Holy Week

Holy Week is the last week of Lent.

Holy Week observances began in Jerusalem in the earliest days of the Church, when devout people traveled to Jerusalem at Passover to reenact the events of the week leading up to the Resurrection.

Egeria was a Christian who traveled widely during the period of 381-385 and wrote about Christian customs and observances in Egypt, Palestine, and Asia Minor. She described how religious tourists to Jerusalem reenacted the events of Holy Week. On Palm Sunday afternoon, the crowds waved palm fronds as they made a procession from the Mount of Olives into the city. Of course, the observances must have begun quite a number of years before Egeria witnessed them, or they wouldn’t have been so elaborate. It's just that Egeria's description is the earliest we still have. The tourists took the customs home with them. Holy week observances spread to Spain by the fifth century, to Gaul and England by the early seventh century. They didn’t spread to Rome until the twelfth century.

The purpose of Holy Week is to reenact, relive, and participate in the passion of Jesus Christ.

Holy Week is the same in the eastern and western Church, but because eastern Christians use the Julian Calendar to calculate Easter, the celebrations occur at different times. However, the following events in the week before Easter are the same, east and west, relative to the date of Easter:

Palm Sunday (or Passion Sunday), the entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem.
Holy Thursday (or Maundy Thursday), the institution of Communion and the betrayal by Judas.
Good Friday, the arrest, trial, crucifixion, death, and burial of Jesus Christ.
Holy Saturday, the Sabbath on which Jesus rested in the grave.

The last week of Lent is called Passion tide or Holy Week. It begins with Palm Sunday and ends with the first alleluia of Easter in the Easter Vigil on Saturday night. Palm Sunday starts with celebratory procession of Jesus entering the Holy City on a donkey. Participants of this liturgy notice a harsh change in the middle. As Jesus joins the crowd he is confronted with the failures of society. The day turns bleak and as we intensely read of Jesus being sought for arrest by the guards. The color for this Sunday is red which is the color of blood and the martyrs.

Maundy Thursday (which means in Latin mandate in the liturgy for Footwashing-a new mandate that I give to you, that you might love one another) is the next major liturgy. It symbolizes the Last Supper that Jesus had with his disciples. We kneel at the end of the liturgy singing God to dark Gethsemane, remembering Jesus as he departed the upper room for the Garden by that name. At this point the altar is stripped and all signs of God's presence are removed. No Eucharist will be celebrated from this time until Easter anywhere in the world.

On Good Friday Jesus is killed for mankind's wrongs and the love of God to let their consequences play out. We gather in the darkness wearing black for one of the most soul wrenching liturgies of the year. We begin the three days of darkness when no light shown in the world while Jesus was in the tomb. We leave in deathly silence as we wait to hear of God's resolution.

The highlight of all liturgies is the Great Vigil. We gather in tomb-like darkness of Holy Saturday until suddenly a great flame is lit among us which is the new flame of Christ. The Paschal candle is lighted from the fire and the celebrant processes through the church, representing the fire that led the Hebrews out of Egypt toward the promise land. The people light individual candles from the Paschal candle and light spreads through the darkness. With the first reading the lights come on and we find the church beautifully decorated for Easter with white flowers everywhere. We then share in the joy of the first Eucharist of Eastertide.