From Ash Wednesday, which begins the Lent season, we are in preparation time for the biggest of church holidays -Easter. When marked with ashes we were reminded: “Remember, man, that you are dust and shall return to dust again!” During Lent when I was in Bojanovice, dances were not to be held every day, only on Sunday. We prayed the family rosary together and it was expected that during the day all of us do some other act of contrition, for example, that we gave someone alms, or denied ourselves a pleasant thing, and so on. Every Friday of Lent it was three o’clock in the afternoon on Calvary. So we slowly approached Palm Sunday, when we reenact the solemn entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. That buzz in the church came from holy “pussy willows” because we did not have palms. That Sunday was called “Palm Sunday” and was the beginning of Holy Week. On Maundy Thursday, a priest of Christ washed the feet of 12 old men as Jesus did for the apostles before his last supper. Previously I did not even realize how outstanding an act of symbolism is revealed in the foot washing. It is an act of service, without which the sacrifice of Christ on the cross would not have the deep sense that it represents. At the Last Supper Christ then establishes communion. When taking bread and wine, he blessed them and said: “This is my Body and this is my blood, which I will pour out for your redemption,” and adds, “Do this in memory of me.”
On Good Friday, during Holy Week, we acknowledge the supreme sacrifice offered by Christ to redeem us for our sins. In his dying he showed us how truly he loves us. What we have lost by our sin, comes back again with his free offering of himself as victim.
From Friday at three o’clock Jesus is symbolically dying on the cross, and then resting in the grave, and therefore, no Mass or liturgy is celebrated on that day. Only on Holy Saturday evening, the official vigil of Easter, Jesus rises from the grave in the beautiful liturgical celebrations of the blessing of the new fire and the installation of the new Easter candle. It is the Great Night..
These three days of Holy Week are called the “Easter Triduum”.