6th Sunday of Lent

Holy Week begins today and we should enter this week with reverence, enthusiastically embracing the rituals associated with it. To celebrate Holy Week is, after all, to celebrate who we have become through Christ’s Paschal Mystery. I hope that throughout the season of Lent you have prayed, fasted, and performed works of charity. Lent ends with the beginning of the Mass of the Lord’s Supper on Holy Thursday.

The climax of Holy Week, and of the entire Church year for that matter, is the Easter Triduum. The Triduum begins on Holy Thursday evening with the Mass of the Lord’s Supper in which we commemorate when Jesus established the Holy Eucharist at the Last Supper with His Apostles. It continues on the evening of Good Friday with the Celebration of the Passion of the Lord and Veneration of the Cross, and then concludes with the Easter Vigil in the evening of Holy Saturday. The liturgy of the Easter Vigil lasts about two hours, but I heartily encourage parishioners to attend this very special Mass and experience the Liturgy of Light with the blessing and lighting of the Easter candle, the readings from the Bible that trace salvation history, the celebration of the Sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation, and of course, receiving Our Lord in Holy Communion. Though we call this time the “Three Days” (or “Triduum”), in spirit it is really seen as one continuous event. What we begin on Holy Thursday is completed with the Easter Vigil (and the subsequent Masses on Easter Sunday) – one long, glorious celebration.

How we celebrate these three days is very important. Families mark these days in different ways. Many people make a Good Friday pilgrimage to Chimayo or Tomé Hill or another location. Others have traditional meals on Good Friday (Remember that Good Friday is a day of fast and abstinence). Still others set aside a special time for prayer, especially the Stations of the Cross.

These three days are the holiest days of the year for Christians, and should be observed with dignity and respect as days of peace and prayer. The Church does not allow funeral Masses on Holy Thursday through Easter Sunday. We are celebrating one of the central beliefs of our faith – that Jesus, who suffered and died for our salvation, is Risen from the dead! Alleluia!