Holy Week is packed and there is honestly little we need to do at our homes other than prepare ourselves to participate fully, consciously, and actively in as many of the liturgies as we can during this Holy Week. It is by our immersion into these liturgies that we are made partners with and partakers in Christ’s Paschal Mystery, the saving work of his passion, death, and Resurrection.
Holy Week begins with Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion which itself commences with our outside procession carrying branches to commemorate Jesus’ triumphant entry into the Holy City, Jerusalem. Be sure to arrive early for Mass, collect your palms branches, and join with the children of Jerusalem and sing your Hosannas sweetly.
Monday of Holy Week, March 25, is not observed as the Annunciation of the Lord this year (precisely nine months before December 25) because it falls during Holy Week. The Solemnity of the Annunciation (otherwise on March 25) is therefore transferred until after the Octave of Easter to Monday, April 8 (as an eclipse moves over much of the U.S.). We’ll cover more about the Annunciation itself in an Eastertide issue. March 25 is, however, considered by many authors both ancient and modern as the most important date in history! Of course our calendars aren’t stable throughout history so it is not that God needs us to celebrate on a particular date but rather the dates help us see the connections the divine author has made. In the Jewish reckoning of time March 25 was seen as the date of the Creation of the world, the date of the Passover, and of course is linked to the Spring Equinox (which fell on Tuesday, March 19, this year). Christians then saw the beginning of a new creation with the Son of God becoming Incarnate in the womb of Blessed Virgin Mary (which is the event we celebrate on the Annunciation). In the year in which Jesus was crucified and rose from the dead his crucifixion likely also took place on March 25 and thus he was not only the beginning of the New Creation but also the New Passover Lamb. J.R.R. Tolkien sets March 25 as the day on which Frodo finally casts the Ring of Power into the fires of Mount Doom thus destroying the hold which the ring once held, destroying that which bound all who desired and grasped after such unlimited power, like Christ’s destruction of sin on the Cross. (Thus March 25 is also Tolkien Reading Day for fans of the Professor). Until the 17th century most European cultures marked March 25 and the beginning of Spring as the beginning of the new year. Persian culture has also for more than 3000 years celebrated Noyruz or New Years and influenced Jewish celebrations of the arrival of spring. On this crucial date we look back and recall that all of the cosmos was created by God who, in the fullness of time, took on our flesh to enter into his created order in order to redeem all.
In the present we prepare to welcome him into our lives as he gives his very flesh to us as food. And even here and now we look forward to that future culmination of time when Christ will return to redeem all of creation, when he will be all in all (Parousia). This meaning laden sacred time is thus the setting for our immersing ourselves into the sacred Paschal Triduum not as observers or spectators but as the people to whom God is making his Paschal Mystery alive this very Holy Week.
I would really encourage you during the first part of this Holy Week to watch the documentary This Side of Eden which follows the Benedictine monastic community of Westminster Abbey (located on the Fraser River in Misson, British Columbia) as the monks prepare for and celebrate Holy Week. Our own Fr. David was once a student at Westminster and was formed by their monastic community! The pace of This Side of Eden helps me slow down and focus on the central themes of Holy Week. I have used this documentary to help liturgists, high school students, et al. to enter into the stillness of this week and reflect on the meaning of the Holy Week liturgies. https://vimeo.com/ondemand/thissideofeden
Wednesday of Holy Week, March 27, is sometimes known as Spy Wednesday as it was on this night that Judas made provision to hand over Jesus to the Sanhedrin. On the evening of the next day, as the sun goes down on Holy Thursday, March 28, Lent comes to an end and we enter a three-day liturgical season, the Sacred Paschal Triduum. A few years ago I picked up a copy of Jeremy Driscoll’s Awesome Glory: Resurrection in Scripture, Liturgy, and Theology (Liturgical Press, 2019) and commend that for your reading! After a succinct and profound introduction to liturgical theology, Abbot Jeremy walks readers of Awesome Glory through each of the readings and movements of whole sacred Paschal Triduum going though each liturgy. Awesome Glory would be a good companion for your Holy Week and into the Octave of Easter with the closing chapters he devotes to such. Another excellent read is Pope Benedict’s Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week (Ignatius, 2011) which follows Jesus during this Holy Week from Palm Sunday to the Cross and out of the empty Tomb/Sepulchre.
In our liturgical celebrations on the Evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper on Holy Thursday we’ll begin bringing in the blessed Oil of the Sick and Oil of the Catechumens as well as the Sacred Chrism consecrated at the Chrism Mass this past Thursday. Then, after hearing about the Institution of the Eucharist and Jesus’ model of service at the Last Supper, we’ll partake of the Washing of the Feet. Known as the Mandatum or “command” this rite lends its name to the whole day as Maundy Thursday. Following the celebration of the Liturgy of the Eucharist we are invited to stay with the Lord, to repose with him and pray in adoration before the Blessed Sacrament, like the disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane, urged to stay awake with Jesus. For many years my family has enjoyed a meal inspired by Levantine cuisine—grilled kabob, tabouleh salad, etc.—spread with our nicest dishes. We read about the Passover from a Jewish children’s book, Miriam’s Cup, and talk about the Passover. But just as it would be inappropriate for someone other than a Catholic priest to take bread, wine, and a Roman Missal to ‘do their own Mass’ I don’t think Christians should host a seder meal. By all means attend one hosted by your Jewish neighbors and friends, have a family Holy Thursday meal before going to Mass, and certainly pray for our Jewish sisters and brothers especially as they face hatred in wider society. But don’t co-opt the Passover Seder meal itself.
After our all-night vigil keeping with the Lord, remembering his Agony in the Garden, on Good Friday we mark the times of Jesus’ Passion and Crucifixion. Christians have for millennia observed the midnight hour as we begin Good Friday to recall Jesus’ sham trial by the Sanhedrin, the first light of the morning to reflect on Jesus’ trial by Pilate, noon as the time to recollect Jesus being nailed to the Cross, and finally 3:00PM in the afternoon as the hour our Lord died, giving up his Spirit and completing his saving work. The three hours or Tre Ore from noon to 3:00PM are “prime time” to reflect on the Passion and often when the faithful have attended Tre Ore services (such as at St. James Cathedral) or reenacted live Stations of the Cross. While the liturgy commemorating the Passion of the Lord (Good Friday liturgy) ideally begins at 3:00 in the afternoon, it can and often does for pastoral reasons, begin later in the day so that all can participate in it (we begin at 7:00PM at St. John Vianney). I am grateful that my school begins Spring Break at noon on Holy Thursday allowing us to participate fully in the liturgies of this sacred Paschal Triduum. I will also be taking our kids out of school on Good Friday to walk with other families a Way of the Cross (Via Crucis) from our home near Paradise Ridge all the way to St. John Vianney where we will then walk the Stations of the Cross. You’re welcome to join us and take turns carrying the large, cedar Cross I made decades ago as we pray the Rosary and contemplate Jesus’ Passion. Catholic are obliged to keep Good Friday as a day of fasting and abstinence and encouraged to keep the evening and night of Good Fridy as a time of silence.
On Holy Saturday we are invited to extend our Good Friday fast in solidarity with those who will be reborn in the waters of baptism, sealed with the Holy Spirit, and partake of Holy Communion for the first time this night. During this day, as you help to decorate our parish church and ponder the depths to which Jesus Christ goes to bring back to himself those who have been alienated from God, please pray for all of our Elect. Perhaps as your family prepares in silence your baskets of Easter foods to be blessed you can select a member of your household to read aloud this Ancient Homily for Holy Saturday which comes from the Office of Readings of the Liturgy of the Hours: https://www.unleashthegospel.org/2019/04/an-ancient-homily-on-holy-saturday/
which you can also find excerpted in the Catholic Household Blessings and Prayers.
See this image of Anastasis, known in English as the Harrowing (or Cleansing) of Hell:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5c/Chora_Anastasis1.jpg
Easter Sunday of the Resurrection begins with the lighting of the paschal fire at the Easter Vigil in the Holy Night. Be sure to gather with your family by 8:45 PM in the north garden of the church. The service of light, Lucernarium, with its preparation and blessing of the Paschal Candle and singing of the Exsultet, is unique to this night. Through the Liturgy of the Word we hear the whole story of salvation history unfold. That pilgrimage we undertook with the chosen people during all of Lent is now given to us as a sort of highlights reel, a reminder of what we’re about to immerse ourselves into. For the Elect and for ourselves who are there to renew our baptismal promises this is of course not the first time we have heard these readings. But it is, perhaps, the first time the Elect have seen this as their story. They are now part of these mighty deeds of God saving his people. For us the sacred liturgy is how we live into the world which the sacred scriptures reveal to us. What God did long ago he is still doing in the lives of believers. Let yourself be bathed in these readings and see through them the saving effects of God’s grace in your life. In many parishes the readings are followed by the Christian initiation of the Elect; here at St. John Vianney we will bless the new water with the Paschal Candle (with echoes of Jesus’ Baptism in the Jordan River) and with these waters renew our baptismal promises made by either ourselves or by our parents and godparents when we were first immersed into this story of salvation. It is a popular custom to take some of the newly blessed water home to use for appropriate domestic blessings. All of this culminates in the celebration of the Paschal Liturgy of the Eucharist in which we give thanks for “the true Lamb who has taken away the sins of the world; [for] by dying he has destroyed our death and by rising restored our life” (Preface I of Easter).
Next Sunday I will share some ways to keep the Octave of Easter (Bright Week, Easter Week) but on Easter Sunday itself some wonderful customs you may want to take up include bringing to the church a basket of foods, usually those foods from which we have been fasting such as ham, butter, eggs, cheese, wine, sweets, etc. to be blessed before gracing our Easter Sunday dinner tables. In some families, especially those of Polish and other Slavic descent, Święconka, the blessing of the Easter baskets takes place on Holy Saturday with the food kept until Easter Sunday.
Somewhere our family picked up a custom of making Resurrection Rolls on Easter Sunday morning. These are made by dipping a large marshmallow in melted butter and pumpkin pie spice, like the oil and aromatic spices with which the women anointed Jesus’ crucified body, then wrapping them in those canned biscuit rolls like Jesus’ enshrouded body. The rolls are then baked according to the package time and, when removed the empty tomb filled with spices and sweet gooey-ness remains. It may be tacky but it lifts up the centrality of the Resurrection and the empty tomb during a holiday replete with competing cultural symbols.
You may also go out and dig up your “Alleluia” sign which you buried before the start of Lent. Ours has been on the back stoop, face down, growing Lenten moss and so we’ll bring it in, scrub it clean, and sing out Alleluias once more.
Lastly the custom of dying Easter eggs is connected with the story of Easter Sunday morning. The legend of the red egg goes that St. Mary Magdalene, the Apostle to the Apostles and first witness to the Resurrection, was invited to a banquet with the emperor. She began to tell the people about Jesus’ Resurrection and the emperor exclaimed, “No more can a man rise from the dead than can this egg in my hand turn red.” All gasped of course when the emperor opened his hand to reveal a red egg. It is for this reason that Byzantine Christians have for millennia dyed their paschal eggs red for the Anastasis, the “standing up,” or Resurrection.
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