Maundy Thursday Research Articles

Le saint sacrifice de la marche : pieds, charité et statut social dans les confréries portugaises à l’époque moderne

In 16 th -century Portugal, owning a horse was still a crucial requirement to attain the status of noble. Throughout the Early Modern Period, to walk was a sign of social disqualification, except in certain rituals at court where participants were required to stand. Above all, confraternal rituals required nobles to be on foot as a symbol of charity; they had to walk or stand while visiting the deserving poor or taking part in processions, funeral cortèges, or the washing of feet on Maundy Thursday. However, nobles often sought to have others attend these events on their behalf. Over time, the medieval privileges that had placed such great importance on horse ownership transformed into prejudices that were difficult to eradicate, even in the performance of rites.

Zu Iustinians dies imperii und zum Problem von Datierungen in der Osterzeit. Überlegungen zur antiken Überlieferung, besonders zu Constantinus Porphyrogenitus, De cerimoniis aulae Byzantinae 1,95

AbstractA connection cannot be established between the 4th April 527 and Justinian’s investiture, nor to his assumed subsequent coronation by the patriarch. It results from dating the elevation of Justinian into the Easter period and can first be found in Procopius’ Anecdota and Cyrillus’ Vita Sabae, i.e. already in the 6th century. The same date in Petrus Patricius is the result of a correction made before his report was included into the De cerimoniis of Constantine Porphyrogenitus in the 10th century. Dates of events in the Easter season are sometimes set in relation to feasts such as Maundy Thursday and Easter Sunday. This can lead to redatings or wrong datings, which appear as different dates in the later tradition.

Staging Hyper-masculinity on Maundy Thursday: Christ of the Good Death, the Legion and Changing Gender Practices in Spain

Abstract This paper discusses the role of Christ of the Good Death as a key figure and symbol in a masculine performance by the Spanish Legion in its religious, historical and social context. We explain the recently emerging controversy with regard to the Legion’s performance by pointing out the rapidly changing gender ideology and practice in Spain. The democratization of the Holy Week celebration and ‘gentrification’ of the carriers of the processional images (pasos) over the past few decades, hint at less martial and proletarian notions of manhood.

Pojednanie publicznych pokutników w liturgii rzymskiej

W IV wieku, kiedy nastał czas wolności dla religii chrześcijańskiej, liturgiczne obrzędy zaczęły podlegać szybkiemu rozwojowi – dotyczyło to również liturgii pokuty. W tym okresie za ciężkie grzechy znane publicznie trzeba było odprawić pokutę publiczną. Do grona pokutników włączano w Środę Popielcową, a pojednanie odbywało się w Wielki Czwartek. Pierwsze obrzędy takiej celebracji, zawarte w Sacramentarium gelasianum z VII wieku, w późniejszym okresie będą jeszcze bardziej rozwinięte w średniowiecznych pontyfikałach. Pontyfikał rzymski z 1596 roku przejął obrzędy z Pontyfikału Duranda. Liturgia pojednania publicznych pokutników przetrwała w niektórych miejscach do XVIII wieku. Sprawowano ją uroczyście pod przewodnictwem biskupa, w obecności duchowieństwa, służby liturgicznej i wiernych. W rytuale wydanym po Soborze Watykańskim II nie ma już mowy o publicznych pokutnikach ani o obrzędach, które towarzyszyły ich pojednaniu.

“Partakers of the Same Sacrifice”

“Partakers of the Same Sacrifice” Neil Xavier O’Donoghue Most papal encyclicals address issues of the day and therefore tend to lose relevance as time passes. Certiores effecti, issued in 1742 by Pope Benedict XIV (reigned 1740-58), is not one of them, given that the liturgical abuse it censures remains (270 years later!) all too prevalent. In this short encyclical, Benedict XIV encourages priests to administer Holy Communion to the faithful from hosts consecrated at the same Mass rather than from hosts retrieved from the tabernacle. Because the encyclical is difficult to obtain in the original Latin, and as I am unaware of an extant English translation of it in full, I append the full text in Latin and English (my translation). I. Historical Background Liturgical historians generally agree that up to the fourth century the faithful communicated at every Mass, partaking of eucharistic elements solely consecrated at that celebration.1 Numerous sources attest, moreover, that it was customary for the faithful to take home from the Sunday Eucharist enough of the “eucharistized” bread for Holy Communion on weekdays, when there was normally no celebration of the Eucharist; they also brought the Sacrament to members of the local community who could not attend the liturgy because of illness, imprisonment, or the difficulties of travel.2 Decline in the frequency of Communion Following the adoption of Christianity as the state religion after the Peace of Constantine (312), the reception of Holy Communion be1 On the frequency of holy Communion, see: Joseph Nicholas Stadler, Frequent Holy Communion: A Historical Synopsis and a Commentary, Canon Law Studies 263 (Washington DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1947); Joseph A. Jungmann, The Mass of the Roman Rite: Its Origins and Development (Missarum Sollemnia) [revised and abridged edition in one volume, ed. Charles K. Riepe], trans. Francis A. Brunner (London: Burns & Oates, 1959) 498-502; and, most recently, Joseph Dougherty, From AltarThrone to Table: The Campaign for Frequent Holy Communion in the Catholic Church (Lanham MD: Scarecrow Press, 2010). 2 See Robert F. Taft, “Home-Communion in the Late Antique East” in Ars Liturgiae: Worship, Aesthetics and Praxis. Essays in Honor of Nathan D. Mitchell , ed. Clare V . Johnson (Chicago: Liturgy Training Publications, 2003) 1-25. Antiphon 16.2 (2012): 130-143 131 “Partakers of the Same Sacrifice” came generally restricted to the celebration of Mass. Yet the frequency of reception sharply declined in some places. As the renowned Jesuit liturgist Joseph Jungmann reports in his classic study The Mass of the Roman Rite: Already Chrysostom, among the Greeks, complained: “In vain do we stand before the altar; there is no one to partake.” In Gaul, too, the Synod of Agde (506) found it necessary to insist on Communion three times a year, on Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost, as a minimum. And this demand was repeated time and time again till the very height of the Middle Ages, sometimes with the addition of Maundy Thursday. In the Carolingian reform the attempt was made to re-introduce Communion every Sunday, especially on the Sundays of Lent, but the result was at best temporary. From the eighth century onward, the actuality seems generally not to have gone beyond what the Lateran Council of 1215 established as a new minimum: Communion at Easter.3 Explanations have been advanced for this unexpected development: the extended period of penitence (and thus exclusion from the Eucharist ) imposed on apostates who had returned to the Church once she had finally gained freedom; the common postponement of baptism until a later age; the development of a spirituality of reverential fear with regard to the Eucharist—the mysterium tremendum—and a corresponding sense of personal unworthiness;4 the multiplication of cases of exclusion from the Sacrament, especially for married 3 Jungmann, The Mass of the Roman Rite, 499. Fourth Lateran Council , chap. 21, in Henry Denzinger, Enchiridion Symbolorum, 30th ed., trans. Roy J. Deferrari, The Sources of Catholic Dogma (St Louis: B. Herder, 1957; reprint, Powers Lake ND: Marian House, n.d.) §437, p. 173: “Let everyone of the faithful of both sexes, after he has arrived at the years of discretion, alone faithfully confess all his sins at least once a year to his...

“Jesus Christ the Apple Tree”: Preparing for Good Friday in a Literature and Environment Course

THIS PAPER REFLECTS on a visit by Christian poet John Terpstra to the final class session (on a Maundy Thursday) of my Literature and Environment course, to read his poetry suite on making a cross for his church out of a fruit-tree in an orchard being ploughed under for construction. Terpstra plays on the Stations of the Cross by interweaving the story of his own cross-making with the narrative of Jesus' crucifixion. The quasi-liturgical event of this reading created a profound stillness in the classroom, generated an animated discussion following, and raised important issues about the relationship of liturgy to classroom and of affective to cognitive learning.

Doubt as Methodology and Object in the Phenomenology of Religion

The Holy Grail in the phenomenology of religion (and, to a lesser extent, the sociology of religion) is a definition of religion that actually works, but, so far, this seems to have been elusive. Classical definitions of religion—substantive (e.g. Tylor) and functionalist (e.g. Durkheim)—fail, in part because they attempt to be in three places at once, as it were: they attempt to distinguish religion from non-religion; they attempt to capture what religions have in common; and they attempt to grasp the 'heart', or 'core', of religion. Consequently, family resemblance definitions of religion replace certainty and precision for its own sake with a more pragmatic and heuristic approach, embracing doubt and putting forward definitions that give us a better understanding (Verstehen) of religion. In this paper, I summarise some 'new' definitions of religion that take this approach, before proposing and defending another one, defining religion as non-propositional and 'apophatic', thus accepting that doubt is central to religion itself, as well as to the analysis of religion.

A seismological study of shallow weak micro-earthquakes in the urban area of Hamburg city, Germany, and its possible relation to salt dissolution

In the night from 8/9 April 2009, shortly after midnight on Maundy Thursday before Easter, several people in Gross Flottbek, Hamburg, felt unusual strong ground shocks so that some of them left their houses in fear of earthquake shaking. Police and fire brigade received phone calls of worried residents. A few days later, Internet pages were published where people reported their observations. On 21 April 2009 at about 8 p.m. local time, a second ground-shaking event was felt. Damage to buildings or infrastructure did not occur to our knowledge. The Institute of Geophysics, University of Hamburg, installed from 22 April to 17 May 2009 three temporal seismic stations in the epicentral area. Seismological data from two nearby stations at the Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron at 1 km and the Geophysical Institute at 7 km distance were collected and integrated to the temporal network. The events occurred above the roof of the shallow Othmarschen Langenfelde salt diapir, in an area known for active sinkhole formation and previous historic ground-shaking events. The analysis of the seismological data shows that three shallow micro-earthquakes occurred from 8 to 21 April at a depth of about 100 m, the largest one with a moment magnitude of about M W 0.6. Depth location of such shallow events is difficult with standard methods and is here constrained by waveform modeling of surface waves. Earthquakes occurring in soft sediments within the uppermost 100 m are a rare phenomena and cannot be explained by standard models. Rupture process in soft sediments differs from those on faults in more competent rock. We discuss the rupture and source mechanism of the events in the context of previous historic shocks and existing sinkhole and deformation data. Although the event was weak, the rupture duration of 0.3 s was unusual long. Three possible models for the generation of repeated ground-shaking events in Gross Flottbek are developed and discussed, implying quit different hazards for subsidence, ground motion, and sinkhole formation. Our favored model postulates that roof failure occurs in an existing soil cavity beneath the epicenter at a depth of about 100 m. Other models bearing a smaller geo-hazard cannot be disproved with the data available, but future geophysical experiments may be planned to resolve this question.

Wawelskie ceremoniały wielkoczwartkowe z XVI wieku

The two liturgical codexes of the first half of the 16th century, preserved in the cathedral archives in Krakow and presented above, are nearly identical in their contents. They both refer to the same Maundy Thursday episcopal celebration, for which they contain identical formulas. The more essential difference lies only in the amount of rubrics, which when set together, don’t reveal any discrepancies in celebrating particular rites.However the books differ almost in everything as far as their external appearance is concerned, that is: their size, cover, edition, „breaking text”, writing and decoration. Owing to the great number of peculiar rubricistic information both ceremonials constitute a precious source for reconstructing the Maundy Thursday liturgy of the past, which apart from the Mass of the Last Supper contained the rites of blessing of the oil of the sick, the oil of catechumens and the chrism.

Religion and Power: The Appropriation of Da Vinci's The Last Supper in Viridiana and L'Ultima Cena

RELIGION AND POWER: THE APPROPRIATION OF DA VINCI’S THE LAST SUPPER IN VIRIDIANA AND L’ULTIMA CENA CATHERINE SUNDT THE Biblical episode of the Last Supper, as told in all four of the gospels, is one of the most well-known and referenced events in all of Christianity. The event takes place on Maundy Thursday, the night before Jesus was crucified, and thus tells the story of his final night as a man of flesh and blood. At this dinner, several important events happen: Jesus blesses the wine and the cup in the ceremony of the Eucharist, he claims that one of his 12 apostles will betray him, and he gives a final sermon or “farewell discourse.” Many artists have created their own visual representations of the dinner, but the most famous portrayal is Leonardo da Vinci ’s 15ft × 29ft mural L’Ultima Cena (referred to henceforth as The Last Supper), one of the most recognizable pieces of art in history. During the twentieth century, film became a popular medium for both artistic expression and social criticism. In the 60s and 70s, two films featured extended scenes that appropriated the well-known religious image of da Vinci’s mural in order to make a statement about religion , and did so in a way that would resonate with the traditionally Catholic countries of Cuba and Spain. Although the Catholic doctrine speaks of charity and mercy, the disadvantaged characters in the film receive only temporary kindness and then are quickly forgotten. By using traditional religious symbols to show that not all of God’s children receive the same treatment, the directors are able to undermine Catholicism and show its sometimes nefarious byproducts, such as fascism and marginalization. In 1961, Luis Buñuel’s film Viridiana told the story of a young woman who, about to take her vows as a nun, turns her late uncle’s 71 house into an “albergue,” or rooming house for the poor and homeless. The Last Supper scene features the vagrants that she is sheltering and shows the house descending into debauchery and destruction, instead of the peaceful, holy atmosphere that Viridiana was trying to maintain. Viridiana was considered blasphemous for its time for condemning the counterproductive nature of Christian charity, which, in Buñuel’s own words, “produce catástrofes, el estropicio de la casa por los mendigos, riñas entre estos, la posible violación de Viridiana” (quoted in Pérez 119). Buñuel further angered the church by framing the riotous events of the film within a religious context by using Handel’s Messiah and reenacting the poses of The Last Supper with homeless people, an act that has been classified as a “perverse appropriation” and “parodic rewriting ” (Gutiérrez-Albilla 1) of an important and recognizable Christian image. Tomás Gutiérrez Alea studied at the Centro Sperimentale film school in Rome in the 1950s, when it was “awash in the Neorealist influences of Roberto Rossellini and Luis Buñuel” (Britannica). So, it is fitting that his 1976 film La última cena would appropriate the same religious image as Viridiana. The film showed a pious sugar plantation owner in Cuba who holds a large banquet and attempts to teach his slaves about religion and the necessity of suffering for eternal happiness. While the slaves believe that they are being shown kindness, they are merely being placated, and the landowner does not give them the following day off of work as he promised to do, leading to a slave revolt. This film also makes anti-religious commentary through the actions of the count and the hypocritical ideologies that he preaches. In this paper, I will compare and contrast the two films’ messages about religion and how it was instrumental in dominating and exploiting the members of the lowest classes in both 20th-century Spain and late 18th-century Cuba. Several authors, such as Julián Daniel GutiérrezAlbilla and Anton Karl Kozlovic, have written about the religious symbolism in Viridiana or La última cena, and a few authors have even connected the films by speaking of Gutiérrez Alea’s admiration of Buñuel, the intertextuality of the two films, and their “common...

9–10 April 2009 • Maundy Thursday • Good Friday

9–10 April 2009 • Maundy Thursday • Good Friday

Rethinking the Pseudo-Eligius sermon collection

St Eligius of Noyon (d. 660) has been credited with the authorship of a collection of sixteen sermons since their publication in the sixteenth century. However, this article demonstrates through a detailed analysis of the sources used in these sermons that the collection cannot have been composed before the end of the ninth century. The sermons were written to be preached by a bishop in the vernacular to a mixed audience of clergy and laity. This article also shows how the sermons for Maundy Thursday can shed light on the theory and practice of public penance in the late Carolingian church.

20–21 March 2008 • Maundy Thursday • Good Friday

20–21 March 2008 • Maundy Thursday • Good Friday

Henry IV's date of birth and the royal Maundy

The date of Henry IV's birth has proved problematic for two key reasons. The failure of any contemporary chronicler to note the date is one. Another is the assumption that medieval people assigned their birthdays to a specific calendar date. This note argues that Henry IV was born on a moveable feast – Maundy Thursday 1367 – and celebrated his birthday accordingly. In addition, it suggests that the origin of the custom of the sovereign's age-related donations, on Maundy Thursday, lies in Henry's own attempt to draw attention to the fact that he, like Richard II, was born on a religious feast day.

13–14 April 2006 Maundy Thursday • Holy Thursday • Good Friday

13–14 April 2006 Maundy Thursday • Holy Thursday • Good Friday

Frithegod of Canterbury's Maundy Thursday hymn

In his Catalogus of British writers, John Bale's account of the tenth-century scholar, Frithegod, includes incipits for two hymns, of which the first, on Mary Magdalen (‘Dum pietas multimoda’), was long thought lost. In fact it is not lost, but has simply become uncoupled from its author's name, and is transmitted anonymously in three manuscripts of French origin, and in some Spanish liturgical books, whence it was first printed in 1897. Frithegod's authorship is suggested by Patrick Young's seventeenth-century catalogue of Salisbury Cathedral manuscripts. Young noticed two ‘carmina Frethogodi’ at the end of what is now Dublin, Trinity College 174 (a late eleventh- or early twelfth-century Salisbury legendary), giving the incipit of the first as 'Dum pietas multimoda’. After Young had catalogued TCD 174, the page with the hymns must have become detached, and cannot now be traced. Frithegod may have composed the hymn while still at Canterbury, and then perhaps took a copy back to his native Auvergne, given that it ended up in an English manuscript but also circulated in France. Although the circumstances of composition are beyond recovery, I suggest that the hymn was originally intended not for the cult of Mary Magdalen (it was used thus in France), but rather to accompany the penitential rituals of Maundy Thursday. The article includes a text and translation of the hymn.

Fragments of Medieval Liturgical Manuscripts Held in the Fryer Library, The University of Queensland

In 1974 eleven fragments of medieval liturgical manuscripts, bound as a 'guard-book', were purchased by the University of Queensland Library and housed in the Fryer Library. This article provides a palaeographic description of them and identifies their liturgical contents. The first two folios, with musical notation, reveal texts belonging to the monastic cursus for Matins of Maundy Thursday. The other nine are fragments from a liturgical Psalter of secular use for the weekly Offices from Sunday Matins through to Saturday Vespers. The article further discusses the dismemberment of medieval manuscripts for the purposes of book-binding in the early print era and the subsequent recuperation of such binding fragments in the form of guard-books in nineteenth-century Britain. Finally the sequence of sales and purchases of the guard-book prior to its arrival in Australia is examined.

Paulin II d'Aquilée (756-802) et l'hymne 'Ubi caritas' du mandatum du Jeudi-saint

Still little is known about the extraordinary exuberance of the chanted liturgical poems composed during the Carolingian liturgical renaissance under the patronage of Charlemagne and the Frankish monks of his entourage like Alcuin, Theodolfus of Orleans and Benedict of Aniane. Paulinus II, patriarch of Aquileia and author of the hymn Ubi caritas, which is sung on Maundy Thursday, also appears on the scene at this time as an excellent composer of rhythmical chants.

La prédication dissidente

Dissenting Preaching. During times of freedom, Cathar preaching took place regularly on Sundays and on some feast days according to the calendar of the catholic Church. When repression reigned, meetings took place, which could include up to a hundred people, in which a cleric read a passage from the gospel which could include up to a hundred peole, in whixh a cleric read a passage from the gospel which was then commented upon by a « parfait » of high standing. People from Vaud also followed the calendar with specific insistence on Maundy Thursday. Sermons were then preceded by a commemoration of the Last Supper with bread, wine and fish. But they also preached widely on public squares, generally against Catharism, challenging « parfaits » to public debates. During times of repression, sermons were the crowning moments of an evening meeting in a friendly house : there would be a general prayer with people kneeling before a bench, a dinner, a sermon and, afterwards, brothers would hear some confessions. If there was no sermon, the « Béguins » organized evening meetings during which pious opuscules translated into provençal were read, especially ones by Pierre Dejean-Olieu. The Spanish apostolic arrested by Bernard Gui was to preach orally on the pilgrimage trail. He had a certain stock of knowledge concerning Holy Writ. Lastly, until a late date, Catholic sermons, whether preached by beggins friars or by local priests, were not without fabulous assertions and sometimes even utter heresies.

Maundy Thursday Chrism

Maundy Thursday Chrism