CHARLOTTE — On Holy Thursday, Bishop Peter Jugis celebrated the Mass of the Lord’s Supper at St. Patrick Cathedral. The Holy Thursday liturgy April 6 marked the start of the Triduum, the three holy days preceding the Resurrection of the Lord at Easter.
The Mass of the Lord’s Supper memorializes Jesus’ celebration of the Passover meal, His washing the feet of His disciples, His agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, and His betrayal and arrest. It also commemorates the institution of the Eucharist, the priesthood and the Mass that we still celebrate today in His memory. Jesus’s actions on Holy Thursday and leading up to His crucifixion on Good Friday illustrate how Jesus loves us to the end. His willingly offering up His life when He is arrested, tortured and crucified, is an expression of His great love for us.
At the end of the Holy Thursday Mass, altars in every church were stripped bare, candles and lights were extinguished, and the Blessed Sacrament was transferred to a temporary altar of repose until Easter – outwardly demonstrating the sense of the Church’s bereavement during the time of Christ’s Passion and burial. At St. Patrick Cathedral, the Blessed Sacrament was moved to the altar of repose in the Family Life Center chapel where visitors spent time with our Lord calling to mind the Agony in the Garden.
Catholics then spent time in Eucharistic Adoration, recalling Jesus’s words to His sleepy disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane, “Could you not keep watch with Me for one hour?” On Good Friday, no Mass is celebrated.
— Spencer K.M. Brown. Catholic News Herald. Photos by James Sarkis and provided.
