalling how Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane where he would be arrested.
Holy Thursday is the first of three sacred days that make up the sacred Paschal Triduum. Along with Good Friday and Holy Saturday, it brings Lent to a close.
Holy Thursday is the first day of the Easter Triduum:
Reminders of Christ’s abiding presence in his Church:
God shows that He wants to be close to us:
In his Gospel, Saint John, more fully than the other three evangelists, reports in his own distinctive way the farewell discourses of Jesus; they appear as his testament and a synthesis of the core of his message. They are introduced by the washing of feet, in which Jesus’ redemptive ministry on behalf of a humanity needing purification is summed up in this gesture of humility. Jesus’ words end as a prayer, his priestly prayer, whose background exegetes have traced to the ritual of the Jewish feast of Atonement. The significance of that feast and its rituals – the world’s purification and reconciliation with God – is fulfilled in Jesus’ prayer, a prayer which anticipates his Passion and transforms it into a prayer. The priestly prayer thus makes uniquely evident the perpetual mystery of Holy Thursday: the new priesthood of Jesus Christ and its prolongation in the consecration of the Apostles, in the incorporation of the disciples into the Lord’s priesthood.
Pope Benedict XVI, Homily, 1 April 2010
A Mass celebrated only one time each year in each diocese:
Praying with Jesus at night:
Jesus gave the supreme expression of his free offering of Himself at the meal shared with the twelve Apostles “on the night He was betrayed”. On the eve of his Passion, while still free, Jesus transformed this Last Supper with the Apostles into the memorial of his voluntary offering to the Father for the salvation of men: “This is my body which is given for you.” “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.”
Catechism of the Catholic Church 610
Remember Jesus:
Jesus is the Lamb of God:
So when he had washed their feet and put his garments back on and reclined at table again, he said to them, “Do you realize what I have done for you? You call me ‘teacher’ and ‘master,’ and rightly so, for indeed I am. If I, therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another’s feet. I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do.”
John 13: 12-15
A symbolic action and an absurd gesture:
Following Jesus and seeing Him in one another:
Holy Thursday at the place of Jesus’ agony:
The Truth, Goodness, and Beauty of the Catholic Church
Churches are precious buildings:
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