The Meaning of Maundy Thursday

Esoteric Mysticism: “Wine symbolizes the transformed desire of the disciple, bread represents the pure and luminous etheric body. The powers of mastery may be demonstrated through the blending of spiritual forces within these two prepared vehicles. Each of the holy men and women who participated in the Last Supper with Christ had so purified their subtle bodies that they could receive and transmit Christ’s powers for healing and spiritual enlightenment of all whom it was given to them to serve.

Easter was originally the celebration of Ishtar, the Assyrian and Babylonian goddess of fertility and sex. Her symbols (like the egg and bunny) were and still are fertility and sex symbols (or did you think eggs and bunnies had anything to do with the resurrection?) After Constantine decided to Christianize the Empire, Easter was changed to represent Jesus. But at its roots, Easter (which is how you pronounce Ishtar) is all about celebrating fertility and sex.

In a Masonic parlance, the Maundy Thursday is envisioned to commemorate the Extinguishing of the Symbolic Light, specifically the crucifixion of the Christ in the gospel telling. On the immediate Sunday, a follow-up observance is aptly called the Relighting of the Symbolic Light, which marks the resurrection. The key point of this observance is to remember those brethren who have passed on in the preceding year. Once these events were mandatory attendance events for Knight Rose Croix, they served as remembrance events open to all in most locations.

Maundy Thursday, Covenant Thursday, or simply Holy

Thursday, is the annual Christian holy day on the last Thursday before Easter. It is a remembrance day for the last supper of Jesus and his twelve apostles, as was described in the canonical gospels; it is also for remembering The Maundy, which was the washing of the feet, particularly the Maundy that Jesus performed.

The moment when the Word was recovered; when the Cubical Stone was changed to the Mystic Rose; when the Blazing Sun reappeared in its entire splendor; the Columns of the Temple were re-established; and the Working Tools of Masonry restored; when True Light dispelled the Darkness and the New Love began to rule upon the earth.

On this day, Christians all around the world take time out of their day to reflect on the life of Jesus Christ, leading up to the point of the last Supper, where he sat down with his apostles and shared food and wine, proclaiming that it was his body and blood.

The Last Supper – Champaigne, Philippe de (1602-1674)

The actual date of Maundy Thursday is between the 19th of March and the 22nd of April; however, these dates can fall on specific days depending on whether it was the Gregorian calendar or the Julian calendar used. Eastern churches generally use the Julian calendar and, thus, celebrate Maundy Thursday between the 21st of April and the 5th of May. In Western Churches, Maundy Thursday is when the Chrism mass is celebrated in every diocese, usually held in each diocese’s cathedral. This mass involves a bishop blessing chrism oils, oil of catechumens, and oil of the sick. The Oil of Chrism and catechumens will be saved until Easter Saturday when they will be used to bless the attendees of the mass.

There is an ancient tradition that on Maundy Sunday, you should visit 7 different churches, called the seven churches visitation. This practice originated in Rome and is now practiced in many countries worldwide.

Maundy is said to be a corruption of the Latin word mandatum – meaning “command.”

While an observance event, the Maundy gathering, in some respect, serves to supplement the Rose Croix Chapter of the Scottish Rite in the 17th (Knight of the East and West) and 18th (Knight Rose Croix) degrees, both of which attempt to invest candidates with an understanding of Religion, Philosophy, Ethics, and History. While seemingly a religious (Christian) observance, it’s been written that it seeks to “commemorate the death of our most wise and perfect Master – not as inspired or divine, but as at least the greatest of humanity.” In one description of the event, Arturo De Hoyos says,

The Ceremony of Remembrance and Renewal, including the Mystic Banquet, is not a religious observance. It is neither the Feast of Passover nor a Sacrament of Holy Communion, although it commemorates the spirit of both days. Annually, the observance is held near the vernal equinox.

The ceremonies of Maundy Thursday, made obligatory on each Rose Croix Chapter of the Scottish Rite, is a festival almost as old as the world, for it has been observed in some form or other from time immemorial. It began with early man’s naive wonder at the coming of spring, an event to him of the very greatest importance since it represented the sun god’s return from the death of winter to the resurrection of the vernal equinox. “The years at the spring” was his feeling, and this feeling took a thousand forms of expression, some of them magical, some religious, some of them a joyous human merry-making. Whatever the form, the kernel of feeling remained the same; the god of light, warmth, and life, whatever may have been his name Mithra, Attis, Cama, Osiris, Ormuzd, Dionysus, had been dead through the winter time. Now he had returned to life and would bestow life on his people. Therefore, there were solemn rejoicings.

Of the ceremony itself, it says,

The Symbolic Lights are Re-lighted; it is a time of rebirth, rehabilitation, regeneration, and renewal of life and energy. Death and darkness have departed, and the earth sings its joy of Love and Living. What before was the desolation of spirit and thought has the crucible of Light and the revivification of those for whom life had lost meaning.

Just as the Renaissance of learning followed the dark ages in Europe, so did the new light of Easter, which brought with it a new life of love and understanding. The new Commandment has been fulfilled.

This is a time, then, for each of us to search our Souls and see if we truly and devotedly are living the Life of Love — Not just in mere outward similitude. But in our innermost, personal, private lives. Are we — in business, at home, in our pastimes — living the life of the New Commandment? If we weigh ourselves in its light and find ourselves wanting. Then it is time for us to do something sincerely and devotedly about it.

Let us at the Symbolic Relighting of the Lights, dedicate ourselves to duty, renew our vows, so often repeated in our Rite, and lead the Life of Love, one to another, that our light will shine among men in the world, that we may be known truly as men and as Masons who mean eternal truths learned in our Rituals and who, by our acts and conduct, portray those meanings to their ultimate fulfillment.