Maundy Thursday 2028: Date, History & Significance

The priest or bishop washes the feet of twelve people, in imitation of Christ serving his disciples. After the Mass the consecrated host is carried in procession to an altar of repose for overnight adoration, and the main altar is stripped bare. In Kerala, Syrian Christian families keep Pesaha with an unleavened Pesaha appam and a coconut-jaggery paal, eaten together after prayers, recalling the Passover meal.

On the night before he died, Jesus shared the Passover meal with the Twelve. He took bread and wine and said 'This is my body… this is my blood — do this in remembrance of me', founding the Eucharist; he knelt and washed their feet, including Judas's, and told them the greatest among them must be the servant of all. Afterward he went to Gethsemane to pray and was arrested.

Source: The Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles; the liturgical calendar of the Church

The foot-washing (mandatum) and the stripping of the altar are ancient rites of the Latin Church; the Kerala Pesaha appam is a distinctive Saint Thomas Christian tradition of the day. It is not a public holiday.

• Indian Christian community practice (Latin, Syro-Malabar, Syro-Malankara, CSI, CNI, Orthodox)
• The Roman Missal / liturgical calendars

1. The evening Mass of the Lord's Supper recalls the Last Supper and the institution of the Eucharist.
2. The priest washes the feet of twelve people, as Jesus washed his disciples' feet, and the altar is stripped after the service.
3. The Blessed Sacrament is carried to an altar of repose, where the faithful keep watch in prayer late into the night.

• Kerala (Syrian / Saint Thomas Christians). Pesaha — the unleavened Pesaha appam and paal shared by the family after prayers.
• India-wide. The Mass of the Lord's Supper with the foot-washing rite, the altar of repose, and overnight watch.

• Pesaha appam — In Kerala, an unleavened rice bread, cut and shared by the head of the family with pesaha paal, a coconut-milk and jaggery drink.

Maundy Thursday falls on Thursday, 13 April 2028. The Last Supper.

at sunrise

Maundy Thursday is dated by The Thursday before Easter (movable). The movable feasts of the Christian year (Ash Wednesday, Palm Sunday, Good Friday, Easter, Ascension, Pentecost) are all reckoned from Easter, which is the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after the spring equinox; the fixed feasts (Christmas, Epiphany, the Annunciation, All Saints and All Souls) keep the same civil date each year.

The date is set by the Hindu lunisolar calendar and shifts against the Gregorian year.