Palm Sunday 9.00 am / 10.30 am

The liturgy of Holy Week begins with the apparent triumph of Our Savior as he enters the Holy City of Jerusalem. We wave our palms as we process in company with him. We cheer his arrival. In a few short days we gather to commemorate his Passion and death. We will be desolate, then ! For now “Hosanna ! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord !”. Our palm procession reminds us that we are in a procession throughout life to our eternal reward. The liturgy presents us with two choices: the voice of the Master, or the voice of the crowd. The crowd returns on Good Friday to jeer and mock…. We read the account of Our Lord’s Passion as found in the Gospel of St. Matthew.

Monday of Holy Week 9.00 am

After our lengthy celebrations of yesterday – the Church gives us a break. We have a gospel text for our consideration. Mary (sister of Martha not to be confused with the Blessed Mother) pours the ointment over Our Lord’s feet, Judas (the thief as the Gospel points out) is enraged at the wastefulness. The Gospel ends with people wanting to see Lazarus, the brother of these two women whom Jesus had recently spectacularly raised from the dead. The double theme: resurrection (Lazarus) and death (Our Lord’s imminent one) is the key to this day.

Tuesday and Wednesday of Holy Week 9.00 am

We return to the Passion accounts. St. Mark and St. Luke in that order. St, Mark is an eyewitness to the events in the Garden of Gethsemane. He tells of a man who runs away and mentions that he is unclothed. The Church Fathers understand that reference to be the Gospel author himself. The fact that he runs away without his clothes on serves to add to the degree of shame that St. Mark felt in betraying Our Lord, that is, not being courageous enough to stand by him in his hour of need. Wednesday is sometimes called “Spy Wednesday” since that is the day that Judas agrees to sell Our Lord for 30 pieces of silver.

The Triduum (or Three Days)

Holy Thursday 9.00 am

Here we have a double celebration of Mass. In the morning, the Holy Oils are solemnly consecrated by the bishop during a Mass which was only instituted in 1955. There are three oils that the Church uses: the Oil of Catechumens which is used in Baptism and the consecration of a priest’s hands at ordination; the Oil of Sacred Chrism which is used after Baptism has been conferred and in Confirmation, likewise the head and the hands of a bishop are anointed with this oil when he receives episcopal consecration. Both these oils are also used in blessings of bells, altars, chalices – signifying the great reverence the Church has for sacred objects. Finally the Oil of the Sick which is used for the Sacrament of Extreme Unction, a Sacrament that heals us, spiritually by forgiving our sins and sometimes (if God wills) it heals us physically as well.

7.00 pm

The evening Mass tells the tale of the Last Supper (that is the First Mass). We gather in the cenacle, the upper room, and solemnly commemorate the institution of the Blessed Sacrament – and the Sacrament by which Christ is made present to us: Holy Orders. We solemnly process Our Lord in the Eucharistic species to the side tabernacle where we keep watch with him until the liturgy the following day at 3.00 pm (the hour of Our Lord’s death). The hour watches remind us of the words of Our Lord to the Apostles: “Could you not watch one hour with me ?” Can you ? Sign up in the vestibule !

Good Friday 3.00 pm

The day is here. The night has been long. Our Lord was abandoned by all – did you creep back like Peter, or John ? Where were we as he was on trial and being condemned during the wee hours of the morning ? Were we in the Temple ? Were we at Pilate’s hall ? Did we go to see Herod mock him (the son of Herod the Great who tried to kill him when he was a child) ? Did we hear Pilate angrily ask: “What is truth ?”? It has come to an end – it is accomplished !

Holy Saturday 7.00 pm

The Vigil of the Resurrection. This is essentially a Jewish custom, that is keeping vigil or watch. In Jewish computation of time, the day begins with nightfall of the previous day and ends with nightfall of the following day. Thus the Sabbath, (Saturday) begins on Friday night and ends at sun-down on Saturday. The early Christians appropriated the same custom for the liturgy and so the solemn joy of the Resurrection begins in the evening of the day before. It is almost as though the Church cannot wait to greet her Risen Savior !

+TF