Also known as Holy Thursday, Maundy Thursday commemorates the Institution of the Holy Eucharist
am: Ps 102
pm: 142, 143
Lam 2:10-18
1 Cor 10:14-17, 11:27-32
John 17
LITURGICAL THEME FOR THE DAY: Also known as Holy Thursday, Maundy Thursday, is, commemorates the Institution of the Holy Eucharist with the Evening Mass of the Lord’s beginning The Paschal Triduum. As this liturgy begins, Lent has ended. Our 40 days of Lent helped us “prepare to celebrate the Paschal Mystery with mind and heart renewed.” Now we come to three liturgies which help us experience what is offered us in the new Passover. Each liturgy helps us enter more deeply into the mystery and meaning. Maundy or Holy Thursday evening takes us to the heart of the gift and to our mission. The name “Maundy” comes from the Latin antiphon Mandatum Novum, meaning “a new mandate.” This new mandate from Jesus is taken from John 13:34: love one another as I have loved you and immortalized in the act at the meal, whereby Jesus took a basin and a towel, and began to wash his disciples’ feet. This seems to have caused some consternation among the apostles as washing the feet of guests seems to be the work of a servant, perhaps even a slave.
The Liturgy traditionally has five movements
1. The Rite of Election ( For the adults preparing for baptism at the Easter Vigil)
2. The Liturgy of the Word
3. The Mandatum/ Foot Washing
4. The Liturgy of the Eucharist
5. The Stripping of the Altar and Sanctuary – (With this solemn gesture, we ritualize what we as a community are doing to prepare for Good Friday. We strip our focus down to Jesus alone. All the signs and symbols are put aside. We are left with the taste of the Eucharist and the gratitude in our hearts. We leave in focused silence. We leave with the image of Jesus, as servant for us, our hearts readied to celebrate the mystery of his passion and death for us.
MEDITATION OF THE DAY: These passages from John’s Gospel record Jesus’ longest recorded prayer prior to Jesus’ arrest. In it, Jesus asks the Father to protect his followers. This prayer also tells us three things about the disciples: They accepted the Jesus’ teachings, they knew with certainty that Jesus was divine, and they believed that Jesus was sent from the Father. Can we say that today about our faith experience? If so are we willing to fulfill the Mandatum? Are we willing to make flesh in the world Jesus teaching, healing and saving ministry? This is not an option for believers, the call is clear…“To Go now and Do the same? “.
This spirituality of service is a spirituality that flows from the Eucharist itself. How do we become bread broken for the world? So that the whole Church may better live out this spirituality of service, the Lord gives us this living bread and saving cup, to nurture us so that we may go our into the world as his very as servant.
In these two liturgical actions of the mandatum and the Eucharist, it is revealed that God and His kingdom are the real food, the real life of humanity. And this Eucharistic Life, offered to us through the ministry of the Church if offered to all those who believe in Him. In receiving him as Living Bread and Saving Cup, we are expressing his gift to us in the meaning and the content of our lives.
PRAYER OF THE DAY: O God, who has called us to participate in this most sacred Supper, in which your Only Begotten Son,when about to hand himself over to death,entrusted to the Church a gift for all eternity,the banquet of his love in the sacraments of the altar, grant, we pray, that we may draw from so great a mystery, the fullness of charity and of life. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
ANCIENT WISDOM/PRESENT GRACE: “We call this food Eucharist, and no one else is permitted to partake of it, except one who believes our teaching to be true and who has been washed in the washing which is for the remission of sins and for regeneration [i.e., has received baptism] and is thereby living as Christ enjoined. For not as common bread nor common drink do we receive these, but since Jesus Christ our Savior was made incarnate by the word of God and had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so too, as we have been taught, the food which has been made into the Eucharist by the Eucharistic prayer set down by him, and by the change of which our blood and flesh is nurtured, is both the flesh and the blood of that incarnated Jesus” – Justim Martyr, First Apology 66
HOLY WEEK DISCIPLINE– The foot washing is an example of service and humility even performed by royalty on this day. What act in your daily life would evidence your humility and service to another? Consider one in the morning and one act in the evening. If you are considering a sacred fast, consider what is done in parts of Germany, where Maundy Thursday is known as “Green Thursday” and the traditional foods are green vegetables and green salad.