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What Is Holy Week

Holy Week commemorates the last week of Jesus' life and his Passion and Resurrection. It begins with Palm Sunday and includes Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday, culminating in Easter Sunday. During Holy Week, Catholics remember and reenact the events of Jesus' last days through liturgies, scripture readings, and veneration of the cross.

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4 views

What Is Holy Week

Holy Week commemorates the last week of Jesus' life and his Passion and Resurrection. It begins with Palm Sunday and includes Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday, culminating in Easter Sunday. During Holy Week, Catholics remember and reenact the events of Jesus' last days through liturgies, scripture readings, and veneration of the cross.

Uploaded by

Nica Sabaria
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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What is Holy Week?

Holy Week is most definitely a very sacred time of the year, for it is now that we will
commemorate and remember the last week of Jesus' life on this earth. These are the days
leading up to the great Easter Feast. The Lenten season of sacrifice and self-denial is about
to come to an end, but this coming week is extremely important for all Christians. The greatest
focus of the week is the Passion (suffering) and Resurrection of Jesus Christ and the events
that led up to it.

Historical documents tell us that as early as the fourth century the Church celebrated this
"Great Week" with a feeling of profound sanctity. It begins with Palm Sunday, which marks
Jesus' triumhant entry into Jerusalem. The central feature of the service proper to this day, as
it was in the earliest times, is the procession of palms. The palms are blessed and are then
borne in procession to the church, where an entry is made with a certain amount of ceremony,
after which the Mass is celebrated. The other notable and very ancient feature of the present
Palm Sunday service is the reading of the Gospel of the Passion by three readers.

Especially important for Catholics is the Easter Triduum. This is the three days just before
Easter. On Holy Thursday, we reenact the Lord's Last Supper, which He shared with His
apostles on the night He was betrayed and arrested. This is one of the most beautiful liturgies
of the entire liturgical year. At the Mass, the priest will wash the feet of twelve men, just as
Jesus did. Also on this night, priests all over the world will renew their sacred vows. This is
because, at the Last Supper, Jesus not only instituted the Mass (Eucharist) bt also the
ministerial priesthood.

On Good Friday, the day of the crucifixion and death of our Lord, we have the veneration of
the Cross. A service is held at three o'clock in the afternoon (the hour He is believed to have
died) and another later in the evening. We go forward and kiss the Cross in order to show
honor and respect for Christ's sacrifice for our sake. There is no consecration of the Eucharist
on this day, and the Communion we receive will be from the night before, which has been
reserved in the tabernacle.

Holy Saturday is a vigil. We keep watch for the expectant rising of Our Savior. This was the
day He went down into the netherworld in order to bring back up with Him into heaven those
who had died before His coming. Up to this time, the gates to heaven were closed and no one
could go there because of the original sin of Adam. Jesus changed all that. By paying the price
for our sins on the Cross, He gained for us our eternal salvation, and heaven was openedonce
more. Also on this night, persons who have spent months of preparation will be received
through Baptism and Confirmation into the Catholic Church for the first time. It is a joyous
occasion.

Those who engage themselves wholeheartedly in living the entire paschal cycle (Lent,
Triduum and Easter's Fifty Days) discover that it can change them forever. This is especially
so of the Triduum which, standing at the heart of the Easter season, is an intense immersion
in the fundamental mystery of what it is to be Christian. During these days, we suffer with
Christ so that we might rise with Him at His glorious Resurrection. Holy Week is a time to clear
our schedules of unnecessary activities. Our minds and hearts should be fixed on Jesus and
what He did for us. Let us bear the Cross so that may be worthy of wearing the crown He
wore.

The Meaning of Holy Week (catholiceducation.org)

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