HOLY WEEK

At the end of Lent is the one week called Passion Tide, or Holy Week.  It begins on Passion Sunday, also called Palm Sunday, and ends at the first Alleluia of Easter in the midst of the Great Vigil on Saturday night.  Passion Sunday begins with the triumphal procession commemorating Jesus entering the Holy City on a donkey.  Participants experience in the liturgy a stark change in the middle of things.  What  had been falsely understood as Jesus joining the crowd becomes the confrontation of Jesus with the failures of society and the crowd as well.  The day turns decidedly dark and we read dramatically of Jesus being sought for arrest by the threatened authorities.  The color for this Sunday is the red of martyrs, the color of blood.  The next major liturgy is Maundy Thursday (the name comes from the Latin for mandate in the liturgy for foot washing-a new mandate I give to you, that you might love one another.)  This liturgy commemorates the Last Supper of Jesus with his disciples.  At the close of this liturgy all kneel as we remember that Jesus departed from the upper room for the Garden of Gethsemane.  At this time, people strip the altar area of all ornamentation and all symbols of God's presence.  No Eucharist's may be celebrated from this time until Easter anywhere in the world.  On Good Friday our Lord was killed for the folly of humankind and the love and willingness of God to let the consequences play themselves out.  We gather, often in the darkness and wearing black, for one of the most touching liturgies of the year.  Here we share our pain with God, who knows all about pain, and tears, and death, and we begin the observance of the three days of death, when our Lord was in the tomb.  The lights go dim and we leave in silence to await, finally, upon God's resolution.