A Guide to Holy Week

Published on 27th Mar, 2018

A reflection from Fr Joe Grayland.

The great Paschal Week is here.

It begins with the commemoration of the entrance into Jerusalem on Passion or Palm Sunday (both are used) and concludes with the Easter Vigil, which then takes us into the Easter period. This is the great Week of Weeks because it doesn’t end until the Feast of Pentecost.  This is a “week” we can’t get enough of, because it is the “week” that celebrates God’s revelation of how, why, through whom and to what end the whole of the created order is saved.

The how, why, through whom and to what end is what we call the Paschal Mystery and it is celebrated in the Sacred Sunday Liturgy (Mass) by the Assembly of the Faithful.  The Sacred Liturgy proclaims and makes present the unity of Heaven and Earth; it tells the story of salvation and makes it present here, today.  The Sacred Liturgy is the moment out-of-time. It is the meeting place of heaven and earth. It is the meeting place of the Church gathered in Heaven, Purgatory and on Earth. It is the place where the Father, the Son and the Spirit draw the whole of creation, the past and the present, the future and the end of time together into unity and call the earth to salvation.  It is the end place we call by a variety of names, salvation, eternity, truth, eternal life, etc.  It is the place where men and women are saved.  Words cannot grasp the reality, so symbol, sign, gesture, posture, song, movement must.

The Sacred Liturgy is not just a foretaste of heaven it is an intimate participation in heaven, while on earth.  In our worship eternity is made present and we, the worshipping assembly, participate in the Trinity’s work, salvation.  We call the Trinity’s work, liturgy. This is the deepest meaning of liturgy.

The celebration of the Paschal Vigil is the culmination of the Triduum. It is the first of all Sundays and the gathering is the first of all assemblies. The Paschal Vigil lifts us up, out of the ordinariness of time and declares itself to be the first and last of days, the alpha and the omega.  The Paschal Vigil requires us to change the pattern, to inject new spirit into the community, to experience anew the community of God, the Trinity who saves us.

Often we get very used to our ritual patterns.  Body and muscle memory take over and we do gestures, assume postures and recite words in such a fashion that the wonder of worship is lost in the well-practiced routine.  Often we turn the Pascal Vigil into a longer Sunday mass with more things that just take longer and so people avoid it.  Often we miss the full meaning of what we’re involved in through small, skimpy, weak symbols, well-worn rituals, and tired, conventional thinking.

Consequently, the newness of the great revelation of the community of the Father, the Son and Spirit, who is deeply, actively and personally at work in our lives, in the Church, in the world and in all of creation is lost.  The Liturgy of Easter calls us back to the original liturgy (work) of the Trinity (Father, Son and Spirit) in creation. It resets the direction, and purpose, of our Sunday worship and of our ministry in the Church.

Christian Community begins with God. God is community!  We are called through baptism into God’s community. In baptism we are called to gather as sisters and brothers, as heirs to the Kingdom and co-heirs with Christ.  We are not called as individuals to an individualistic faith and to a private, comfortable worship. We are called to enter the singularity of God’s relationship within the Trinity, where the Father and the Son are one, where the Spirit is the unity of love between the Father and the Son, and where the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. We image this in the way we gather.

Coming to worship, then, we come not as individual, but as a holy, saved people.  We must put our individualism aside and consciously participate in the singular, eternal, actually present liturgy of God.  We come to participate in God’s prayer; in God’s liturgy (work) of salvation.  We leave the “I” at the door and take on the “WE” of worship.  Our prayer is corporate because it is God’s prayer, God’s work, first.  God is first and always a community of persons, not a collection of individuals.

“WE” is the key word and the fundamental disposition of the believing, worshipping community.  We are called to communitarian worship in and through the triune-God.  We worship using our corporate (single) body: we stand together to pray, we sit together to listen, we sing with one voice, we eat from one bread and we drink from one cup.  We express the “WE” of worship through our unity of action, voice and gesture.

As the community grows and develops WE realise our need for renewal and change.  A faith-filled community approaches renewal and change as the movement of God’s Holy Spirit, so while being uncomfortable with renewal or change, or even scared of it, the faith-filled community discerns the movement of the Spirit and prays for the wisdom to follow wherever the Spirit leads them.  The faith-fearful community rejects renewal and change and instead seeks assurances of its own position and prays for the changes to go away.

Life never stands still and parish life never stands still.  Life is a continual evolution, a continual process of becoming. As both individuals, and as a community, we move from the past to the future, by way of the present.  Our language enables us to express this change: “I was.” “I am.” “I will become.”; “We were.”, “We are”, “We will become”.  As with the individual, so too with our community of faith, the process of evolution and growth and change is continual.

Have a question? We can help. Get in touch with the Diocese.