MAUNDY THURSDAY

April 1, 2021

St. Uriel's, Sea Girt, N.J.

The Liturgy of Maundy Thursday commemorates our Lord’s institution of the Eucharist, and his washing of his disciples’ feet, at his Last Supper with them on the eve of his death. This year, however, we’re unable to enact the foot-washing that is a familiar staple of this liturgy in so many parishes: a particular deprivation for your clergy, for whom the ritual affords a welcome annual reminder of our vocation as first and foremost one of service: to be “servants of the servants of God.”

It also seems a bit odd to be commemorating Our Lord’s commandment to celebrate the Eucharist “in remembrance of him” at the end of a year in which for a time all public gatherings, including for worship, were prohibited (in my opinion, quite appropriately). So, I’d like to take this opportunity to reflect on something of what I think we may have learned about the nature of our Eucharistic life as the Body of Christ in a time of pandemic.

In a theological sense, this pandemic has served as one of those sudden and unexpected calamities that lay bare the quality of our spiritual foundations—as in Our Lord’s parable in Matthew 7 of two houses, one built on sand and one built on rock. When the rain fell, and the floods came, and the wind blew, the house built on rock remained standing firm, but the house built on sand fell “and great was the fall of it.”

The parishes and congregations found best prepared for this pandemic were those that had already been building on solid foundations. In a few cases, this was true simply at a technological level. I know at least one parish that several years ago had installed a sophisticated system of wall-mounted cameras for recording and live-streaming liturgies. They had no idea that a pandemic was coming; they were simply responding to the pastoral needs of an aging and geographically-dispersed congregation whose members could not always be physically present for worship. So when the pandemic came, they were already all set to begin broadcasting Mass for a remote congregation. The good news in this respect has been that not only here at St. Uriel’s, but across the Episcopal Church, such remote participation in worship has remained relatively high. And that’s a foundation on which we need to continue building.

At a spiritual level, the most impressive responses to the crisis have similarly come from those parishes and communities that already had a doctrinally sound theology of worship. Here at Saint Uriel’s, our Anglo-Catholic tradition stood us in particularly good stead. For example, parishioners who’d already been taught that Christ is fully and equally present in both the consecrated Bread and Wine found the transition to Communion in one kind less distressing than those who had not. I long for our return to Communion in both kinds, both the Host and the Chalice, so that we may "do this, as often as [we] drink it, in remembrance of [Him]". But in the meantime, we may rest assured that we receive the fullness of sacramental grace in receiving the Host alone (or, indeed, the Chalice alone).

Once live-streaming became the only option in many places for continued access to worship in locked-down churches, it’s understandable that some dioceses and parishes switched to Morning Prayer as a way of leveling the spiritual playing field. If everybody couldn’t be together to receive Holy Communion, then the clergy also would also abstain or “fast” from the Eucharist in solidarity with their parishioners. That choice was consistent with certain traditions of Anglican understanding and practice.

I rejoice, however, that other parishes of a more Catholic bent, such as Saint Uriel’s, decided without hesitation to keep on offering Mass for the spiritual benefit of even physically absent congregations whose members could participate remotely from home, often via hastily-improvised live-streaming technology. The holy sacrifice of the Mass is the most powerful intercession we can offer for the needs of the Church and the world. The venerable Catholic practice of making a spiritual Communion became an invaluable rock to cling to while we weathered the storm.

Since we’ve reopened for limited in-person worship, it’s wonderful that so many St. Uriel’s parishioners have felt safe enough to return to church. But the important thing is to do the best we can and offer that to God. If some people aren’t ready yet to return and prefer to follow our services online, making a spiritual Communion at the appropriate moment, then that’s an acceptable offering as well. God knows that we’re all trying to do the best we can under difficult circumstances.

Perhaps counterintuitively, I believe that our present trials are strengthening us for the future in ways that we can only dimly perceive at present. Specifically, I want to share three principal hopes for whatever “return to normal” lies ahead.

First, contrary to those who fear that prolonged physical absence will irrevocably damage Mass attendance, we may dare to hope that one result will be a renewed appreciation of the value of gathering in churches for worship, along with a greater commitment to regular participation in the liturgy. When something has been taken away from us for a time, we’re less apt to take it for granted and more likely instead recognize it for the incomparable privilege that it is.

Second, many Church members, lay and ordained, have found themselves moved to greater reliance on different forms of personal prayer—particularly the Daily Office and Marian devotions such as the Holy Rosary. We may hope that this deepening of personal spiritual discipline will strengthen us for our future life and mission.

Third, when we’re finally able to return to unrestricted participation in worship in our beloved sacred spaces, we may discover that we’ve learned something crucial: namely, that even when physically present in church we’re still worshiping at one remove. Generations of liturgical theologians and mystics—going back to Saint John the Divine on the island of Patmos—have reminded us that the true liturgy, the ultimately real liturgy, is that offered in heaven before the Lamb’s eternal throne. Our temporal gatherings in earthly cathedrals, churches, and chapels represent really another form of remote participation—a symbolic live-streaming in time and space of the endless offering of God the Son to God the Father in the power of the Holy Spirit, into which Our Lady and all the angels and saints in heaven are continually drawn in perfect praise and adoration.

So, this evening we give thanks for Our Lord’s institution of the Holy Eucharist as the sacramental means by which we “proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” Our eventual restoration to full participation in the Church’s liturgical and sacramental life will be a joyous homecoming—and may God hasten its day! But we remember that, like a TV screen connected to the internet, even so-called “in-person” earthly worship puts us in contact with an infinitely greater reality that continues to beckon us in its promise of the ultimate fulfillment of all our deepest desires and longings in the life of the world to come.