Holy Week between Palm Sunday and Easter is the most sacred time of year.. The purpose of Holy Week is to reenact, relive, and participate in the passion of Jesus Christ, his triumph, suffering and resurrection. Ultimately it’s about ours. From our Baptism liturgy- “We thank you, Father, for the water of Baptism. In it we are buried with Christ in his death. By it we share in his resurrection. Through it we are reborn by the Holy Spirit.” Every Sunday is an Easter.
From early times, Christians have observed the week before Easter as a time of special prayer and devotion. As the pilgrim Egeria recorded in the late fourth century, numerous pilgrims to the holy city of Jerusalem followed the path of Jesus in his last days. They formed processions, worshipped where Christ suffered and died, and venerated sacred sites and relics. The pilgrims took the customs home with them. Holy week observances spread to Spain by the fifth century, to Gaul and England by the early seventh century. They didn’t spread to Rome until the twelfth century. From this beginning evolved the practices we observe today on Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday.
“Philosopher Charles Taylor has written that in sacred times chronology seems to disappear. That is true about Holy Week. The days become linked together and when we live through this period, we’re actually experiencing as it happened. We actually enter into the story, enter into the narrative in a more real way than we enter into any other day of the year” – Rev. Philip Jackson, Trinity Wall Street.
"Struggle" – From the Brothers of St. John the Evangelist “We approach the passion story assuming God is just like us – liable to terrible and merciless wrath, but all capable of amazing grace. But that’s not what the Passion tells us. We’re a mixture of good and bad, but God is good all the way down, all the time , all the way beyond for ever and back. Holy Week is the story of what happens when our mixed-up lives come in touching distance of goodness that goes beyond for ever, what happens to that goodness – that goodness – and what happens to us. The Passion of Christ shows that Jesus is stretched out between heaven and earth, hanging by a thread between the limitless possibility of human goodness and the fathomless horror of human depravity… Jesus is the hanging thread, the violin string stretched out between heaven and earth. And the music played on the string is what we call the gospel.” -Samuel Wells, Hanging By a Thread: The Questions of the Cross
“Holy Week is a time to think about risk, because that’s what the whole Passion narrative represents. We watch those around Jesus- his disciples, his friends, his companions who has been with him since those early days of the ministry in Galilee. These are the companions who have watched him heal the sick, feed the multitudes and proclaim the good news. Yet we see them now, in that fateful last week, betraying him, denying him, running away fro him. These are stories not only of Judas and Peter, of John and James, they are our stories as well. Who stands firm and who runs? What happens when you run ? And what can we do, now that we have failed ourselves and others to find that “at-one-ment” agains.”
– Amy-Jill Levine, Entering the Passion of Jesus: A Beginner’s Guide to Holy Week
Walk with Jesus in his suffering and share in his resurrection during Holy Week. The SALT blog describes Holy Week this way – “..the main thing is to remember that Holy Week is a kind of choreography or symphony, with distinct emotional movements unfolding over time: from “Hosanna in the highest!” to “Surely not I, Lord?” to “Take, eat; this is my body” to “Let this cup pass from me” to “I do not know the man!” to “Let him be crucified!” to “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” to “He is not here; for he has been raised.” One way or another, these movements require time and space to be felt and understood, and so letting the symphony play out over the course of a week is ideal.”
As we celebrate the mystery of Jesus’ passing, we actually celebrate the same passing over in our own lives. Jesus’ self-sacrifice opened the way for us to share in new life. We must pass over our lives into God’s hands and imitate the self-giving of God’s Son.
“Make no mistake about it. The events of Holy Week and Easter are not merely annual reenactments of the tragic events of the life of an important historical personage. This is spiritual mystery on its deepest and most cosmic scale. These are mysteries we, too, struggle with daily all our lives and which remain beyond our comprehension.”
– Br. Eldridge Pendleton