REFLECTION ON MAUNDY THURSDAY

Last Updated on Tuesday, 10 April 2012 10:32

By Revd Rob Marshall

Today, Her Majesty the Queen will distribute the Maundy gifts in York Minster to people from dioceses all over the country. Monarchs in centuries gone by actually did what the act recalls from the Gospels: the moment Jesus washed the feet of his disciples. It was to show that despite the grandeur of the reigning monarch they were ultimately there to serve the people – just as Jesus came not to be served but to serve.

Any of you who have ever attending a foot washing ceremony as part of the Maundy Thursday celebrations will know how moving it is. The priest (or bishop) washes the feet of the faithful to remember Jesus’ teaching.

Today is also the day when the church gathers to bless the oils of anointing and when priests renew their ordination vows.

But Maundy Thursday is also the day when the Church gives thanks for the institution of the Eucharist. Transforming the traditional Passover meal, Jesus takes the bread and wine and offers the faithful a symbol of his passion and anticipates the post resurrection community of gathered believers.

Within two hundred years or so of Jesus’ resurrection St. Athanasius (c. 295 - 373 A.D) reminded us that the bread and wine are surrounded by the prayers of the church and that they are transformed into symbols of great mystery:

You shall see the Levites bringing loaves and a cup of wine, and placing them on the table. So long as the prayers of supplication and entreaties have not been made, there is only bread and wine. But after the great and wonderful prayers have been completed, then the bread is become the Body, and the wine the Blood, of our Lord Jesus Christ….Let us approach the celebration of the mysteries. This bread and this wine, so long as the prayers and supplications have not taken place, remain simply what they are. But after the great prayers and holy supplications have been sent forth, the Word comes down into the bread and wine -- and thus is His Body confected.

Then, to end the great celebrations of this momentous day – there is the Watch – as the faithful  wait for the events following Jesus’ arrest to unfold........ let us watch this night.

O God, who anointed your Only Begotten Son with the Holy Spirit

and made him Christ and Lord,

graciously grant

that, being made sharers in his consecration,

we may bear witness to your Redemption in the world.

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.