Stripping of the Altar of the altar at the conclusion of the Maundy Thursday liturgy in Lutheran Churches, the "lectern and pulpit are [also] left bare until Easter to symbolize the humiliation and barrenness of the cross." In Anglican Churches, this ceremony is also performed at the conclusion of Maundy Thursday services, "in which all appointments, linens, and paraments are removed from the altar and chancel in preparation for Good Friday." In the earlier form of the Roman Rite, the stripping of the altar was done at the end of Mass of the Lord's Supper on Maundy Thursday. It is still carried out All
Holy Thursday (Songs of Innocence) Holy Thursday (Songs of Innocence) Holy Thursday is a poem by William Blake, from his 1789 book of poems "Songs of Innocence". (There is also a Holy Thursday poem in "Songs of Experience", which contrasts with this song.) The poem depicts a ceremony held on Ascension Day, which in England was then called Holy Thursday, a name now generally applied to what is also called Maundy Thursday: six thousand orphans of London's charity schools, scrubbed clean and dressed in the coats of distinctive colours, are marched two by two to Saint Paul's Cathedral, under the control of their beadles, and