Maundy Thursday, 2026

 

“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you

also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you

have love for one another.”

On rural Ganghwa Island in South Korea, there stands an Anglican parish

church: the Church of Sts. Peter and Paul, built by zealous Anglo-Catholic

missionaries at the end of the nineteenth century. If you were to walk by

this stone, wood, and plaster building, you might think—save for a painted

cross—that it was a Buddhist temple or some other traditional Korean

structure. But inside, you would find the very image of an English country

parish: a rood screen, a stone altar, stations of the cross, and the lingering

scent of high Mass incense clinging to the air.

It is no surprise, then, that when I lived on that island as a young man, this

is where I chose to worship.

 

On my first Maundy Thursday in Korea, however, I found myself running

behind at work, unable to make it to church on time. I remember sitting in

a meeting, listening to the school principal drone on, all the while tapping

my feet, anxious to leave and make my way to Mass—knowing I was

already late. This night was, and still is, my favorite of the Christian year,

and I was loath to miss it.

 

As soon as the meeting ended, I rushed out of the school, hopped onto my

scooter—an old, worn-out Yamaha—and made my way down the winding

mountain roads toward the church. I was late—very late. Indeed, by the

time I arrived, the Mass was ending. The altar was being stripped, and the

solemn words of Pange lingua gloriosi, by Thomas Aquinas, were being sung

in the sonorous tones of the Korean language. The air was thick with

incense, and the lights had been dimmed, leaving only the soft glow of

candlelight.

 

As the Blessed Sacrament was carried to the altar of repose—as we will do

this evening—I felt a palpable closeness to God. The congregation

followed the priests, reverencing the sacrament by lying prostrate on the

woven mat floor. When they rose, they prayed the Holy Rosary together. In

that moment, I felt not only a deep closeness to God, but also a profound

closeness to the people around me—these Christian souls with whom I

found myself united.

 

It reminded me, in a way, of Thomas Merton’s famous experience of the

sacred humanity of all people at the corner of Fifth and Vine in Louisville,

Kentucky. “There is no way of telling people,” he wrote, “that they are all

walking around shining like the sun.”

They were radiant—and I was humbled.

 

This evening is Maundy Thursday, when we remember, above all, the

institution of the Lord’s Supper: Holy Communion, the very presence of

Christ among us—the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Christ, as the

Church Fathers say. But it is more than that. This sacred meal is what

draws us together as Christians; it gives us our very character as the Body

of Christ. You are what you eat, after all. And when we share this bread

and this cup, we become more visibly the people God knows us to be, even

if only for a moment.

 

It is, truly, a miracle that we are here this evening, sharing in this mystery.

In the Eucharist, heaven and earth are joined together, and our earthbound

humanity is caught up into something heavenly.

 

“Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another,” Jesus tells us

as he washes the disciples feet. And it is this love that is expressed in Holy

Communion: Christ gives himself to us, and we give ourselves to one

another. It is that simple—and that profound. And it stands as a powerful

witness to a world that is more divided than ever.

Look at your social media. Look at the news. Everywhere, we are being

told to hate, or to fear, one group or another. We are urged to huddle

together and conform to whatever group we belong to. We are encouraged

to scorn, mock, and alienate our chosen scapegoats. We are told to be

divided rather than to be one. And it hardly matters what your political

persuasion or social group may be—the spirit of division reigns in our

world today.

The Christian faith, however, calls us to something entirely different: a

radical, self-emptying love. Holy Communion—the Eucharist, the Mass,

whatever we may call it—is about union with God in Christ and unity with

one another as the Body of Christ. It is not magic, but neither is it empty

ritual; it is the very presence of Jesus Christ, who stooped to wash the

disciples’ feet and showed us the way of sacrificial love.

Tonight, we are gathered—two parishes with different traditions and

instincts—because of our shared love of God in Christ. That love has

drawn us together. We are here to remember, to enact, and to be

transformed by that same love.

 

All of us, whether we recognize it or not, are radiant with the love of God.

All of us are shining like the sun. And this is so because Christ has loved us

from the depths of his being—on the Cross and in the empty tomb.

And so, let us love one another, just as God first loved us.

 

I close with a few words from the seventeenth-century spiritual writer

Thomas Traherne, who wrote—and indeed prayed:

“You never enjoy the world aright, till the sea itself floweth in your veins,

till you are clothed with the heavens, and crowned with the stars...

and perceive yourself to be the sole heir of the whole world...

and more than so, because men are in it who are every one sole heirs as well as you.”