Thu 28th Mar 2024 - 7:00pm to 9:00pm
Maundy: from the Latin word ‘mandare’, from which we get the word ‘command’. Jesus said: ‘Love one another as I have loved you.’
This is the day when we remember Jesus sharing the Last Supper with his disciples before his death on Good Friday.
Maundy Thursday 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:
The Last Supper (Holy Communion)
‘Jesus took some bread, gave thanks, broke it, saying,“This is my body, which I am giving for you. Do this to remember me.’
Luke 22:19 (NCV)
Symbolic Foot Washing
‘So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.’
John 13:14 (NRSVUE)
Stripping of the Altars
‘They stripped Jesus and put a scarlet robe on him’
Matthew 27:28 (NRSVUE)
Watch in the Garden of Repose
‘My heart is full of sorrow, to the point of death. Stay here and watch.’
Mark 14:34 (NCV)
The St Andrew’s Chapel is transformed into the Garden of Repose, with the altar dressed lavishly with greenery and the sacrament from the preceeding Holy Communion set upon it. Parishioners keep vigil in silent prayer and adoration, recalling our Lord’s agony in the Garden of Gethsemane and his rebuke to his disciples: “What? Could you not watch one hour with me?”
Those keeping watch further recall and respond to Jesus’ admonition to his disciples to stay awake to pray with him until the Roman soldiers come to arrest and imprison him.
The Watch concludes around 9.10pm with the reading of Matthew 26:45-56. The latter part of which reads “………At that hour Jesus said to the crowds, ‘Have you come out with swords and clubs to arrest me as though I were a bandit? Day after day I sat in the temple teaching, and you did not arrest me. But all this has taken place, so that the scriptures of the prophets may be fulfilled.’ Then all the disciples deserted him and fled.”
After keeping watch, Thursday passes into Good Friday.
