Last night the Sacred Triduum, the holiest days of the Catholic Church Year, began with the Mass of the Lord's Supper on Holy Thursday night.  The dramatic sense of sacredness as the Lord's Passion approaches descends after a loud, joyful Gloria accompanied by organs and with constant ringing of the tower bells and bells in the sanctuary and the choir loft.  After the Gloria, the organ goes silent, not to be heard again until the Gloria of the Easter Vigil.

For our schola cantorum, Holy Thursday was a chance to sing a very beautiful yet not too difficult piece called Domine Tu Mihi Lavas Pedes by Brazilian colonial-era composer Jose Mauricio Nunes Garcia.  It is the scene at the Last Supper where Peter says to Jesus, "Lord you will not wash my feet," and Jesus responds, "If I do not wash your feet you will have no part in my kingdom." 

It is also the night when Thomas Aquinas' prayer Pange Lingua Gloriosi is chanted as there is a Eucharistic procession to the altar of repose, where Jesus is adored in the Blessed Sacrament during the night watch ("Could you not watch one hour with me?" Matthew 26:40).   

The Mass doesn't conclude at the end.  The Triduum is like one long Mass that will not conclude until the end of the Easter Vigil.  So we move forward to the Passion of Our Lord on Good Friday.