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Maundy Thursday (from mandatum, ‘commandment’, because of the use of John 13.34 in the Antiphon) contains a rich complex of themes: humble Christian service expressed through Christ’s washing of his disciples’ feet, the institution of the Eucharist and the perfection of Christ’s loving obedience through the agony of Gethsemane. After keeping vigil (‘Could you not watch with me one hour?’) Thursday passes into Good Friday.
Due to our restrictions we will need to be creative in our engagement with
the story of Jesus washing the feet of his friends and in our participation in the Watch. Although we are united in Christ we cannot be together in one place to receive the bread and wine of Holy Communion. The term ‘Spiritual Communion’ has been used historically to describe the means of grace by which a person, prevented for some serious reason from sharing in a celebration of the Eucharist, nonetheless shares in the communion of Jesus Christ. The Book of Common Prayer instructs us that if we offer ourselves in penitence and faith, giving thanks for the redemption won by Christ crucified, we may truly ‘eat and drink the Body and Blood of our Saviour Christ’, although we cannot receive the sacrament physically in ourselves. As we prepare for this worship you may want to light a candle in your home.
The Liturgy for this evening begins with a note of thanksgiving as we celebrate the gift of the Eucharist, instituted by Jesus at the Last Supper. We hear the earliest surviving account of that supper from St Paul’s first letter to the Corinthian church. From then on the mood changes. In churches some of the bread and wine consecrated earlier is taken to an Altar of Repose and a Watch may be kept. Like the disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane, we are invited to keep vigil for a time, reflecting on the Lord’s agony and his forthcoming betrayal, trial and crucifixion. The altars are made bare as a reminder of Jesus’s loneliness and dereliction.
