One of the major changes to the Prayer Book tradition in the 20th century, culminating in the American Prayer Book of 1979, is the restoration of unique Triduum services to mark the end of Holy Week and Lent. Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday form a triduum or “trilogy of days” which together form a coherent whole, seamlessly uniting biblical narrative, public piety, and theological instruction. The introductory text states that the services of these three days (leading to the Great Vigil of Easter) “form a single liturgy.” This accounts for the lack of blessings and dismissals at the end of all but the last of these services, the lack of celebration of Holy Communion on Friday and Saturday, awkward periods of silence, and several other features that may seem quirky in isolation. As a whole, the Triduum services form an epic experience of worship and devotion filled to the brim with doctrinal instruction and biblical immersion, but this is also their weakness. For those who attend only one of the three days, the full context is missed, and the liturgy, literally the “public work”, is not able to work to its full potential upon such an individual’s heart and mind. To address this issue, the classical Prayer Book tradition offers us some alternatives which shall be considered through the following service commentaries.
The name “Maundy Thursday,” as explained here, comes from the traditional evening celebration which focused on our Lord’s washing of the disciples’ feet.
The Acclamation and Sentences
The service may begin with a processional hymn like a normal eucharistic celebration but the opening rubric encourages the option of silence. As in the Ash Wednesday and Palm Sunday services, silence will continue to be one of the most powerful tools in this and the following two rites.
The four Opening Sentences together form a brief Address in which the celebrant introduces the biblical chronology of this evening’s commemoration. Each sentence names Jesus by a different title relevant to his subsequent works: “Christ the Son of Man” gathers with his disciples; “Christ our Lord and Master” became a lowly foot-washing servant; “Christ our God” inaugurated the Sacrament of Holy Communion out the Passover meal; “Christ the Lamb of God” gave himself up for his own execution. Depending upon the extent of the enactment of the liturgy, all four of these may be observed in the service to follow.
The Lessons
The beginning of Exodus 12 describes the Passover meal which provides the Old Testament context for the Last Supper.
Psalm 78:15-26 celebrates the manna that God provided in the desert during the Exodus years. This “food from heaven” and “bread of angels” provides another significant Old Testament context for the eucharistic feast that Christ inaugurates.
The Epistle contains what is actually the first recorded account of the Last Supper, as 1 Corinthians was likely written in the year 53 or 54 during Saint Paul’s ministry and the Gospels weren’t written until the 60’s or 70’s, toward the end of the Apostles’ lives. The final portion of the reading is labeled as optional, but historically it was always included. The warning in those verses against profaning the body and blood of Christ is expounded in the Exhortation to Holy Communion; the only feasible reason to omit reading these verses here is if the Exhortation is going to be said later in this service.
As for the Gospels, John 13 has the most historical precedent as being the standard Gospel for this service for a thousand years until the Reformation. The reading from Luke 22 allows the preacher to bring two different narratives of the Last Supper together before the congregation’s attention, making it a good choice if that biblical narrative is to be the focus of the sermon. Otherwise, the Foot-Washing Gospel should take pride of place in this service.
The Foot-Washing
After the sermon, the Celebrant introduces the worshipers to the next unique feature of this worship service. The Address provided here explains the mentality behind Jesus’ example: Christian strength and growth comes from humility, or “lowly service.” The washing of others’ feet was the epitome of lowly service in the Middle East in the first century, so for our Lord and God to undertake such a role infuses Christianity with a distinct conception of authority and service which has thoroughly permeated ever Christian (and post-Christian!) culture ever since.
Traditionally, the washing of the feet is carried out by the rector or vicar and received by members of the vestry or other representatives of the congregation. However, this is not specified in the rubrics either in the 1979 Prayer Book or in this. Thus it has become the custom of some that not only do the clergy wash others’ feet, but anyone in the congregation may wash the feet of others. This presents some difficult questions. On one hand this innovation rightly grasps and applies the final command of Christ in the Gospel: “you also ought to wash one another’s feet.” All Christians are called to lives of humility, serving one another no matter how lofty or lowly the job. On the other hand, Jesus gave this instruction to his disciples, not to his larger crowd of followers, and the imagery of lowly service is predicated on the fact that the one who humbles himself before others is indeed of a higher rank than them. Thus the foot-washing command is incumbent upon pastors washing the feet of their flock, and for everyone to wash one another’s feet is to miss the profundity of the leader kneeling before the follower.
During the foot-washing, it is customary for the choir to sing an anthem special to the occasion. Similar to the Offertory and (at least in the 1549 Prayer Book) the Communion, scripture verses are offered as anthems alongside the reality of other traditional songs being known and available.
The Communion and Beyond
After this, the Communion service continues with the Prayers of the People and proceeds normally until the Post-Communion Prayer. At that point (1) the Reserved Sacrament may be processed to the Altar of Repose, then (2) the Altar may be stripped, to the reading or chanting of Psalm 22, and then (3) the service ends without dismissal and the people either depart in silence or remain for prayer and vigil before the Altar of Repose, liturgically joining Christ in Gethsemane to keep watch (for at least) one hour.
The reason for this silence is twofold. First, it is part of the liturgical drama of re-living our Lord’s last night and day before his death; by departing in silence the worshiper is not only put in mind of the disciples’ unceremonious scattering from Jesus upon his arrest, but also experiences something of that discomfort in a visceral manner. The second reason is that the modern (or renewed medieval) Triduum services are conceived of as a continuous whole:
- Holy Communion commemorating the Foot-Washing and the Last Supper
- The Reservation of the Blessed Sacrament
- The Stripping of the Altar
- The Watches, or Night Vigil, perhaps concluding with Tenebrae
- The Passion and Solemn Collects of Good Friday
- Devotions before (or Stations of) the Cross
- Distribution of Communion (or Mass of the Presanctified)
- The Holy Saturday Service with Burial Anthem
- The Great Vigil of Easter, consisting of: The Liturgy of Light and Exsultet, The Vigil of Lessons, Holy Baptism, and the First Mass of Easter
And, of course, punctuating all these are the Daily Offices of Morning and Evening Prayer. Thus the 2019 Prayer Book endorses:
- Thursday Evening Prayer
- The Maundy Thursday Service
- Thursday Compline
- Tenebrae*
- Friday Morning Prayer
- Way (or Stations) of the Cross*
- The Good Friday Service
- The Seven Last Words of Christ*
- Friday Evening Prayer
- Friday Compline
- Saturday Morning Prayer
- The Holy Saturday Service
- Saturday Evening Prayer
- The Great Vigil of Easter
* These services are endorsed on BCP page 564, but forms for their observance are not provided in the Prayer Book itself.
The Saint Aelfric Customary 