Holy Thursday (Lord's Supper)

The Day of the Lord's Supper

The Roman Missal names this day Feria V in Cena Domini, "the Thursday of the Lord's Supper". In the language of the liturgy, the days following Sunday are called feriae; Thursday is the fifth^[6]. The name says what matters most: on this day, everything converges on the meal Christ shared with the Twelve on the eve of his Passion.

Saint John opens the account of that evening with a sentence that gives its key:

"Before the feast of the Passover, knowing that his hour had come to pass from this world to his Father, Jesus, having loved his own who were in the world, loved them to the end." — Gospel according to Saint John, 13:1^[7]

The Church herself has defined what she celebrates that evening. According to the rubrics of the Missal, the homily sets "in light the principal mysteries celebrated in this Mass, namely the institution of the Eucharist and of the priesthood, as well as the Lord's commandment on fraternal charity"^[8]. The 1988 letter of the Congregation for Divine Worship on the Easter feasts says the same thing: "All attention must be turned toward the mysteries which are recalled in the highest degree in this Mass"^[9]. These three gifts structure the whole of Holy Thursday.

The Names of Holy Thursday

Each language has retained one aspect of the day. Modern French simply says "Jeudi saint" (Holy Thursday). Old French also said "jeudi absolu": Littré notes that the expression "was formerly said for Holy Thursday", and he cites it in Joinville, where Saint Louis asks the chronicler whether he washes the feet of the poor "on absolute Thursday"^[10]. The same dictionary connects the word to the Latin absolvere, "to loosen and hence to absolve", and notes the thirteenth-century "absolus" in the sense of "absolved"; and it is precisely on Holy Thursday that Rome reconciled public penitents (see below).

The following table compares the main names of the day and what they highlight.

English Maundy Thursday comes from Middle English maunde, which designated the Last Supper and the ceremony of washing the feet of the poor; the word goes back, through Old French mandé, to the Latin mandatum, the first word of the antiphon Mandatum novum do vobis, "I give you a new commandment" (Jn 13:34)^[11]. German Gründonnerstag is attested around 1200; Wolfgang Pfeifer's etymological dictionary judges its explanation "disputed" and suggests, without deciding, the custom of eating green, fresh herbs on that day^[12]. Finally, the Ecumenical Patriarchate sums up the object of "Great Thursday" in four words: on it are celebrated "the holy Washing, the mystical Supper, the supernatural Prayer, and the Betrayal"^[13].

A Day with Two Faces: End of Lent and Threshold of the Triduum

Holy Thursday is divided in two by a very clear line. The Universal Norms on the Liturgical Year, approved by Paul VI on 14 February 1969^[14], state that the season of Lent runs from Ash Wednesday up to the Mass of the Lord's Supper, which it does not include, and that the Paschal Triduum "begins with the evening Mass on Holy Thursday"^[15]. Until the evening, then, we are still in Lent; from the evening Mass onward, we are in the three holy days.

This double belonging can be read in the official table of precedence. The Paschal Triduum holds the very first rank there; the days of Holy Week, Monday through Thursday inclusive, come in second rank, alongside Christmas, Epiphany, Ascension, and Pentecost, and take precedence over every other celebration^[16]. No saint's feast can therefore be celebrated on a Holy Thursday.

In the morning, the bishop celebrates the Chrism Mass with the priests of his diocese. The 1988 letter sees in it "as it were a manifestation of the communion of priests with their bishop in the one priesthood and the one ministry of Christ"; it states: "Traditionally, the Chrism Mass is celebrated on the Thursday of Holy Week", while allowing it to be anticipated "on another day, but one close to Easter" when it is difficult to gather the clergy and the people on that day^[17]. Parishes may receive the holy oils before the evening Mass^[18]. That Mass has its own article and is not developed here.

In the evening, finally, the whole community gathers for the single Mass of the Supper. It continues with adoration at the altar of repose, "for a suitable part of the night"; after midnight, adoration continues "without solemnity", since the day of the Passion has begun^[19].

When Does Holy Thursday Fall?

Holy Thursday falls three days before Easter. But Easter is a movable feast: in the Gregorian calendar, it falls between 22 March and 25 April, according to a rule fixed by the ecclesiastical computus (see Why Does Easter Change Date?). Holy Thursday therefore falls between 19 March and 22 April^[20]. The Orthodox Churches reckon Easter with the Julian calendar: their Great Thursday often falls later, and in some years coincides with that of Catholics.

The table below gives the dates for the next ten years, calculated according to both reckonings and cross-checked with the published tables.

In 2027 and 2032, the Latin Holy Thursday falls on 25 March, the day of the Annunciation of the Lord. The rule is provided for: when the Annunciation falls on a day of Holy Week, it is "always" transferred to the Monday following the second Sunday of Easter^[21]. In both those years, it will therefore be celebrated on Monday 5 April.

The Witness of the Gospels and of Saint Paul

The Catechism recalls that "the three Synoptic Gospels and St. Paul have handed on to us the account of the institution of the Eucharist", while Saint John reports, in chapter 6, the Bread of Life discourse that prepares it^[22]. Saint John, on the other hand, is alone in recounting the washing of the feet (Jn 13:1-15) and the long farewell discourse that follows (Jn 13–17). The two traditions complement each other: one gives the sacramental gesture, the other the gesture of service and Christ's prayer for unity, "That they may all be one" (Jn 17:21).

The Synoptics place the meal "when evening came", with Jesus "at table with the Twelve" (Mt 26:20). Saint Paul, writing to the Corinthians, hands on the account as a tradition received from the Lord himself; it is this text that the Church reads every Holy Thursday:

"For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you: that the Lord Jesus, on the night he was handed over, took bread, and, after he had given thanks, broke it and said, 'This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.' In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, 'This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.' For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes." — Saint Paul, First Letter to the Corinthians, 11:23-26^[23]

Saint Matthew reports the word over the cup with decisive precision: "this is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed on behalf of many for the forgiveness of sins" (Mt 26:28). The meal ends with the singing of the psalms; then "they went out to the Mount of Olives" (Mk 14:26).

The Upper Room, "a Large Upper Room"

For this meal, Jesus sends two disciples into the city: a man will show them, Mark and Luke say, "upstairs, a large room furnished" (Mk 14:15; Lk 22:12). This is what tradition calls the Upper Room, on Mount Sion in Jerusalem. Saint John Paul II celebrated Mass there during the Great Jubilee of the year 2000; three years later he wrote:

"During the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000, I was granted the grace of celebrating the Eucharist in the Upper Room in Jerusalem, where, according to tradition, it was first celebrated by Christ himself. The Upper Room is the place of the institution of this most holy Sacrament." — Saint John Paul II, encyclical Ecclesia de Eucharistia, § 2, 17 April 2003^[24]

The place has kept a liturgical role in Jerusalem. A typikon (book of liturgical rules) of the Church of Jerusalem dated 1122 provides that after the single meal of Great Thursday, the patriarch goes with the clergy and the people to the Upper Room, which this typikon calls the upper chamber (hyperôon) of holy Sion, to wash the feet of twelve clerics there^[25]. The memory of the place and the memory of the gesture thus remained linked for centuries.

Was the Supper a Passover Meal?

The first three Gospels present the Supper as the Jewish Passover meal. Luke reports Jesus' word at the start of the meal: "I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer" (Lk 22:15). Saint John, for his part, places the Supper "before the feast of the Passover" (Jn 13:1); the next morning, Jesus' accusers do not enter the praetorium "so that they would not be defiled and could eat the Passover lamb" (Jn 18:28), and the condemnation takes place "on the day of Preparation for the Passover" (Jn 19:14).

Benedict XVI devoted his 2007 Holy Thursday homily to this question. He speaks of an "apparent contradiction" between John and the Synoptics, and adopts a solution made possible by the discovery of the Qumran manuscripts: Jesus would have celebrated Passover with his disciples according to that community's own calendar, at least one day before the Passover of the Temple, while he died at the hour of the lambs' immolation. The pope draws from it the deep meaning of the Supper:

"Jesus therefore celebrated Passover without a lamb — no, not without a lamb: instead of the lamb he gave himself, his body and his blood. He thus anticipated his death in a manner consistent with his word: 'No one takes my life from me; I lay it down of my own accord.'" — Benedict XVI, homily of the Mass in Cena Domini, Basilica of Saint John Lateran, 5 April 2007^[26]

Benedict XVI presents this solution as a hypothesis "which, although not yet accepted by all, nevertheless possesses a high degree of probability", and he immediately draws the consequence: "We are now in a position to say that what John reported is historically accurate"^[27]. This solution has the advantage of holding the two testimonies together without sacrificing either: John tells the truth about the hour of Christ's death, the other three evangelists tell the truth about the Passover character of the meal. The Catechism, for its part, keeps to the essential: "In celebrating the Last Supper with his apostles in the course of the Passover meal, Jesus gave the Jewish Passover its definitive meaning"^[28]. Saint Paul had said it in a word: "our paschal lamb has been sacrificed: it is Christ" (1 Cor 5:7).

On the evening of Holy Thursday, the Church does not commemorate three juxtaposed events, but a single gift with three faces. The 1988 letter puts it this way: at the Last Supper, the Lord Jesus, "loving to the end his own who were in the world, offered to God his Father his Body and his Blood under the species of bread and wine, gave them to his apostles as food and ordered them, and their successors in the priesthood, to offer them"^[29].

The institution of the Eucharist

The Catechism sums up in a single paragraph everything the Supper contains:

"The Lord, having loved his own, loved them to the end. Knowing that the hour had come to leave this world and return to his Father, during a meal, he washed their feet and gave them the commandment of love. To leave them a pledge of this love, to never depart from his own and to make them share in his Passover, he instituted the Eucharist as the memorial of his death and resurrection, and he commanded his apostles to celebrate it until his return, "thereby making them priests of the New Testament." — Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 1337^[30]

The Supper is not a mere farewell meal. The Catechism specifies that Jesus thereby "made of this Last Supper with his apostles the memorial of his voluntary offering to the Father", "on the eve of his Passion, while he was still free"^[31]. The sacrifice of the Cross, which will take place the next day, is already offered under the signs of bread and wine. The Council of Trent put into words the love that inspires this gesture:

"And so, our Savior, about to leave this world for the Father, instituted this sacrament in which he in some way poured out the riches of his divine love for men." — Council of Trent, 13th session, 11 October 1551, decree on the Eucharist, ch. 2^[32]

The doctrine of this sacrament is set out in the articles devoted to the Eucharist, the Real Presence, transubstantiation and the sacrificial character of the Mass. Holy Thursday is the day on which the Church celebrates its birth.

Why at the Supper? The answer of Saint Thomas Aquinas

Why did Christ institute this sacrament precisely on that evening, and not earlier? Saint Thomas Aquinas raises the question in the Summa Theologiae and answers that "it is most fitting that this sacrament was instituted at the Supper, where Christ had his last conversation with his disciples"^[33]. His first reason is an image: at the moment when Christ was about to leave his disciples in his natural appearance, "he bequeathed himself to them under his sacramental appearance, just as in the absence of the emperor his image is offered for the veneration of his subjects". His third reason is the most human:

"Because final words, especially when spoken by departing friends, impress themselves more deeply on the memory, above all because then we bear our friends a more ardent affection." — Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, IIIa, q. 73, a. 5^[34]

Thomas takes up here an insight of Saint Augustine, whom he quotes. In his letter to Januarius, around 400, the bishop of Hippo already explained why the Eucharist had been given at the end of a meal:

"It was in order to impress more strongly upon them the greatness of this mystery and to place it more deeply in their heart and memory, that the Savior instituted it, as a farewell to his disciples, before parting from them to go to his Passion." — Saint Augustine, Letter 54 (to Januarius), § 8^[35]

Did Christ receive communion himself?

Saint Thomas raises another question that the Fathers had pondered: did Christ himself eat his body and drink his blood at the Supper? He answers yes, because "Christ himself first observed the institutions he wished others to observe": "That is why he too first consumed his body and his blood, and then gave them to his disciples to consume"^[36]. In support he cites Saint Jerome — "the Lord Jesus is himself the guest and the banquet, the one who eats and the one who is eaten" — and two Latin verses that sum up the scene:

"The King sits enthroned at the Supper, surrounded by the company of the Twelve: he holds himself in his hands, he feeds, he who is food." — Verses quoted by Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, IIIa, q. 81, a. 1^[37]

The question of the traitor is the subject of its own article: Did Judas receive Holy Communion at the Last Supper?

The institution of the priesthood

The second gift of Holy Thursday is the priesthood. In saying "Do this in memory of me" (Lk 22:19), Christ entrusts to the apostles the power to repeat what he has just done. The Catechism states it plainly: "Jesus includes the apostles in his own offering and asks them to perpetuate it. By this, Jesus institutes his apostles as priests of the New Covenant"^[38]. The Council of Trent teaches that, at the Last Supper, Christ gave his Body and his Blood "to the apostles (whom he then constituted priests of the New Covenant)", and it made this a canon:

"If anyone says that by these words: 'Do this in memory of me' Christ did not institute the apostles as priests, or did not ordain that they and the other priests should offer his Body and his Blood: let him be anathema." — Council of Trent, 22nd session, 17 September 1562, canons on the sacrifice of the Mass, canon 2^[39]

That is why Holy Thursday is, par excellence, the feast of priests (see The sacrament of Holy Orders). Saint John Paul II made it a personal appointment with them throughout his pontificate:

"Since I began my ministry as Successor of Peter, I have always wished to mark Holy Thursday, the day of the Eucharist and of the priesthood, with a special sign of attention by sending a letter to all the priests of the world." — Saint John Paul II, Ecclesia de Eucharistia, § 7^[40]

He also signed this encyclical on the Eucharist on a Holy Thursday: "Given at Rome, at Saint Peter's, on 17 April 2003, Holy Thursday, in the twenty-fifth year of my pontificate and in the Year of the Rosary"^[41].

The new commandment and the washing of the feet

The third gift is a commandment. After washing the feet of his disciples, Jesus says to them:

"I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another. This is how all will know that you are my disciples: if you have love for one another." — Gospel according to Saint John, 13:34-35^[42]

The washing of the feet is the enacted commentary on this commandment. Jesus "rose from supper and took off his outer garments, and took a towel and tied it around his waist" (Jn 13:4); Peter protests: "You will never wash my feet!" — "If I do not wash you, you will have no share with me" (Jn 13:8). Then comes the lesson:

"If I, therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another's feet. I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do." — Gospel according to Saint John, 13:14-15^[43]

Saint Luke reports, during the same meal, a saying that expresses the same reversal: "For who is greater: the one seated at table or the one who serves? Is it not the one seated at table? But I am among you as the one who serves" (Lk 22:27). The Latin rite has kept the name of this commandment: the washing of the feet on Holy Thursday has been "handed down under the name of the Lord's Mandatum on fraternal charity according to the words of Jesus (cf. Jn 13:34) which are sung as an antiphon during the celebration"^[44].

Jerusalem at the end of the fourth century: the journal of Egeria

The oldest detailed account of a Holy Thursday comes from a pilgrim from the West, Egeria, who stayed in Jerusalem from 381 for three years^[45]. Her journal follows the liturgy day by day. On the "fifth day" of the great week, the people gather at the Martyrium, the Constantinian basilica of Golgotha, at the eighth hour (around 2 p.m.), earlier than usual, because the celebration must end early^[46]. Then they go "behind the Cross," where the bishop again offers the sacrifice and where all receive communion. Egeria stresses the exception:

"For, apart from this one day, never in the whole year is the sacrifice offered behind the Cross: it is done only on that day." — Egeria, Journal of Travel, 35, 2 (Ignispedia translation of the Latin text)^[47]

Everyone then goes home to take their meal, then all go up to the Eleona, the church on the Mount of Olives built over the cave where, according to Egeria, the Lord had been with his apostles that day. There they keep watch until about the fifth hour of the night, reading the discourses of Jesus to his disciples; around midnight, they make their way to the Imbomon, the place of the Ascension^[48]. At cockcrow, they go down to the church of the place where Jesus prayed, then to Gethsemane: "more than two hundred church candles" light the people^[49]. There, the arrest of Jesus is read:

"When this passage has been read, such groans and such sobs rise from all the people, mingled with tears, that perhaps the lamentations of all the people could be heard as far as the city." — Egeria, Journal of Travel, 36, 3 (Ignispedia translation of the Latin text)^[50]

At dawn, the crowd returns to the city and accompanies the bishop back to the Cross. What the Roman rubrics today call the adoration of the night of Holy Thursday thus has a direct ancestor: the Jerusalem vigil on the very places of the Passion.

Africa: the Eucharist after the meal

In North Africa, Holy Thursday had a unique feature: the Eucharist could be celebrated there after eating. The Council of Hippo of 393 lays down the rule of Eucharistic fasting with a single exception, "except on the one anniversary day on which the Lord's Supper is celebrated"^[51]. The canon was taken up again in the code of canons of the Church of Africa in 419^[52].

Saint Augustine testifies to these usages. In his letter to Januarius, he mentions Churches where the sacrifice is offered "twice, in the morning and in the evening, on the Thursday of the last week of Lent"^[53], and he explains why:

"But some have been pleased to yield to a probable sentiment, to believe it permitted to offer and receive the Eucharist after the meal on one day of the year, the day on which the Lord gave the Supper, in order to give more solemnity to the commemoration of this mystery." — Saint Augustine, Letter 54 (to Januarius), § 9^[54]

Augustine connects another usage to it: the catechumens who were to be baptized at Easter took a bath on that day, after the privations of Lent, "on the day of the celebration of the Lord's Supper," and many other faithful imitated them^[55]. Hence the double celebration: the sacrifice was offered in the morning for those who took their meal, because they could not bear both fasting and the bath, and in the evening for those who fasted^[56].

Rome: the reconciled penitents and the holy chrism

In Rome, Holy Thursday brought together several celebrations. At the beginning of the fifth century, Pope Innocent I wrote to Bishop Decentius of Gubbio that the Roman custom was to reconcile penitents on the Thursday before Easter^[57]. In the fifth century the practice became established of consecrating on that day all the chrism needed for the baptisms of the Easter night; the Gelasian and Gregorian sacramentaries agree on this point^[58]. The historian Henri Leclercq summed it up: in Rome, "everything was done by day," whereas in Africa the Eucharist of Holy Thursday followed the evening meal^[59].

This full day gave Holy Thursday its deep unity: the reconciliation of sinners, the oil of the sacraments, and the Eucharist are brought together there around Easter. Today's Chrism Mass preserves its memory.

From the Middle Ages to the seventeenth century

The washing of the feet spread throughout the Latin Church. In Spain, the Seventeenth Council of Toledo, assembled on 9 November 694, notes that it has "fallen into disuse in some places" and orders that it be "restored everywhere"; the same council has the baptismal fonts sealed from the beginning of Lent "until the stripping of the altars, on the solemnity of the Coena Domini"^[60]. The stripping of the altars was therefore already a rite of Holy Thursday at the end of the seventh century.

The night offices of the last three days of Holy Week took the name of Tenebrae: matins and lauds, sung in anticipation on the previous evening, with the Lamentations of Jeremiah and lights extinguished one by one. Herbert Thurston judges it probable that in the thirteenth century, in Rome, Tenebrae already began on Wednesday around four or five o'clock in the afternoon^[61]. From the late Middle Ages until 1770, Holy Thursday was also the day on which the bull In Cena Domini was solemnly published in Rome, from the loggia of Saint Peter's, a list of excommunications whose absolution was reserved to the pope; Clement XIV omitted this reading in 1770, and it was never resumed^[62].

For centuries, Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday were days of rest, so that all the people could attend the offices. Pope Urban VIII, by the constitution Universa per orbem of 24 September 1642, ranked them among working days, because of changes in social life^[63]. Yet these offices had long been moved forward to the morning: held back by their work, the faithful could hardly attend them anymore, and the 1955 decree notes that they were often celebrated before churches that were "almost deserted"^[64].

The reforms of Pius XII and Paul VI

In the twentieth century, the bishops asked the Holy See to bring the celebrations back "to the afternoon hours, as formerly"^[65]. Pius XII first restored the Easter Vigil, on a trial basis, by a decree of 9 February 1951^[66]; many bishops reported to the Holy See that the trial had everywhere met with excellent success, and asked for the same restoration for the other days of Holy Week^[67]. The decree Maxima Redemptionis nostrae mysteria of the Sacred Congregation of Rites, dated 16 November 1955, fixes the Chrism Mass in the morning and the Mass in memory of the Supper in the evening, "not before five o'clock in the afternoon, nor after eight o'clock"^[68]. The accompanying instruction asks that the faithful be told about the "deep meaning" of the washing of the feet and invited to increase works of charity on that day; it also wishes public adoration of the Eucharist, after Mass, to continue "at least until midnight," the hour when the remembrance of the institution of the Eucharist gives way to that of the Passion^[69].

The 1988 letter on the paschal feasts says that this restoration by Pius XII "was generally received with joy by all the Churches of the Roman rite"^[70]. The Missal of Paul VI (1970) and its subsequent editions preserved it; the decree of 6 January 2016 broadened the choice of the persons whose feet are washed.

The major stages, with their dates, are as follows:

A single Mass, in the evening

The Mass is celebrated "in the evening, at the most suitable hour," with "the full participation of the whole local community, all priests and ministers carrying out their function"^[71]. All priests may concelebrate it, even if they have already concelebrated the Chrism Mass^[72]. The local Ordinary may permit another Mass in the evening, and, in case of true necessity, in the morning, but only for the faithful who could absolutely not come in the evening; and "according to the most ancient tradition of the Church, all Masses without the people are forbidden on this day"^[73].

Everything is prepared for the next day. "The tabernacle shall be entirely empty; for the communion of the clergy and the people today and tomorrow, a sufficient quantity of bread shall be consecrated at this Mass"^[74]. The altar is decorated with flowers, but "with the moderation befitting the nature of this day"^[75]. The vestments are white, the colour the Missal prescribes for celebrations of the Lord that are not of his Passion; the veil used for the transfer of the Blessed Sacrament is white as well^[76].

The antiphon of the Cross, the Gloria and the silence of the bells

The Mass opens with an antiphon taken from Saint Paul (cf. Gal 6:14): "For us, our glory must be the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ: in him is our salvation, our life and our resurrection; through him, we are saved and set free"^[77]. The evening of the Supper thus begins with the Cross.

Then comes a striking moment. The Gloria is sung, and "during the singing of the hymn, the bells are rung. They then fall silent until the Easter Vigil, unless the diocesan bishop, if he judges it opportune, decides otherwise"; the organ and other instruments are then used only to support the singing^[78]. This silence, and the popular legend of the "bells gone to Rome" that accompanies it, are presented in the article The symbolism of bells.

The opening prayer (collect) gives the meaning of the evening: it recalls the most holy Supper at which the Only Son, "on the point of giving himself up to death," entrusted to the Church "a new sacrifice for the ages" and the "banquet of his love," and it asks to draw from this mystery "the fullness of charity and life"^[79].

The readings: the lamb, the cup and the towel

The readings are proper to this Mass^[80]. The first, taken from Exodus (Ex 12:1-8, 11-14), gives the prescriptions of the paschal meal: the slaughtered lamb, the blood on the doorposts, the meal eaten "in haste"; it ends with a command: "This day shall be for you a memorial. [...] It is a perpetual decree: from age to age you shall celebrate it" (Ex 12:14). Psalm 115 answers with a refrain taken from Saint Paul: "The cup of blessing is communion in the blood of Christ"^[81].

The second reading is the account of the institution according to Saint Paul (1 Cor 11:23-26), quoted above. The Gospel is that of the washing of the feet (Jn 13:1-15), introduced by the acclamation: "I give you a new commandment, says the Lord: 'Love one another as I have loved you'"^[82]. The lamb of the old Passover, the cup of the new Covenant and the servant's towel: the three readings tell the same story, from figure to fulfilment.

The washing of the feet

After the homily, the washing of the feet takes place, "where, pastorally, it seems appropriate to do so"^[83]. The rite is simple:

"Those who have been chosen from among the people of God are led by ministers to the seats prepared for them in the most suitable place. Then the priest (having laid aside the chasuble if necessary) approaches each one, pours water over the feet, then wipes them, assisted in all this by the ministers." — Roman Missal, Evening Mass in memory of the Lord's Supper, rubric of the washing of the feet (2021 French translation)^[84]

The rubric has evolved. The 2002 Latin edition provided for "chosen men" (viri selecti), and the 1988 letter spoke of a washing performed "for men who have been chosen," to signify "the service and charity of Christ 'who came not to be served but to serve'"^[85]. On 6 January 2016, at the request of Pope Francis, the Congregation for Divine Worship modified the rubric so that pastors may choose "a small group of the faithful who represent the variety and unity of each portion of the people of God"; this group "may be made up of men and women and, as appropriate, of young and old, of the healthy and the sick, of clerics, consecrated persons and lay people"^[86]. The same decree recalls the meaning of the gesture: bishops and priests are invited "to conform themselves intimately to Christ, who 'came not to be served, but to serve'"^[87].

During the washing, antiphons taken from Saint John are sung, such as this one: "Lord, you wash my feet? Jesus answered him: If I do not wash your feet, you will have no part with me" (cf. Jn 13:6-8)^[88]. The Creed is not said; the priest then leads the universal prayer^[89].

The gifts for the poor and the "that is, today" of the Roman Canon

At the beginning of the eucharistic liturgy, "provision may be made for the faithful to bring in procession, with the bread and wine, gifts intended to provide for the needs of the poor"; Ubi caritas, "Where true love is," is then sung^[90]. The 1988 letter specifies that these are "above all" the gifts "collected during Lent as the fruit of penance"^[91].

The prayer over the offerings contains a famous phrase: each time the memorial of this sacrifice is celebrated, "it is the work of our redemption that is accomplished"^[92]. When the priest takes the Roman Canon, he says a form proper to this evening. The Communicantes prayer celebrates "the most holy day on which our Lord Jesus Christ was handed over for us," and the Hanc igitur prayer offers the sacrifice "on this day when our Lord Jesus Christ entrusted to his disciples the mysteries of his Body and his Blood"^[93]. Above all, the account of the institution receives an insertion unique in the year: Christ, "on the eve of the day when he was to suffer for our salvation and that of all, that is, today, took bread"^[94]. The liturgy does not merely remember the Supper: it makes it present.

The transfer of the Blessed Sacrament to the altar of repose

After communion, the ciborium containing the hosts consecrated for the next day remains on the altar. The Mass does not end like the others. After the prayer following communion, the priest incenses the Blessed Sacrament, takes the ciborium under the humeral veil, and a procession forms, cross and candles at its head, "toward the place of repose, prepared in a part of the church or in a suitably adorned chapel"^[95]. There the hymn Pange lingua by Saint Thomas Aquinas, composed for the office of Corpus Christi, is sung, "except the last two stanzas," which are sung at the altar of repose: this is the Tantum ergo^[96]. The third stanza of the Pange lingua describes the Supper itself:

"On the night of the Last Supper, reclining at table with his brethren, having fully observed the Law in the prescribed foods, he gives himself, with his own hands, as food to the company of the Twelve." — Saint Thomas Aquinas, hymn Pange lingua, stanza 3 (literal Ignispedia translation)^[97]

At the altar of repose, the priest places the ciborium in the tabernacle, incenses the Blessed Sacrament kneeling, then the tabernacle is closed; "after a time of adoration in silence," priest and ministers withdraw^[98]. If the Passion is not celebrated the next day in the same church, there is no transfer: the Mass concludes "as usual" and the Blessed Sacrament is returned to the tabernacle^[99].

The stripping of the altar

Finally, "at a suitable time, the altar is stripped and, if possible, the crosses are removed from the church. Those that cannot be removed should fittingly be veiled"^[100]. The 1988 letter adds that these veils are red or violet, and that "no lamps shall be lit before the images of the saints"^[101]. The next day, the altar will remain "entirely stripped, without cross, candlesticks or cloth"^[102]. Those who took part in the evening Mass do not say Vespers: the Mass takes its place^[103].

The following table summarises the rites proper to this Mass and what the Missal says about them.

It can be seen that Holy Thursday resembles no other Mass of the year: it begins in the joy of the Gloria and ends in stripping, without dismissal, like a vigil that continues.

"Stay here and watch with me"

After the Supper, Jesus goes with his disciples "to a place called Gethsemane" (Mt 26, 36). He says to them: "My soul is sorrowful to the point of death. Stay here and watch with me" (Mt 26, 38). Then he prays: "My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me! Yet, not as I will, but as you will" (Mt 26, 39). Returning to the disciples, he finds them asleep: "So, you did not have the strength to watch even one hour with me?" (Mt 26, 40).

The Catechism directly links this night to the Supper: "The cup of the New Covenant, which Jesus anticipated at the Supper by offering himself, he then accepts from the hands of the Father in his agony in Gethsemane"^[104]. Luke adds that an angel came to comfort him and that "his sweat became like drops of blood falling to the ground" (Lk 22, 43-44). The detailed account of this agony belongs to the article The Agony of Jesus in Gethsemane.

Adoration at the altar of repose: neither tomb nor exposition

The vigil at the altar of repose is one of the most beloved devotions of Holy Thursday. The faithful are invited "to continue adoration before the Blessed Sacrament for a suitable part of the night"; "after midnight, this adoration takes place without solemnity"^[105]. The 1988 letter suggests reading there a portion of chapters 13 to 17 of Saint John, Christ's farewell discourse^[106].

The Church has specified what the altar of repose is not. The Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy (2001) acknowledges that over the course of history, this place "has increasingly been regarded as an evocation of the 'holy sepulchre'", and it restores its true meaning:

"This act of placing the Blessed Sacrament in the altar of repose, which must be carried out with austere solemnity, is done essentially for the purpose of keeping the Body of the Lord for the communion of the faithful during the Good Friday liturgical Action, as well as for communion in Viaticum for the sick; it is also an invitation to silent and prolonged adoration of the incomparable Sacrament instituted on this day." — Congregation for Divine Worship, Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy, no. 141, 2001^[107]

The 1988 letter is equally clear: the tabernacle "must not have the form of a tomb, and even the very expression 'tomb' is to be avoided"; the Blessed Sacrament is kept there in a closed tabernacle, and "it is never permitted to expose it in a monstrance"^[108]. The altar of repose is not the sepulchre of Friday: it is the place where we watch with the living Christ, as the apostles should have done in Gethsemane. On this prayer, see Eucharistic Adoration.

The Holy Hour of Paray-le-Monial

The night from Thursday to Friday received, in the seventeenth century, a devotion of its own. At Paray-le-Monial, Christ asked Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque to unite herself each week to his agony. She reported his words:

"And every night from Thursday to Friday I will make you share in that mortal sorrow which I willingly felt in the Garden of Olives […]. And to accompany me in that humble prayer which I then offered to my Father amid all my anguish, you will rise between eleven o'clock and midnight, to prostrate yourself for one hour with me, your face to the ground, both to appease divine anger, by asking mercy for sinners, and to soothe in some way the bitterness I felt at the abandonment of my apostles, which obliged me to reproach them that they could not watch one hour with me." — Jesus to Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, from her Autobiography^[109]

The editors of her Life published by the Visitation of Paray in 1923 see in it "the origin of the sanctifying practice of the Holy Hour", which became an archconfraternity based at the monastery of Paray, and to which a brief of Saint Pius X dated 27 March 1911 allowed confraternities of the same name throughout the world to be affiliated^[110]. What the Visitandine did every Thursday, the whole Church does on the night of Holy Thursday.

The Liturgy of Saint Basil and "the Mystical Supper"

In the Byzantine rite, "Great and Holy Thursday" celebrates, according to the typikon of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, "the holy Washing, the Mystical Supper, the Supernatural Prayer and the Betrayal"^[111]. In the morning, Matins are sung, with the Gospel of Luke leading from the approach of Passover to the Supper and the departure for the Mount of Olives (Lk 22, 1-39); then come Vespers, united with the Divine Liturgy of Saint Basil the Great. The epistle is Saint Paul's on the institution (1 Cor 11, 23-32); the Gospel, very long, links the Supper, the washing of the feet, Gethsemane and the arrest^[112].

A proper hymn replaces on this day the Cherubic Hymn of the procession of the offerings, and it also serves as the communion hymn^[113]. The Orthodox Cathedral of the Holy Trinity in Paris gives this translation:

"At your Mystical Supper, Son of God, receive me today. I will not reveal the Mystery to your enemies; I will not give you a kiss like Judas, but, like the thief, I confess you: remember me, Lord, in your Kingdom." — Byzantine Liturgy of Great Thursday, troparion "Of your Mystical Supper" (Tou Deipnou sou tou mystikou)^[114]

The dismissal prayer (apolysis) of the day names Christ "he who, by his extreme goodness, showed that humility is the best way by washing the feet of his disciples"^[115].

The Niptir, Byzantine washing of the feet

The East also knows the Holy Thursday washing of the feet, called the Niptir ("the basin"). In 1900, the Assumptionist Sophrone Pétridès described its ancient forms. According to the typikon of Saint Sabbas, the hegumen (the superior) washes the feet of twelve monks; at the two ends are placed the porter, who figures Judas, and the steward, who figures Saint Peter^[116]. In the fifteenth century, the Byzantine emperor himself washed, in his apartments, the right foot of twelve poor men dressed anew for the occasion^[117]. A hymn from the Jerusalem office sums up the meaning of the rite:

"You washed the feet of your disciples, O Saviour, as a Master full of kindness, you, the King of glory, thus giving an example to men. O God, have mercy on me and save me." — Sticheron of the office of the washing of the feet (typikon of Jerusalem), translated by S. Pétridès, 1900^[118]

Pétridès noted that in 1900 the rite was, to his knowledge, still practised only in three Greek churches: at the monastery of Saint John on Patmos, at the monastery of the Prodromos near Caesarea in Cappadocia, and at Jerusalem, where the patriarch, "bareheaded and with flowing hair, washes on his knees the feet of twelve priests"^[119]. The rite remains today one of the highlights of Great Thursday in two of these eminent places. At Jerusalem, in 2025, the Greek Orthodox Patriarch Theophilos III washed the feet of twelve hieromonks and priests of the Brotherhood of the Holy Sepulchre, on a platform erected in the courtyard of the basilica^[120]; at Patmos, the hegumen of the monastery of Saint John re-enacts the scene each year on a square in Chora, beginning with Judas^[121].

The twelve Gospels of the Passion

On the evening of Holy Thursday, the Churches of the Byzantine tradition already sing the Matins of Good Friday, called the office of the "Twelve Gospels" of the Passion^[122]. In Paris, on the evening of 9 April 2026, the eve of Good Friday, the Russian Orthodox Cathedral of the Holy Trinity thus celebrated "Matins with the reading of the twelve Gospels", opened by the troparion "While at the Supper, at the Washing of the feet"^[123]. The night of Holy Thursday thus becomes, in the East as in the West, a long vigil beside the suffering Christ. This office already belongs to Good Friday and is presented in the article Good Friday; the other usages of the Christian East are presented in Eastern Liturgy.

The bells "gone to Rome" and the rattles

The silence of the bells, required by the liturgy since the Gloria of Holy Thursday, gave rise to a well-known children's custom in France and Belgium. Children were long told that the bells left for Rome and that the pope blessed them before their return; in eastern France, children then spun rattles in the streets to announce the services^[124]. The Trésor de la langue française defines the rattle, in liturgy, as the "instrument used to replace the bells, from Holy Thursday to Holy Saturday"^[125]. The details of this tradition can be found in The symbolism of bells.

Saint Louis and the washing of the feet of the poor

In the Middle Ages, Christian kings themselves washed the feet of the poor on Holy Thursday. Saint Louis was so attached to it that he made it a topic of conversation with his friend Jean de Joinville, who reports it with delightful frankness:

"He asked me whether I washed the feet of the poor on Holy Thursday. 'Sire,' I said, 'unfortunately, I will certainly not wash the feet of those villeins!' — 'Truly,' he said, 'you have spoken ill, for you must not despise what God did for our instruction. I beg you, first for the love of God, and for love of me, to take up the habit of washing them." — Jean de Joinville, Vie de saint Louis, § 29^[126]

The English name of the day, Maundy Thursday, preserves the trace of this ceremony: Middle English maunde designated both the Last Supper and the washing of the feet of the poor performed on that day^[127].

Charity, the fruit of Holy Thursday

The oldest custom of Holy Thursday is not folkloric: it is charity. As early as 1955, the instruction of the Sacred Congregation of Rites asked that the faithful be invited to abound on that day in works of Christian charity^[128]. The current liturgy makes it a gesture of the Mass, with the procession of gifts for the poor, collected during Lent as the fruit of penance^[129]. Holy Thursday thus recalls that the Eucharist and service to the poorest cannot be separated.

Saint Thérèse of Lisieux and the night of the "Tomb" (1896)

The night from Holy Thursday to Good Friday 1896 remained engraved in the life of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux. After keeping watch at the altar of repose, then commonly called "the Tomb", she suffered the first hemorrhage of the tuberculosis that would carry her off the following year. She recounts it without any complaint:

"However, on Good Friday, Jesus willed to give me the hope of soon going to see him in Heaven... Oh! how sweet this memory is to me!... After remaining at the Tomb until midnight, I returned to our cell, but I had scarcely had time to lay my head on the pillow when I felt as it were a flood rising, rising and bubbling up to my lips. I did not know what it was, but I thought that perhaps I was going to die and my soul was flooded with joy..." — Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, Manuscrit C, f° 4v°-5r°^[130]

In the morning, she recognized the blood and was "inwardly convinced that Jesus, on the anniversary day of his death, wished to make [her] hear a first call"^[131]. The word "Tomb" she uses is the one the 1988 letter now asks to avoid; her night of watching, on the other hand, is exactly what the Church proposes to all.

The Hours of the Passion: Thursday begins at five in the afternoon

The Servant of God Luisa Piccarreta (1865-1947), a laywoman from Corato, wrote at the request of Saint Annibale Maria di Francia the Hours of the Passion, published with nihil obstat and imprimatur from 1915 onward^[132]. The work follows, hour by hour, the last twenty-four hours of Christ, from 5 p.m. on Thursday to 5 p.m. on Friday. The first seven hours thus belong to Holy Thursday: Jesus' farewells to his Mother (5 p.m.), the departure for the Upper Room (6 p.m.), the legal Supper (7 p.m.), the washing of the feet and the Eucharistic Supper (8 p.m.), then three hours of agony in the garden^[133]. In the fourth hour, Luisa contemplates the institution of the Eucharist:

"And without leaving yourself, you create yourself under the sacramental form in this bread and this wine. And then, after having communicated yourself, you communicate your apostles and your heavenly Mama, who could not remain without receiving you." — Luisa Piccarreta, Les Heures de la Passion, fourth hour (8 p.m. to 9 p.m.)^[134]

Two features of this meditation deserve to be situated. The first echoes a conclusion of Saint Thomas, who taught that Christ had first communicated himself (see above). The second, the communion of the Virgin that evening, belongs to Luisa's contemplation and not to the Gospel account. Saint John Paul II notes indeed that, "in the account of the institution, on the evening of Holy Thursday, there is no mention of Mary", but he adds that her presence "could certainly not be lacking" in the Eucharistic celebrations of the first Christian community, and that, "by her whole life, Mary is a 'Eucharistic' woman"^[135].

The Supper in the Book of Heaven

Luisa Piccarreta also recorded, in the thirty-six volumes of the Livre du Ciel, what Jesus told her about the Supper. These writings belong to private revelation, whose role, the Catechism recalls, is not to complete Christ's Revelation, "but to help live more fully by it in a certain period of history" (CCC 67). In June 2024, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith gave its nulla osta to the continuation of Luisa's beatification cause, "finding no doctrinal error in her writings such as to prevent their dissemination"^[136]. Their center is the Divine Will: not only doing God's will, but letting his Will live and act within oneself, as a single will for two (see the difference between doing the will of God and living in the Divine Will).

It is within this framework that Jesus explains to Luisa why he gave himself Communion before his apostles:

"Before giving Communion to others, I gave Communion to myself so that my Father might receive complete glory for all the Communions of creatures, and also to take upon Myself the reparations for all the sacrileges and offenses that my Humanity would have to suffer in the sacrament of the Eucharist." — Jesus to Luisa Piccarreta, Le Livre du Ciel, volume 11, 13 November 1915^[137]

The washing of the feet receives, in the same corpus, an unexpected extension. Jesus recalls that he washed the feet of his apostles, prostrate before them: "I did not even avoid the perfidious Judas"; then he adds: "I performed this act only once. But my Will descends even lower; it places itself beneath their feet by a continuous act, in order to sustain them"^[138]. The humility of Holy Thursday thus becomes the image of a love that carries each creature at every instant.

Finally, a page dated 16 April 1927 looks upon the Supper with Mary's eyes. Luisa notes: "I was making the hour in which Jesus instituted the most holy Eucharist"; Jesus then tells her that he sought a creature to receive "the deposit" of his sacramental life, and that his Mother offered herself, saying: "My Son, if I offered you my womb to watch over you and defend you, I now offer you my maternal heart to receive this great deposit"^[139]. Far from competing with the sacrament, these pages lead back to it: they invite us to enter into Holy Thursday through the heart, with the Virgin, beside the Christ who gives himself.

Holy Thursday is lived first of all by taking part in the evening Mass, which is the single parish Mass of that day. The 1988 letter recommends concluding Lent with a penitential celebration, but not immediately before the evening Mass, so as to arrive at Easter with a reconciled heart^[140]. After Mass, an hour of watching at the altar of repose answers Christ's request at Gethsemane: "Watch and pray" (Mt 26:41).

Holy Thursday is also the day when one can pray for priests, whose priesthood was born that evening, and perform a concrete act for the poor, as the liturgy itself invites. None of this is a heroic effort: it is responding to a love that began by serving.

That evening, Christ knew what awaited him, and he chose to give rather than to protect himself. That is why Holy Thursday, despite the sorrow of Gethsemane, opens with the Gloria and the bells: it is the threshold of Easter. Good Friday, Holy Saturday and the Easter Vigil prolong it until the morning of Easter, when he who washed the feet of his disciples shows himself alive.

Related Ignispedia articles

• The Easter Triduum — the three holy days as a whole.
• The Chrism Mass — the morning Mass, the holy oils and the priests' promises.
• The Eucharist and The Real Eucharistic Presence.
• What is transubstantiation? and Why is the Eucharist a sacrifice?
• The sacrament of Holy Orders.
• Eucharistic adoration.
• Did Judas receive Holy Communion at the Supper?
• The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci.
• The agony of Jesus at Gethsemane.
• Corpus Christi — the office by Saint Thomas Aquinas and the Pange lingua.
• The symbolism of bells — the silence of the Triduum.
• The Hours of the Passion by Luisa Piccarreta.
• The liturgical year and Why does the date of Easter change?
• Eastern liturgy.
• Palm Sunday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, Easter Vigil and Easter.

Main sources

• Missale Romanum, editio typica tertia, Typis Vaticanis, 2002: "Feria V in Cena Domini", rubrics nos. 1-44; Normae universales de anno liturgico et de calendario, nos. 16, 19, 28, 31, 59, 60; Institutio generalis, no. 346.
• Missel romain, 2021 French translation, rubrics of the Easter Triduum (Service national de la pastorale liturgique et sacramentelle).
• Congregation for Divine Worship, circular letter Paschalis Sollemnitatis on the preparation and celebration of the Easter feasts, 16 January 1988.
• Congregation for Divine Worship, Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy, 2001, nos. 140-141.
• Sacred Congregation of Rites, general decree Maxima Redemptionis nostrae mysteria and instruction, 16 November 1955, Acta Apostolicae Sedis 47 (1955), pp. 838-847.
• Congregation for Divine Worship, decree In Missa in Cena Domini, 6 January 2016.
• Catechism of the Catholic Church, §§ 610-612, 1168-1169, 1337-1340.
• Council of Trent, Sessions XIII (1551) and XXII (1562).
• Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, IIIa, q. 73, a. 5 and q. 81, a. 1.
• Saint Augustine, Letter 54 (to Januarius); Egeria, Journal of Travel, 35-36.
• Saint John Paul II, encyclical Ecclesia de Eucharistia, 17 April 2003; Benedict XVI, Holy Thursday homily, 5 April 2007.
• Sophrone Pétridès, "Le lavement des pieds le Jeudi-Saint dans l'Église grecque", Échos d'Orient, vol. 3, 1900, pp. 321-326.