Throughout Holy Week, the final week of Lent and the holiest week of the year, Catholics pray and reflect on the events beginning with Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem and culminating with his Passion, Death, and Resurrection.
One week before Easter Sunday, the Palm Sunday liturgy begins with palm branches symbolizing Jesus’ joyful entry into Jerusalem, but the the Gospel narrative tells the story of his upcoming Passion and Death on a Cross.
On Monday and Tuesday of Holy Week, Jesus spends time in Bethany and Jerusalem while preparing for the Passover. He predicts Judas’ betrayal, Peter’s denial, and his own Passion and Death as He continues to teach his Apostles.
On Wednesday of Holy Week, Judas meets with the chief priests and agrees to deliver Jesus to them for 30 pieces of silver. This day of Holy Week is known as Spy Wednesday.
The three days from the evening of Holy Thursday until Easter Sunday is the Paschal Triduum. Also known as the Easter Triduum, it is considered a single liturgical day and the most holy time of the Church’s liturgical year.
Holy Thursday commemorates when Jesus celebrated the Passover with the Apostles and washed their feet. Jesus instituted the priesthood and the Eucharist, and issued a new commandment to love one another as He loved them.
Good Friday focuses on Jesus’ redemptive suffering and death. The story of the Lord’s Passion is read from the Gospel of John and the Cross is venerated. There is no Mass but the Eucharist is received from what was reserved from the night before.
On Holy Saturday, Catholics silently remember when Jesus descended to be with the dead. With the Blessed Mother, they wait for Jesus’ promises to be fulfilled.
The most important holy day begins after sundown at the Easter Vigil. The light of the Easter fire and the Paschal Candle symbolize Jesus’ victory over sin and death. Salvation history is recounted through a series of readings from Sacred Scripture.
Catholics continue to celebrate Jesus’ victory over death on Easter Sunday, joyfully reflecting on his Resurrection and his appearances to his Apostles.
The last week of Lent:
A week to be set apart:
Who would believe what we have heard? To whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? He grew up like a sapling before him, like a shoot from the parched earth; He had no majestic bearing to catch our eye, no beauty to draw us to him. He was spurned and avoided by men, a man of suffering, knowing pain, Like one from whom you turn your face, spurned, and we held him in no esteem. Yet it was our pain that he bore, our sufferings he endured. We thought of him as stricken, struck down by God and afflicted, But he was pierced for our sins, crushed for our iniquity. He bore the punishment that makes us whole, by his wounds we were healed.
Isaiah 53: 1-5
An extraordinary journey for Christians:
A journey from false triumph to true triumph:
The week that holds everything together:
Therefore Easter is not simply one feast among others, but the “Feast of feasts,” the “Solemnity of solemnities,” just as the Eucharist is the “Sacrament of sacraments” (the Great Sacrament). St. Athanasius calls Easter “the Great Sunday” and the Eastern Churches call Holy Week “the Great Week.” The mystery of the Resurrection, in which Christ crushed death, permeates with its powerful energy our old time, until all is subjected to Him.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 1169
All of Jesus’ emotions as He prepared for His struggle:
The Lenten journey we began on Ash Wednesday reaches its culmination during this Week which is appropriately called “Holy”. In the days ahead we are preparing to celebrate the most sacred events of our salvation: the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Christ. The Cross stands before us in these days as an eloquent symbol of God’s love for humanity. At the same time the dying Redeemer’s entreaty rings out in the liturgy: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken Me?”. We often feel this cry of suffering as “our own” in the painful situations of life which can cause deep distress and give rise to worry and uncertainty. In moments of loneliness and bewilderment, which are not unusual in human life, a believer’s heart can exclaim: the Lord has abandoned me! However, Christ’s Passion and his glorification on the tree of the Cross offer a different key for reading these events. On Golgotha the Father, at the height of his Only-begotten Son’s sacrifice, does not abandon Him, but brings to completion his plan of salvation for all humanity. In his Passion, Death and Resurrection, we are shown that the last word in human existence is not death but God’s victory over death. Divine love, manifested in its fullness in the paschal mystery, overcomes death and sin, which is its cause.
Pope John Paul II, General Audience, 19 April 2000
The holiest time of the year:
A week celebrated since the early Church:
The Truth, Goodness, and Beauty of the Catholic Church
The private place in one’s life that only God should have:
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