Holy Week is the week which precedes the great festival of the
Resurrection on
Easter Sunday, and which consequently is used to commemorate the
Passion of Christ, and the event which immediately led up to it. In Latin is it called hebdomada major, or, less commonly, hebdomada sancta, styling it he hagia kai megale ebdomas.
Similarly, in most modern languages (except for the German word Charwoche, which seems to mean "the week of lamentation") the interval between
Palm Sunday and
Easter Day is known par excellence as Holy Week.
Antiquity of the Celebration of Holy Week
From an attentive study of the
Gospels, and particularly that of St. John, it might easily be inferred that already in
Apostolic times a certain emphasis was laid upon the
memory of the last week of
Jesus Christ's mortal life.
The supper at Bethania must have taken place on the Saturday, "six days before the
pasch" (
John 12:1-2), and the triumphant entry into
Jerusalem was made from there next morning. Of
Christ's words and deeds between this and His Crucifixion we have a relatively full record.
But whether this feeling of the
sanctity belonging to these days was primitive or not, it in any case existed in
Jerusalem at the close of the fourth century, for the
Pilgrimage of Ætheria contains a detailed account of the whole week, beginning with the service in the "Lazarium" at Bethania on the Saturday, in the course of which was read the narrative of the anointing of
Christ's feet.
Moreover, on the next day, which, as Ætheria says, "began the week of the
Pasch, which they call here the "Great Week", a special reminder was addressed to the people by the
archdeacon in these terms: "Throughout the whole week, beginning from to-morrow, let us all assemble in the Martyrium, that is the great church, at the ninth hour." The
commemoration of Christ's triumphal entry into the city took place the same afternoon.
Great crowds, including even children too young to walk, assembled on the Mount of Olives and after suitable
hymns, and antiphons, and readings, they returned in
procession to Jerusalem, escorting the
bishop, and bearing
palms and branches of olives before him. Special services in addition to the usual daily Office are also mentioned on each of the following days.
On the Thursday the
Liturgy was celebrated in the late afternoon, and all Communicated, after which the people went to the Mount of Olives to commemorate with appropriate readings and
hymns the
agony of Christ in the garden and His arrest, only returning to the city as day began to dawn on the Friday.
On the Friday again there were many services, and in particular before midday there took place the veneration of the great
relic of the
True Cross, as also of the title which had been fastened to it; while for three hours after midday another crowded service was held in commemoration of the
Passion of Christ, at which, Ætheria tells us, the sobs and lamentations of the people exceeded all description.
Exhausted as they must have been, a vigil was again maintained by the younger and stronger of the
clergy and by some of the
laity.
On the Saturday, besides the usual offices during the day, there took place the great paschal vigil in the evening, with the
baptism of children and
catechumens.
But this, as Ætheria implies, was already familiar to her in the West. The account just summarized belongs probably to the year 388, and it is of the highest value as coming from a pilgrim and an eyewitness who had evidently followed the services with close attention. Still the observance of Holy Week as a specially sacred commemoration must be considerably older.
He refers, seemingly, to some ancient symbolism which strangely reappears in the Anglo-Saxon martyrologium of
King Alfred's time. Further he writes, in 331: "We begin the
holy week of the great
pasch on the tenth of Pharmuthi in which we should observe more prolonged
prayers and fastings and watchings, that we may be enabled to anoint our lintels with the precious blood and so escape the destroyer."
From these and other references, e.g., in St. Chrysostom, the
Apostolic Constitutions, and other sources, including a somewhat doubtfully
authentic edict of Constantine proclaiming that the public business should be
suspended in Holy Week, it seems probable that throughout the
Christian world some sort of observance of these six days by
fasting and
prayer had been adopted almost everywhere by
Christians before the end of the fourth century.
Indeed it is quite possible that the fast of special severity is considerably older, for
Dionysius of Alexandria (c. A.D. 260) speaks of some who went without food for the whole six days (see further under
LENT).
The week was also known as the week of the dry fast (xerophagia), while some of its observances were very possibly influenced by an
erroneous etymology of the word Pasch, which was current among the Greeks.
Pasch really comes from a
Hebrew meaning "passage" (of the destroying
angel), but the Greeks took it to be identical with paschein, to suffer.
Special Observances of Holy Week
We may now touch upon some of the
liturgical features which are distinctive of Holy Week at the present
time.
Palm Sunday comes first in order, and although no
memory now remains in our Roman
Missal of the supper at Bethany and the visit to the "Lazarium", we find from certain early Gallican books that the preceding day was once known as "Lazarus Saturday", while
Palm Sunday itself is still sometimes called by the Greeks kyriake tou Lazarou (the
Sunday of
Lazarus).
The central feature of the service proper to this day, as it was in the
time of Ætheria, is the
procession of
palms. Perhaps the earliest clear evidence of this
procession in the West is to be found in the Spanish "Liber Ordinum" (see Férotin, "Monumenta Liturgica", V, 179), but traces of such a celebration are to be met with in Aldhelm and
Bede as well as in the
Bobbio Missal and the Gregorian Sacramentary.
All the older rituals seem to suppose that the
palms are
blessed in a place apart (e.g. some eminence or some other church of the town) and are then borne in
procession to the principal church, where an entry is made with a certain amount of
ceremony, after which a solemn Mass is celebrated.
It seems highly probable, as Canon Callewaert has pointed out (Collationes Brugenses, 1907, 200-212), that this ceremonial embodies a still living
memory of the practice described by Ætheria at
Jerusalem. By degrees, however, in the
Middle Ages a
custom came in of making a station, not at any great distance, but at the churchyard cross, which was often decorated with box or evergreens (crux buxata), and from here the
procession advanced to the church.
Many details varying with the locality marked the ceremonial of this
procession. An almost constant feature was, however, the singing of the "Gloria laus", a
hymn probably composed for some such occasion by Theodulphus of
Orléans (c. A.D. 810). Less uniformly prevalent was the practice of carrying the
Blessed Sacrament in a portable shrine. The earliest mention of this usage seems to be in the customs compiled by
Archbishop Lanfranc for the
monks of Christ Church,
Canterbury.
In
Germany, and elsewhere on the Continent, the manner of the entry of Christ was sometimes depicted by dragging along a wooden figure of an ass on wheels (the Palmesel), and in other places the celebrant himself rode upon an ass.
In
England and in many parts of
France the veneration paid to the churchyard cross or to the
rood cross in the
sanctuary by genuflections and prostrations became almost a central feature in the service. Another
custom, that of scattering flowers or sprays of willow and yew before the
procession, as it advanced through the churchyard, seems to have been misinterpreted in course of
time as a simple act of respect to the dead.
Under the impression the practice of "flowering the graves" on
Palm Sunday is maintained even to this day in many country districts of
England and
Wales. With regard to the form of the
blessing of the
palms, we have in the modern Roman
Missal, as well as in most of the older books, what looks like the complete Proper of a Mass --
Introit, Collects,
Gradual,
Preface, and other
prayers.
It is perhaps not unnatural to conjecture that this may represent the skeleton of a
consecration Mass formerly said at the station from which the
procession started. This view, however, has not much positive evidence to support it and has been contested (see Callewaert, loc. cit.).
It is probable that originally the
palms were only
blessed with a view to the
procession, but the later form of benediction seems distinctly to suppose that the
palms will be preserved as
sacramentals and carried about.
The only other noteworthy feature of the present
Palm Sunday service is the reading of the Gospel of the Passion.
As on
Good Friday, and on the Tuesday and the Wednesday of Holy Week, the Passion, when solemn Mass is offered, is sung by three
deacons who impersonate respectively the
Evangelist (Chronista),
Jesus Christ, and the other speakers (Synagoga). This division of the Passion among three characters is very ancient, and it is often indicated by
rubrical letters in early
manuscripts of the Gospel.
One such
manuscript at
Durham, which supposes only two readers, can hardly be of later
date than the eighth century. In earlier times
Palm Sunday was also marked by other observances, notably by one of the most important of the
scrutinies for
catechumens (see CATECHUMEN, III, 431) and by a certain relaxation of penance, on which ground it was sometimes called Dominica Indulgentiae.
Tenebrae
The proper Offices and Masses celebrated during Holy Week do not notably differ from the
Office and
Mass at other penitential seasons and during Passion Week.
But it has long been customary in all churches to sing
Matins and
Lauds at an hour of the afternoon or evening of the previous day at which it was possible for all the faithful to be present.
The Office in itself presents a very primitive type in which
hymns and certain supplementary formulae are not included, but the most conspicuous external feature of the service, apart from the distinctive and very beautiful
chant to which the Lamentations of
Jeremias are sung as lessons, is the gradual extinction of the fifteen
candles in the "Tenebrae hearse", or triangular
candlestick, as the service proceeds.
At the end of the
Benedictus at
Lauds only the topmost
candle, considered to be typical of
Jesus Christ, remains alight, and this is then taken down and hidden behind the
altar while the final
Miserere and collect are said. At the conclusion, after a loud noise emblematical of the convulsion of
nature at the death of
Christ, the
candle is restored to its place, and the congregation disperse.
On account of the gradual darkening, the service, since the ninth century or earlier, has been known as "Tenebrae" (darkness).
Tenebræ is sung on the evening of the Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, the antiphons and proper lessons varying each day.
Maundy Thursday, which derives its English name from Mandatum, the first word of the Office of the washing of the feet, is known in the Western
liturgies by the heading "In Coena Domini" (upon the Lord's supper).
This marks the central
rite of the day and the oldest of which we have explicit record. St. Augustine informs us that on that day Mass and Communion followed the evening meal or super, and that on this occasion Communion was not received
fasting.
The primitive conception of the festival survives to the present
time in this respect at least, that the
clergy do not offer Mass privately but are directed to Communicate together at the public Mass, like guests at one table. The
Liturgy, as commemorating the institution of the
Blessed Sacrament, is celebrated in white
vestments with some measure of
joyous solemnity.
The "Gloria in excelsis" is sung, and during it there is a general ringing of
bells, after which the
bells are
silent until the Gloria is heard upon
Easter Eve (
Holy Saturday). It is probable that both the
silence of the
bells and the withdrawing of
lights, which we remark in the
Tenebræ service, are to be referred to the same source -- a desire of expressing outwardly the sense of the
Church's bereavement during the
time of
Christ's Passion and Burial.
The observance of
silence during these three days
dates at least from the eighth century, and in Anglo-Saxon times they were known as "the still days"; but the connection between the beginning of this
silence and the ringing of the
bells at the Gloria only meets us in the later
Middle Ages. In the modern celebration of
Maundy Thursday attention centres upon the reservation of a second
Host, which is
consecrated at the Mass, to be consumed in the service of the Presanctified next day.
This is borne in solemn
procession to an "altar of repose" adorned with flowers and lighted with a profusion of
candles, the
hymn "Pange lingua gloriosi corporis mysterium" being sung upon the way. So far as regards the fact of the
consecration of an additional
Host to be reserved for the Mass of the Presanctified, this practice is very ancient, but the elaborate observances which now surround the
altar of repose are of comparatively recent
date.
Something of the same
honour used, in the later
Middle Ages, to be shown to the "Easter Sepulchre"; but here the
Blessed Sacrament was kept, most commonly, from the Friday to the
Sunday, or at least to the Saturday evening, in imitation of the repose of
Christ's sacred Body in the
Tomb. For this purpose a third
Host was usually
consecrated on the Thursday.
In the so-called "Gelasian Sacramentary", probably representing seventh-century usage, three separate Masses are provided for
Maundy Thursday. One of these was associated with the Order of the reconciliation of penitents (see the article
ASH WEDNESDAY), which for long ages remained a conspicuous feature of the day's ritual and is still retained in the
Pontificale Romanum.
The second Mass was that of the
blessing of the
Holy Oils, an important function still attached to this day in every
cathedral church. Finally,
Maundy Thursday has from an early period been distinguished by the service of the Maundy, or Washing of the Feet, in memory of the
reparation of Christ for the
Last Supper, as also by the stripping and washing of the altars (see MAUNDY THURSDAY).
Good Friday is now primarily celebrated by a service combining a number of separate features. We have first the reading of three sets of lessons followed by "bidding
prayers".
This probably represents a type of aliturgical service of great antiquity of which more extensive survivals remain in the Gallican and Ambrosian
liturgies. The fact that the reading from the Gospel is represented by the whole Passion according to St. John is merely the
accident of the day.
Secondly there is the "Adoration" of the Cross, equally a service of great antiquity, the earliest traces of which have already been noticed in connection with Ætheria's account of Holy Week at
Jerusalem. With this veneration of the Cross are now associated the
Improperia (reproaches) and the
hymn "Pange lingua gloriosi lauream certaminis".
The
Improperia, despite their curious mixture of Latin and Greek -- agios o theos; sanctus Deus, etc. -- are probably not so extremely ancient as has been suggested by Probst and others. Although the earliest suggestion of them may be found in the
Bobbio Misal, it is only in the
Pontificale of Prudentius, who was
Bishop of
Troyes from 846 to 861, that they are clearly attested (see Edm.
Bishop in "Downside Review", Dec., 1899).
In the
Middle Ages the "creeping to the cross" on
Good Friday was a practice which inspired special devotion, and saintly monarchs like St. Louis of
France set a conspicuous example of
humility in their performance of it. Finally, the
Good Friday service ends with the so-called "Mass of the Presanctified", which is of course no real sacrifice, but, strictly speaking, only a Communion service.
But the great consecratory
prayer of the Canon, with the words of Institution, are entirely omitted.
In the early
Middle Ages Good Friday was quite commonly a day of general Communion, but now only those in danger of death may receive on that day. The Office of
Tenebræ, being the
Matins and
Lauds of
Holy Saturday, is sung on
Good Friday evening, but the church otherwise remains bare and desolate, only the crucifix being unveiled. Such devotions as the "Three Hours" at midday, or the "Maria Desolata" late in the evening, have of course no
liturgical character. (See also
GOOD FRIDAY.)
The service of
Holy Saturday has lost much of the significance and importance which it enjoyed in the early
Christian centuries owing to the irresistible tendency manifested throughout the ages to advance the hour of its celebration. Originally it was the great
Easter vigil, or watch-service, held only in the late hours of the Saturday and barely terminating before midnight.
To this day the brevity of both the
Easter Mass and the
Easter Matins preserves a memorial of the fatigue of that night watch which terminated the austerities of
Lent. Again the
consecration of the new fire with a view to the lighting of the
lamps, the benediction of the
paschal candle, with its suggestions of night turned into day and its reminder of the
glories of that vigil which we
know to have been already celebrated in the
time of Constantine, not to dwell upon the explicit references to "this most
holy night" contained in the
prayers and the
Preface of the Mass, all bring home the incongruity of carrying out the service in the morning, twelve hours before the
Easter "vigil" can strictly speaking be said to have begun.
The obtaining and
blessing of the new fire is probably a
rite of Celtic or even
pagan origin, incorporated in the Gallican
Church service of the eighth century. The magnificent "Praeconium Paschale", known from its first word as the "Exsultet", was originally, no doubt, an improvisation of the
deacon which can be traced back to the
time of
St. Jerome or earlier.
The
Prophecies, the Blessing of the Font, and the
Litanies of the Saints are all to be referred to what was originaly a very essential feature of the
Easter vigil, viz., the
baptism of the
catechumens, whose preparation had been carried on during
Lent, emphasized at frequent intervals by the formal "scrutinies", of which not a few traces are still preserved in our
Lenten liturgy.
Finally, the Mass, with its
joyous Gloria, at which the
bells are again rung, the uncovering of the veiled
statues and pictures, the triumphant
Alleluias, which mark nearly every step of the
liturgy, proclaim the
Resurrection as an accomplished fact, while the Vesper Office, incorporated in the very fabric of the Mass, reminds us once more that the evening was formerly so filled that no separate hour was available to complete on that day the usual tribute of psalmody.
Strictly speaking,
Holy Saturday, like
Good Friday, is "aliturgical", as belonging to the days when the Bridegroom was taken from us.
Of this a memorial still remains in the fact that, apart from the one much anticipated Mass, the
clergy on that day are not free either to celebrate or to receive
Holy Communion.
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The placing of an article hereupon does not necessarily imply that I agree or accept the contents of the article as being necessarily factual in theology, dogma or otherwise.
Sotto Voce
When he became pope in 1978, John Paul II was an avid sportsman, enjoying hiking and swimming.
The Rt Rev Tom Wright (pic'd here), the Bishop of Durham, accused Mr John of attacking the fundamental message of the Gospel.
