Holy Week mystery and celebration

By Msgr. Patrick S. Brennan

People sometimes ask me whether the liturgies of Holy Week are intended for everyone — they seem a little long and difficult—can the ordinary Catholic/Christian get anything out of them?  Naturally, I respond that the liturgies of Holy Week are certainly intended for everyone.  In fact, Lent doesn’t make much sense unless it concludes with Holy Week.  Everything builds up to the Triduum: “Three Days” — Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Vigil of Easter.  The structure of these liturgies is fairly simple, and the message is straightforward — but powerful. In fact, I sometimes tell people: be prepared. These liturgies have the power to transform! When heaven touches earth, nothing remains the same.

Some people may be new to Holy Week, so let me give a brief introduction.  

We begin Holy Week with the liturgy of Palm Sunday (April 13, this year) in which we make our solemn entrance into Jerusalem.  In the following days, we celebrate, and make present, Christ’s Paschal Mystery: his suffering, his death, and his Resurrection, for us and for the world.  Palm Sunday is a microcosm of the week ahead — but in reverse.  Glory comes first, as we enter the holy city and shout, “Hosanna to the Son of David; blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”  We start and end the week with “glory,” creating an inclusion, two bookends which give meaning and context to the week ahead: we glory in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, whose death and Resurrection brings life and light to the world.

On Holy Thursday — the first of the Three Days — the central image and focus is the “washing of the feet.”  During the liturgy, the priest washes the feet of 12 men and women, young and old — a powerful and startling image today, even as it was for the disciples, when Jesus washed their feet.  But there is no better explanation of the Eucharist—and that is why we read “the washing of the feet” on Holy Thursday — a day which commemorates the gift of the Eucharist.  As we receive the Eucharist that evening, the words of Jesus ring in our ears: “As I have done, so also you must do.”

The cross is central to the liturgy of Good Friday — the second of the Three Days.  Slowly, and reverently, we approach the cross “on which hung the Savior of the world.”  We each express our faith and our love in a simple gesture at the cross — by touching it, by kissing it, by kneeling before it — and we commit ourselves to serve our brothers and sisters, even as Jesus did, to the end.

The great Vigil of Easter completes the Three Days.  We begin in darkness to light the Easter fire.  The light of Christ breaks the darkness of the tomb, and the Easter Proclamation is sung: “This is the night when Jesus Christ broke the chains of death and rose triumphant from the grave.”  Few celebrations in the Church are as dramatic and moving as the Easter Vigil.  In the readings, we recall — and make present — the great events of our salvation.  In the sacrament of Baptism, we die and rise with the Lord.  As the water of Baptism is sprinkled upon us, we renew our Baptismal promises and recommit ourselves to the Christian life.  By the end of the Liturgy, we are tired, but joyful.  We have completed our Lenten journey.  We have risen with Christ to new life.

And all of that begins on Palm Sunday.  We have much to celebrate in Holy Week.  Christ invites us to Jerusalem — to suffer, to die, and to rise with him.  With these liturgies, and God’s grace, we have the courage to follow Jesus, to the end.