Holy Thursday




HOLY THURSDAY
I have always known this day as 'Holy Thursday' and wondered why some called the day 'Maundy Thursday'.   I found out that the root of this tradition comes because it was on this day that Christ gave his 'mandatum' (mandate) to follow his example by going out to wash the feet of others.

It was also the day he gave the mandate: 'Do this in remembrance of me.'  A command to celebrate the agape meal, the meal of love that he established and wanted the community to continue so that they could continue to recieve and become for the world the 'Body of Christ.'

It is suitable today, then, to consider how each of these'mandatums' cannot be understood without the other:
1. We must continue to celebrate and to recieved the Eucharist as Christ requested (and which we know the earliest Church immediately began to do each day of the Resurrection) [1 Cor. 11:23-26]
2.  We must go out to 'wash the feet' of our brothers and sisters, to be of service to the most needy as we know the earliest Church did as well [Jn 13: 1-15].
[Acts 2:42 brings both elements together when it presents the Church as both 'breaking bread' but also living the 'communal life'.]

Without each of these elements, either the meal becomes an empty ritual that has no effect in the world or all of the action and service we do becomes disconnected from its deepest purpose and meaning. The Eucharistic meal feeds us and creates a deeper awareness that we are and must be "the Body of Christ" to the world and our service outside of the ritual is the natural outpouring of this reality.

Generally when we think of a 'mandate' it has a negative connotation and denotes impostion of something difficult and against our will.  This double 'mandate' of love - is an offer for us to be taken up using our human freedom and one intended to lead us to the deepest and most profound state of peace and happinss.  One that does not come without occassional sacrifice and suffering but one that we know moves 'through' these trials to a deeper experience of life and resurrection.

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