Maundy Thursday 2014: An Occasion to Remember Christ's Last Supper

Maundy Thursday is observed during the Holy Week, as an ocassion to remember Jesus Christ's Last Supper on the Thursday before Easter.

This year, Maundy Thursday falls on 17 April.

The name Maundy is derived from the Latin word "mandatum", meaning a commandment.

Jesus Christ, at the Last Supper, commanded: "And now I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another." John 13:34

During the holy mass on Maundy Thursday, christians around the world recollect the events of the Last Supper, when Jesus washed the feet of his disciples and passed around bread and wine establishing the ceremony known as the Eucharist.

The Bible describes the events in this manner - Jesus said the bread was his body broken for them and the wine was his blood shed for them. It was on this night, so many years ago, Judas, one of Christ's disciplines, betrayed his teacher in the Garden of Gethsemane, for 30 silver coins.

"Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.

"During supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him, Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, rose from supper.

"He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him." -- John 13:1-15