The ancient liturgies of Holy Week are themselves the result of 4th and 5th century pilgrimages to the Holy Land. These traditional liturgies are the most unusual and vivid of the Christian year, and for the great majority of the world’s Christians mark a period of intense spiritual awareness and devotion.

We enter this time “not only with our hearts and minds, but with our feet as we make procession along with Jesus and his other disciples from Bethany to Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, from the Upper Room to the Mount of Olives on Maundy Thursday, from the Judgement Hall to the hill of Calvary on Good Friday, to the tomb in the garden on Holy Saturday and finally to that moment in the heart and silence of God the Father when the Resurrection of his only begotten Son became a reality in time and place”. (G. Furry)

The Paschal Triduum, or Great Triduum, the sacred three days, begins at sundown on Maundy Thursday and ends on Easter Sunday evening. It is one liturgy spread over three days. Robert Jenson, one of the most pre-eminent living theologians in America, says, “What must happen as the fundamental explanation of atonement is that the ancient single service of the Triduum, the continuous enactment of the Supper, the Crucifixion, and the Resurrection…be enacted….Crucifixion and Resurrection together are the church’s Pasch, her passing over from being no people to being God’s people, her rescue from alienation to fellowship, her reconciliation. Only as this is enacted in the church as one event is the Crucifixion understood.”

In this continuous service of worship, where one liturgy ends the next begins. From the Maundy Thursday liturgy, “a strengthening table in the midst of enemies”, we leave in silence as Jesus prays and weeps in the Garden of the Mount of Olives.

We enter the Good Friday liturgy with the ministers vested only in black, as they were the night before when the church was stripped bare of all decoration and the cross veiled in black.

We leave our solemn meditations on Good Friday without dismissal, waiting and keeping vigil with Christ through Holy Saturday as he rests in the tomb and harrows hell. In the evening we gather in the darkness for the Great Vigil of Easter where fire is kindled, and light, the first of God’s creations, is restored to the Church. The Paschal Candle is consecrated to be a sacramental presence of our risen Lord and the people of God go forth through the Red Sea led by this great pillar of light. The Paschal mystery, the Passover of God’s people, is solemnly proclaimed in the singing of the ancient Exsultet. This night is the culmination of Holy Week and was considered by the early Church to be “the holiest night of the Christian year.” (Augustine)

The celebration of Paschal joy continues, with festal Eucharists morning and evening on Easter Day, and continues throughout the fifty days of Eastertide.