Holy Week


Holy Week commemorates the seven days leading up to Easter. It begins with the commemoration of Christ's triumphal entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, marks the betrayal of Jesus on Spy Wednesday, climaxing with the commemoration of the Last Supper on Maundy Thursday and the Passion of Jesus on Good Friday. Holy Week concludes with Christ's death and descent into hell on Holy Saturday. For all Christian traditions, it is a moveable observance. In Eastern Christianity, which also calls it Great Week, it is the week following Great Lent and Lazarus Saturday, starting on the evening of Palm Sunday and concluding on the evening of Great Saturday. In Western Christianity, Holy Week is the sixth and last week of Lent, beginning with Palm Sunday and concluding on Holy Saturday.
Christians believe that Jesus rested in death from the ninth hour on Good Friday until just before dawn on Sunday morning, the day of his resurrection from death, known as Easter Sunday. However, in, there may be a clue as to a task Jesus performed during this period between death and resurrection: "By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison." This marks the beginning of the season of Eastertide, with its first week being known as Easter Week.
Holy Week liturgies generally attract the largest crowds of the year. Many Christian cultures have different traditions such as special liturgies or services, floats, sculptures or live reenactments of Christ's life, his arrest and crucifixion ; the latter are known as Passion Plays, which are often interdenominational productions. In Eastern Rite Churches there are also many means to commemorate the Great Feasts and emphasize the theme of resurrection. Many television channels air films related to Holy Week, such as The Passion of the Christ, The Greatest Story Ever Told and The Jesus Film.

History

Holy Week in the liturgical year is the week immediately before Easter. The earliest allusion to the custom of marking this week as a whole with special observances is to be found in the Apostolical Constitutions, dating from the latter half of the 3rd century and 4th century. In this text, abstinence from flesh is commanded for all the days, while for the Friday and Saturday an absolute fast is commanded. Dionysius Alexandrinus in his canonical epistle, refers to the 91 fasting days implying that the observance of them had already become an established usage in his time.
There is some doubt about the genuineness of an ordinance attributed to Roman Emperor Constantine, in which abstinence from public business was enforced for the seven days immediately preceding Easter Day, and also for the seven which followed it. The Codex Theodosianus, however, is explicit in ordering that all actions at law should cease, and the doors of all courts of law be closed during those 15 days.
Of the particular days of the "great week" the earliest to emerge into special prominence was naturally Good Friday. Next came the Sabbatum Magnum with its vigil, which in the early church was associated with an expectation that the second advent would occur on an Easter Day.
Other writings that refer to related traditions of the early Church include, most notably, The Pilgrimage of Etheria, which details the whole observance of Holy Week at that time.
Today, in the Western Christian Church, among Lutherans, Anglicans, Methodists, Presbyterians and Catholics, the liturgies used for Holy Week are nearly identical. In the Episcopal Church, the main U.S. branch of the Anglican Communion, the 1979 Book of Common Prayer identifies Holy Week--comprising Palm Sunday through Holy Saturday--as a separate season after Lent, rather than as part of it; but the weekdays of Holy Week, like those of Lent, are Days of Special Devotion to be observed by special acts of discipline and self-denial, so the practical effect is the same as if Holy Week were considered part of Lent.
In the Moravian Church, the Holy Week services are extensive, as the congregation follows the life of Christ through His final week in daily services dedicated to readings from a harmony of the Gospel stories, responding to the actions in hymns, prayers and litanies, beginning on the eve of Palm Sunday and culminating in the Easter Morning or Easter Sunrise service begun by the Moravians in 1732.

Holy Week in Western Christianity

Palm Sunday (Sixth Sunday of Lent)

Holy Week begins with Palm Sunday, complete: Palm and Passion Sunday. Traditionally, Palm Sunday commemorates the Triumphal entry into Jerusalem described in all four canonical gospels. As described in these accounts, Christ's entry into Jerusalem was noted by the crowds present who shouted praises and waved palm branches. In the Roman Rite, before 1955 it was known simply as Palm Sunday, and the preceding Sunday as Passion Sunday. From 1955 to 1971 it was called Second Sunday in Passiontide or Palm Sunday. Among Lutherans and Anglicans, the day is known as the Sunday of the Passion: Palm Sunday.
In many liturgical denominations, to commemorate Christ's entry into Jerusalem to accomplish his paschal mystery, it is customary to have a blessing of palm leaves or other branches, for example olive branches. The blessing ceremony includes the reading of a Gospel account of Jesus humbly riding into Jerusalem on a donkey, reminiscent of a Davidic victory procession, and people placing palm and other branches on the ground before him.
Immediately following this great time of celebration over the entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem, he begins his journey to the cross. The blessing is thus followed by a procession or solemn entrance into the church, with the participants holding the blessed branches in their hands. The liturgy includes the solemn reading of the Passion, the narrative of Christ's capture, suffering and death, as recounted in one of the Synoptic Gospels.
Before the reform of the rite by Pope Pius XII, the blessing of the palms occurred inside the church within a liturgy that followed the general outline of a Mass, with Collect, Epistle and Gospel, as far as the Sanctus. The palms were then blessed with five prayers, and a procession went out of the church and on its return included a ceremony for the reopening of the doors, which had meanwhile been shut. After this the normal Mass was celebrated.
Churches of many denominations, including the Lutheran, Catholic, Methodist, Anglican, Moravian and Reformed traditions, distribute palm branches to their congregations during their Palm Sunday liturgies. Christians take these palms, which are often blessed by clergy, to their homes where they hang them alongside Christian art or keep them in their Bibles or devotionals.

Holy Monday and Holy Tuesday

The days between Palm Sunday and Maundy Thursday are known as Holy Monday, Holy Tuesday, and Holy Wednesday. There are traditional observances held by liturgical denominations to commemorate events from the last days of Jesus Christ's life. Among them:
On Holy Wednesday, the story of Judas arranging his betrayal of Jesus with the chief priests is remembered; he was a spy among the disciples of Jesus. For this reason, the day is sometimes called "Spy Wednesday". Other events connected with this date include events at the house of Simon the Leper, especially the anointing of Jesus by Mary of Bethany, which directly preceded the betrayal of Jesus by Judas to the Sanhedrin.
Tenebrae is celebrated within Western Christianity during Holy Week, especially on Spy Wednesday. Tenebrae is distinctive for its gradual extinguishing of candles while a series of readings and psalms is chanted or recited. Tenebrae liturgies are celebrated by some parishes of the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church, the Polish National Catholic Church, the Lutheran Churches, the Moravian Church, the Anglican Communion, the Methodist Churches, and Western Rite Orthodoxy within the Eastern Orthodox Church.

Maundy Thursday

Maundy Thursday commemorates the Last Supper, where Christ lays out the model for the Eucharist or Holy Communion. During the meal, Jesus predicted the events that would immediately follow, including his betrayal, the Denial of Peter, and his death and resurrection. The liturgical celebration of the Last Supper on Maundy Thursday marks the beginning of the Paschal Triduum. Catholic and Lutheran parishes traditionally practice the foot washing ceremony on Maundy Thursday, a practice also kept in other denominations.
In the Catholic Church, on this day the private celebration of Mass is forbidden. Thus, apart from the Chrism Mass for the blessing of the Holy Oils that the diocesan bishop may celebrate on the morning of Holy Thursday, but also on some other day close to Easter, the only Mass on this day is the evening Mass of the Lord's Supper, which inaugurates the period of three days known as the Easter Triduum, that includes Good Friday, Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday up to evening prayer on that day. The Chrism Mass, whose texts the Roman Missal and the rubrics used in Lutheran Churches now give under Maundy Thursday, but before the Paschal Triduum which begins that evening, may be brought forward early in Holy Week, to facilitate participation by as many clergy of the diocese as possible together with the bishop. This Mass was not included in editions of the Roman Missal before the time of Pope Pius XII. In this Mass, the bishop blesses separate oils for the sick, for catechumens and chrism.
The Mass of the Lord's Supper commemorates the Last Supper of Jesus with his Twelve Apostles, "the institution of the Eucharist, the institution of the priesthood, and the commandment of brotherly love that Jesus gave after washing the feet of his disciples." All the bells of the church, including altar bells, may be rung during the Gloria in Excelsis Deo of the Mass. The bells then fall silent and the organ and other musical instruments may be used only to support the singing until the Gloria at the Easter Vigil. The Roman Missal recommends that, if considered pastorally appropriate, the priest should, immediately after the homily, celebrate the rite of washing the feet of customarily twelve men, recalling the number of the apostles.
In the Catholic Church, Lutheran Churches of Evangelical Catholic churchmanship, and in Anglican churches of an Anglo-Catholic churchmanship, a sufficient number of hosts are consecrated for use also in the Good Friday liturgy, and at the conclusion the Blessed Sacrament is carried in procession to a place of reposition away from the main body of the church, which, if it involves an altar, is often called an "altar of repose". In some places, notably the Philippines and Malta, Catholics will travel from church to church praying at each church's altar of repose in a practice called "Visita Iglesia" or Seven Churches Visitation.
In Lutheran, Anglican and Methodist churches, the altar has black paraments or the altar cloths are removed altogether. At the conclusion of the Maundy Thursday liturgy in Lutheran Churches, the "lectern and pulpit are left bare until Easter to symbolize the humiliation and barrenness of the cross." Methodist custom holds that apart from depictions of the Stations of the Cross, other images continue the Lenten habitude of being veiled. In the Catholic Church, the altars of the church are later stripped quite bare and, as much as possible, crosses are removed from the church.