Holy Maundy Thursday

I think Maundy Thursday is perhaps the most resonant of all the days of Holy Week for me, little sweetheart, because of the Tenebrae service, which I only first knew of a few years ago. 

Not unlike Taize, the sanctuary is lit almost exclusively by candlelight and then, as each subsequent reading or hymn is offered, one of the candles is extinguished until just one is left, a hidden candle, leaving the sanctuary in darkness. The choir bang their hymnals and the organ sounds discordantly until the sole hidden candle is revealed and brought forward in procession and all leave in silence. 

It’s incredibly dramatic and moving and so rich in symbolism and resonance, little sweetheart, as concerns loss and grief and ultimately, faith. I haven’t been able to attend a in-person Tenebrae in several years now but tonight I’ll watch one broadcast online from Trinity Church downtown and my thoughts will be of you. 

With all my love.  
 

Holy "Maundy" Thursday

Little sweetheart, today is Holy Thursday or what they sometimes call “Maundy Thursday”. 

It was the day and night of The Last Supper. Sometimes yesterday’s Tenebrae service is also observed on this day (as it was at West End, when I used to go there pre-pandemic) and it’s also considered something of a day of service. You might remember that, little sweetheart, from your times at school in England because the Queen and Royal family always visit and assist homeless shelters on Holy Thursday.

Another thing about Maundy Thursday is that Christ washed the disciples’s feet and that ritual is sometimes recreated in services. I’ve never been to one that did do that but it was something I watched tonight during the service at Grace Church. In their service, anyone who wanted to, could come forward, sit at one of the chairs they’d brought out along with basins of warm water and fresh towels, and one of the clergy washed and dried their feet. Then that person would kneel and wash the next parishioner’s feet and so on.

The first I ever heard of this at all, little sweetheart, was when I was in college. Kris and I were going to different schools and I happened to call him on Maundy Thursday. He and Chas had this wonderful old apartment - I’d been up to visit them - off campus. They had a great music room set up in front with Kris’s stereo and a slew of instruments, including Chas’s Stratocaster, Kris’s Hofner bass and this vintage Vox organ (the kind with the keys colors reversed - the chromatics white and the others black) they’d bought secondhand.

When I called I could hear loud music in the background and Kris told me they were having a Maundy Thursday “party”. They’d all gathered, kind of “togo party”-like, dressed in bed sheets and sandals, and had washed one another’s feet with great ceremony, drinking wine and listening to the original album (“The Brown Album”) recording of Jesus Christ Superstar.

I’m not sure if I’ve ever told you that story before, little sweetheart. I do remember that you met Ted Neeley, who was the first Jesus in the Broadway production (and in the film) and still playing role in a national tour when you saw the production as a teenager almost twenty years later. Tonight, after the service, I didn’t have wine or dress in a bed sheet but I did play the Brown Album… loud. My thoughts, as ever, of you.  

With all my love.