Stretching from Palm Sunday to Holy Saturday, Holy Week is the paramount week in the Church’s entire year, with its final days plus Easter Sunday – aka the Easter/Sacred/Pascal Triduum – amounting to the crowning summit. Amongst this period’s eight days, one particular day is too often treated like “Jan” from the famous TV show “The Brady Bunch.” Similar to Jan – the middle child in the family – this one day doesn’t seem to garner the same attention as the other “siblings.” It is understandable why Easter is considered the “favorite child,” but why should Holy Thursday be focused on less than Palm Sunday and Good Friday, since it is just as sacred?
The three days of the Triduum (pronounced trih-doo-um) can be divided into three 24-hour periods, culminating when we reach the third 24-hour period – beginning Saturday night at the Easter Vigil and continuing throughout Easter Sunday. It is obvious why Holy Thursday – the first of the three periods – takes a back row in people’s minds as compared to Easter, since this final part of the Triduum commemorates the central event of our faith. But why does it often feel like both Palm Sunday, which launches Holy Week, and Good Friday, the second 24-hour period of the Triduum, supplant Holy Thursday in importance and attention in most Catholics’ minds and actions?
For many Catholics, recalling Jesus’s triumph entrance into Jerusalem a week before his crucifixion is more meaningful than Holy Thursday. The Catholic faithful honor the historical event that occurred on the maiden Palm Sunday by carrying blessed palm branches into church to emulate how people once laid palm branches across Jesus’ path and also waved them in the air shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” Plus, traditionally after Mass, Catholics will display these palms behind their home crucifixes for the next 11 months. Additionally, being that Palm Sunday is on a Holy Day of Obligation – a Sunday – it is a fact that more Catholics celebrate it than they do Holy Thursday.
Similarly, most people’s devotion climbs higher for the Triduum’s second 24-hour period – Good Friday – than for the first 24-hour period of Holy Thursday. Friday earns the notorious distinction of being the most heart-rending, sorrowful day of the year, as we remember Jesus’s crucifixion. Catholics fast and pray the Stations of the Cross, and many Christians practice a Veneration of the Cross, which involves showing reverence to a wooden cross as a physical symbol of the instrument upon which Christ was crucified. In some countries, Good Friday is a national holiday, and in some American states it is a holiday where schools and banks close.
Holy Thursday indeed seems to suffer from the “middle child syndrome” of not appearing to earn as much attention, respect, and love as many of the other eight days from Palm Sunday through Easter Sunday. This day needs some image boosting. And when one recalls the importance of all of what happened on that first Holy Thursday, it should be rather easy to increase this day’s significance.
First of all, Catholics would be good to recall Holy Thursday as when the first Eucharistic miracle occurred. In the upper room that original Thursday evening, Jesus gave us the Bread of Life at the Last Supper, telling the Apostles they must eat His flesh and drink His blood in order to have eternal life. The significance of Holy Thursday being a celebration of the institution of the Eucharist and the beginning of Jesus remaining physically in our midst on a daily basis on altars throughout the world makes it fitting for us to spend time in Adoration on Thursday of Holy Week and/or attend the Mass of the Last Supper held that evening.
Besides giving us His Real Presence under the appearance of bread and wine on the first Holy Thursday, Jesus also gave us the gift of our priests. When Jesus told the Apostles that night to “do this in remembrance of me,” He was instituting them as His ministerial priests. It was because of Holy Thursday that we now have priests who bring Christ to us in the Holy Eucharist.
It is also apparent that Jesus made the apostles His priests on the first Holy Thursday when we read about the washing of their feet. This observes a similar time in the Book of Exodus when it describes God commanding Moses to wash Aaron and his sons’ feet to consecrate them to the priesthood. There is definitely something more to foot-washing on Holy Thursday than giving an example of humble service.
Furthermore, on that Thursday evening two millennia ago, Jesus gave a mandate to his disciples when he said, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.” This is why Holy Thursday is also called “Maundy Thursday,” derived from the Latin word that means “mandate.”
As we all will undoubtedly focus on the upcoming single most important holy day of the year on Easter Sunday, we should not forget to pause a few days prior to take in the almost-as-significant importance of Holy Thursday. Besides Jesus instituting the priesthood, holding the first “Mass,” and giving us a “new commandment,” that first Holy Thursday has even more noteworthy actions from our Savior, as on that day He:
- Announced that Judas would betray Him and Peter would deny Him;
- Went to the Mount of Olives and prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane;
- Was betrayed by Judas;
- Stopped the disciples from continuing a violent resistance and healed the ear of the high priest’s servant after Peter cut it off with a sword;
- Was taken before the high priests and to Pilate;
- Was denied by Peter.
It was then and is now a critical, momentous day!
Just think… at every, single Mass we hear the words, “On the night he was betrayed,” and that night the priest is talking about was the original Holy Thursday. It is one of the most consequential nights in all of history, was one of the most pivotal days in the life of Christ, and doesn’t deserve the lower status and short end of the stick that the stereotypical middle child frequently receives. Check out your parish’s schedule of events for Thursday of Holy Week – from the Mass of the Lord’s Supper to the Repository of the Blessed Sacrament for Adoration to the Stripping of the Altar – and consider attending them so can enter more deeply into the significance of Holy Thursday.
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