+ In nomine Domini.  Amen.

It is Holy Thursday, Maundy Thursday – as we call it after the words of the Gospel of John where, translated into Latin, Jesus says: mandatum est – “It is a new commandment (a new mandate) that I give to you … love one another, as I have loved you.”

It is Holy Thursday, Maundy Thursday – the beginning of the Triduum, the Three Days where we celebrate one great long Service spread over today, tomorrow and Saturday.

Tonight we will celebrate the Lord’s Supper and when all is finished we will say Psalm 22 together as we strip our altar of everything liturgical in preparation for tomorrow, and then because tonight’s service simply stops overnight, we will quietly and reverently leave the church, go home, rest, sleep, pray and then return tomorrow at Noon to pray the ancient Stations of the Cross.

And, having done that, we will leave the church again, and return tomorrow evening for the continuation of the liturgy as we read together the story of Jesus’ arrest, trial, sentencing, and death according to the Gospel of John … end the evening with the veneration of the cross and leave once again quietly and reverently to go home, rest, sleep, pray and then return on Saturday evening for the conclusion of the Triduum in what is called the Great Vigil of Easter which itself is made up of four Services: the Service of Light, the Service of Readings, the Service of Baptism/Remembrance of Baptism, and the First Eucharist of Easter.

And then … Sunday Morning … Easter, ringing the Easter Bell at 7 am, eating the Easter Breakfast at 8, and celebrating the Festival of Easter at 10 … What a journey!

But … it all begins this evening as the Triduum starts, at the onset of the great Three Days.

And so should it be thus … because, though we may wish to skip over the incredible amount of worshipping we are setting out to do … though we might want to take a short cut and just jump ahead to the joy of the Resurrection … to do that is to leave out a part or parts of the story … and to leave out a part of the story is to leave ourselves out of it as well.

There are no shortcuts to the story.  There are no shortcuts to faith.  To omit is to miss out, and by not omitting … what we have before us, is the chance to experience deeply and therefore with great meaning and the possibility of great faith …

In these liturgies, the preaching, if at all, is kept to a minimum … and the reason for that is so we can follow the first rule of spirituality which is to listen, not talk … and by listening we can hear the story and immerse ourselves deeply inside it and from that immersion come to a deeper understanding and a deeper calling of what it means to love God and love our neighbor as ourselves and work with God and neighbor to heal the world.

What happens when we follow Jesus in the story is that we ourselves become followers of Jesus in the world.

We will sing as our last communion hymn this evening Ubi Caritas … one of our favourites, but to a different chant, a different tune, a very beautiful one.  I encourage you to listen to the words, and take them as you take the story and the bread and the wine to yourselves tonight, to take the words of this hymn to yourself and hold them in your heart through these next three days.

Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est.  “Where charity and love are found, there is found also God.”