Holy Thursday

233 1 minute read

Holy Thursday marks the beginning of the Easter Triduum in the holy Roman Catholic Church. Today we celebrate Christ’s twofold giving of himself:

To his enemies, to die on the cross for the life of the world. The is the Paschal victim, whose blood saves his people.
To his friends and disciples, his church — that is to us — in the sacrament of his body and blood.

If we want to belong to Christ, we must follow his examples of self giving and of service – washing one another’s feet as we see in the gospel. We must be willing and ready to say with Christ, about our own selves: this is my body which is given for you.

The whole purpose of today’s liturgy is to enable us to make this self-giving the real motivation for our lives. On Holy Thursday we remember that an important aspect of our Catholic and Christian journey is that of service, service to one another.

The holy Thursday celebration ends differently from normal mass. After the priest says the prayer after Communion, he is accompanied by the ministers as he carries the Blessed Sacrament in procession, to the place where it is to be kept until Good Friday, the second day of the Easter Triduum since there will be no consecration on that day.

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