The Mass of the Lord’s Supper will be celebrated Thursday evening at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, including the traditional washing of the feet of 12 faithful, which was canceled the past two years because of the coronavirus pandemic.
The Mass commemorates Jesus Christ’s Last Supper with his apostles the night before he was crucified. At the Last Supper, Jesus instituted the Eucharist, the sacrament of Christ’s Body and Blood, as well as the Priesthood.
In the Catholic Church, the Mass marks the end of the Lenten Season and the beginning of the Easter Triduum, the three days prior to Easter Sunday: Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday.
Its traditional English name, Maundy Thursday, comes from a Latin phrase linked to the ceremony of foot washing, Mandatum novum, “a new commandment.”
The new commandment states that we are to love one another with an abundance of love, especially at this most sacred time of the liturgical year when the Lord’s passion, death and resurrection are remembered and celebrated in the powerful rites of the Triduum.
The 7 p.m. bilingual Mass celebrated by Archbishop José H. Gomez will be livestreamed at facebook.com/lacatholics, youtube.com/olacathedral and olacathedral.org/live.