Jesus set the instance of service and care, says King Charles in Maundy Thursday message

King Charles III has spoken concerning the importance of showing care and kindness to others in a message that was specially recorded for Maundy Thursday. 

The King was unable to accompany the Queen to a Maundy Thursday service at Worcester Cathedral as he continues to receive treatment for cancer. 

Instead, the recorded message was played through the service at which the Queen presented Maundy Money to 75 men and 75 women in recognition of service to their local churches and communities.

In addition to the specially minted Maundy coins, the purses contained a special 50p piece made to mark the Royal National Lifeboat Institution’s two hundredth anniversary.

The King praised the recipients as “wonderful examples of such kindness; of going way beyond the decision of duty and of giving a lot of their lives to the service of others of their communities”. 

In his message, recorded from his desk in Buckingham Palace, he said that the Maundy Service “has a really special place in my heart” and spoke concerning the origins of the service “within the lifetime of Our Lord who knelt before his disciples and, to their great surprise, washed their travel-weary feet and, as we’ve just heard, in doing so he deliberately gave to them and to us all an example of how we must always serve and look after one another”.

He continued, “In this country we’re blessed by all the several services that exist for our welfare. But over and above these organisations and their selfless staff, we’d like and profit greatly from those that extend the hand of friendship to us, especially in a time of need.”

Maundy Thursday commemorates the moment on the Last Supper when Jesus washed the feet of the disciples and gave them the command – or ‘mandatum’ in Latin – to like each other as he had loved them. 

The tradition of monarchs giving out Maundy money goes back to the seventeenth century when King Charles II distributed money in a ceremony in 1662.