Holy Week is an Intense Experience of the Paschal Mystery

Churches in the Diocese of Baton Rouge kicked off Holy Week on April 13 with jubilant Palm Sunday processions. The congregations waved their palm branches and declared “Hosanna” to commemorate Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem.

The tone then turned somber with the Gospel narrative of Christ’s passion and death on a cross. The end of the Mass signaled the start of a week that evokes contrasting feelings of confusion, dread, fear, and then renewed faith in the resurrection of life through Jesus.

“Holy Week is a significant dynamic in the liturgical year,” said Father Tom Ranzino, director of the Office of Worship of the Diocese of Baton Rouge.
Top right photo: Palm Sunday, April 13, was the beginning of the Holy Week, the most sacred time of the liturgical year for Catholics. Churches in the Diocese of Baton Rouge celebrated with processions in which people waved palm branches. At St. Aloysius Church in Baton Rouge, Father Michael Alello, pastor, blessed palm branches and led the procession, which began outdoors then and ended in the church and culminated with Mass.
Above photo: The processional included the sprinkling of holy water and songs, led by the St. Aloysius and bell choir members. Photos by Debbie Shelley | The Catholic Commentator ​ 
“It begins on Palm Sunday, (or Passion Sunday), which is the gospel story of Jesus being joyfully received into Jerusalem with the image of those who were saluting him with palm branches. That quickly turns to becoming Passion Sunday, where we enter what's called the passion account of Jesus on his way to death.  It’s one of the few Sundays of the church year that has two names, because it holds in tension what is incompatible – adulation and welcome and then hatred, persecution, and suffering.”

Holy Week is a time for people entering the church through the Office of Christian Initiation (OCIA) to have a more intense experience with the Triduum. These three separate days of the liturgical year are not part of Lent but act as a bridge between Easter and Lent. The Triduum begins Holy Thursday and continues through Good Friday and Holy Saturday and culminates with the celebration of Easter Sunday.

The Triduum has a different nature of fasting than Lent, stated Father Ranzino.

 “It's not fasting so much from food or drink, although that can be part of it, but fasting from our normal activities,” said Father Ranzino.

“Contrary to our experience of southern Louisiana, Easter is not here yet. (It’s) being reticent to engage in what we might normally be doing on Thursday, Friday, or Saturday. Instead, we have more time for prayer, more time to be generous in one's relationships and enter into the spirit of what's happening in the church.”

Father Ranzino said the Triduum liturgies contain “really lovely, rich, beautiful, and insightful rituals.”

On Palm Sunday, people experience being with the crowd when they welcome Jesus and when they condemn Jesus.

“In our world there is certainly opportunities that we read about or participate in where we can lift our voice to support or go against a policy that we find either deeply meaningful or deeply abhorrent,” said Father Ranzino.

The Holy Thursday Mass includes the Gospel reading about Jesus washing the disciples’ feet and instructing them to do the same. Parishes commemorate this with the ceremony of the washing of the feet of people representing the community.

“Whose feet need to be washed in the world and how do I feel about having my feet washed?” asked Father Ranzino.

At the end of the Mass, there is a procession during which the sacraments are taken to an altar of repose. The congregation is invited to stay and pray before the Blessed Sacrament and leave in silence.

“It’s not an exposition, but it demonstrates we are a eucharistic people,” Father Ranzino said.

The Good Friday service begins the same way it ended on Holy Thursday: in silence. The priests and deacons lie prostrate as a sign of reverence for Christ’s sacrificial death on the cross.

“It starts very simply, and we hear the Scriptures,” said Father Ranzino.

This includes the Gospel account of Jesus’ passion and death on the cross, which is the central focus of the homily.

There’s also the veneration of the cross and reception of Communion, because the church does not fast from the Eucharist. Then the service “stops,” and the church is open for people to come in to pray throughout the evening and Holy Saturday.

The Easter Vigil, also known as the “Great Vigil of Easter,” begins with the church in the dark. 

“This vigil has to happen at night in the dark, and it has to be in its fullness because it’s the great expression of the church’s rebirth and the resurrection of Christ,” said Father Ranzino.

He added, “The service is extremely different because it includes the light service, with the reading of Scriptures, the celebration of the sacraments of initiation, and Mass.”

The vigil begins outside before a big fire, which represents the beginning of creation, and the presence of God in light. From the fire, the paschal candle is lit, then the candles of the congregation. The paschal candle is brought to the altar in a procession. 

In a moving part of the liturgy, the unbaptized elect and baptized candidates are fully initiated into the Catholic Church. At the Easter Vigil and Sunday Masses, the congregation is invited to renew their baptismal promises and reject sin and Satan.

Easter Sunday is the day of baptism and the Eucharist, which opens people up to the Easter season, said Father Ranzino. 

People may be fearful and think they can do nothing to change the conditions of the world. By attending the Holy Week liturgies, they make a counter cultural statement that there is a higher power that transcends the world, according to Father Ranzino.

“We get in our car on Sunday, and we go to church, many of us. We get in our cars doing this during Holy Week and say, ‘Wait a minute, I'm Catholic Christian. I've got something to do. I'm going to do it for the sake of the world. I'm going do it for the sake of my family. I'm going to do it for myself. I want to spend this time in prayer, voice my prayers within the world and the people of it, and make a statement that the Christian faith doesn't belong to any particular secular way of life or power. I won't misrepresent the kingdom as being an emblem of any particular secular power. It belongs to God and God alone,’” Father Ranzino said.