HOLY WEEK - REASONS RELATING TO THE HOLY WEEK SEASON

                  Holy Week            

REASONS RELATING TO THE HOLY WEEK SEASON

We are drawing nearer and nearer to the sufferings of our Lord. We have seen how the Septuagesima Time is a preparation for the Lenten Season. We have seen how Lent is like a vestibule leading us into Holy Week, when we celebrate the death of the Son of God. We here see how the week before Holy Week is like the holies leading us into the Holy of Holies, the great mystery of the sufferings and the death of our Lord for us and for our salvation, and how year by year the children of the Church renew in mystic Kites the sad scenes of Calvary's Cross. The oldest liturgical works, the celebrated books of the ancient churches, the sermons of Saints, the works of the Fathers of the Church, the greatest histories of the past ages, the laws of fallen empires, the venerable traditions of the early ages, all proclaim and cry out with one voice, and the burden of their story is the sufferings and the death of Christ for the salvation of the race. And the Church into whose holy hands was given to guard the "deposit of faith," keeps forever bright before the nations the sad story of his death. By her ceremonies, her sacred. Rites, her magic symbols and her holy ceremonies, she ever preaches the death of God for man. The primal thought of the Christian religion in her Liturgy is to keep before the minds of men his coming and his death; to celebrate each year, as the ages roll by, the grand and transcendent mystery of his death; to preach to the generations of men as they come and go upon the stage of this world, that the Saviour came, and that he died for our redemption. During Lent, even to Palm Sunday, we sometimes celebrate, during the days of the week, the feasts of the Saints, when they are closely connected with the passion of our Lord, but no solemnity but that of the day itself must be held on Passion Sunday, on Palm Sunday, or on the days of holy week, for they are entirely set apart to the honor and to the remembrance of the sufferings and of the death of our Lord.

     From the days of the Apostles the Christians celebrated with solemn rites and ceremonies the sufferings of their Lord. In the dark and dismal days of persecution, when they fled to the catacombs, there they held their memorial services in remembrance of the death of our Saviour. Those sad and sombre rites were held in great veneration by the Christians of Alexandria in the third century. A hundred years went by, and we find St. Chrysostom of Constantinople calling the days of these ceremonies the "Great Week." We find it named the "Painful Week” by the early Saints, because of the sufferings of the Saviour. We find it spoken of as the "Week of Indulgence," because then the sinners were for given. We find its name as "The Greater Week” among the Greeks, because of the greatness of the mysteries. We find it called by the Germans " The Week of Sorrows,” or "The Week of Miseries," because the Church sits in sorrow for the sufferings and the death of her Spouse, our Lord, or they named it the "Week of Sufferings." We find it called by the early Christians of England, "Holy Week," and that is the name by which it is known wherever the English language is spoken.

     The fast and self-denial increases as we draw nearer and nearer to the time of Holy Week. The people of the Latin Rite are allowed to use eggs, cheese and what are called "white meats," but the members of the Eastern Rites, keeping close to the traditions of the Apostles, observe a more rigorous fast, using only bread, water and salt, with sometimes fruits.

     During the first ages of the Church fasting was carried as far as the power of man could bear it, many eating nothing during Holy Week, from Monday morning till the crow of the cock on Saturday night, before the break of Easter morning. Few could fast so long and the greater number took food each second day, eating nothing from Thursday till after the Matin hour of Easter morning. Many are the wonderful examples of this rigorous fast we find among the Eastern nations and among the Russians in the middle ages.

     Long "Watches” during the night was one of the ways of celebrating the time of Holy Week in the early ages of the Church. On Holy Thursday, after having offered up the Holy Sacrifice, in remembrance of the Last Supper, the people remained long into the night in the Church, listening to sermons, praying before the Blessed Sacrament, or bowed in humble praise, prayer and meditation before the altar. Good Friday and Holy Saturday nights were spent entirely in the churches of the cities, in honor and in remembrance of the burial of Christ. The most widespread and popular of all these "Watches" was the one of Holy Saturday night, or the eve of Easter, which lasted till the morning. The churches were crowded with people. The Catechumens received their last instructions. The people redoubled their devotions and their prayers. All remained till the Mass began at the break of day, then they separated to go to their homes at the rising of the sun, there to prepare themselves for the great ceremonies of Easter, and for the joys of the Resurrection of our Lord.

     For a long time all servile work was forbidden during Holy Week, and the laws of the land united with those of the Church in making it a holy season, a time of vacation from all kinds of labor, so that the people could better devote themselves to the celebration of the passion and death of our Lord. The thought of the sad sacrifice of Calvary Cross was in every heart. The services of the Church took up all the time of pure souls. Their watchings, prayers and fastings required all their strength, while the solemn, sombre services of the Church took such deep root in their minds as to last till the next spring came around, bringing with it again the same ceremonies.

     The Christian emperors and rulers not only stopped all law trials, but they held these days as days of mercy to their subjects in honor of the mercy of God to the world. These were the days when the Church opened her doors to the public penitents and to the greatest sinners, and the Catholic kings following their mother, the Church, opened the prison doors to their prisoners jailed for political reasons, to captives taken in war and to per sons arrested for debts. The only exceptions were those whose liberty would be dangerous to the public good, as murderers or bad characters. According to St. Chrysostom, the Emperor Theodosius sent letters of pardon the week before Easter to the cities and villages where the prisoners were kept when condemned to death, ordering them to be set at liberty. For a long time that was the custom among the emperors of Rome. That custom came from the Jews, who liberated a prisoner each year at their Easter, as we see that they delivered Barabbas in place of our Lord. From them it passed into the Roman laws and became a part of the Theodosian code. It was found in the laws of nearly all the nations of Europe during the middle ages. We find it in the chapters of Charlemagne that the bishops had the power of demanding the deliverance of convicts from the judges on Holy Week, and even that they could prevent the judges from entering the Church if they refused. We find the same in the life of Charles VI., when he had put down a rebellion among the people of Rouen, and taken many of them prisoners, on Holy Week he set them at liberty. We find the last remains of that truly charitable and Catholic custom in the government and court of France before the French revolution wiped out so many of the beautiful Christian customs coming down from the earliest ages. At first all work of the government was stopped from the beginning of Lent till Low Sunday. Such was the way in the middle ages. Then they began to take their vacations on Wednesday of Holy Week, but before ending, all the members of the government went to the prisons, where the chairman held a reception. Then they questioned each prisoner relating to his case, and set at liberty all those who were not great criminals. These were the ages of faith, when the kings, the princes and the members of the royal families of Christendom left their thrones, their palaces and their abodes of wealth and luxury and thronged the prisons to set the prisoners free. Then they gathered in the hospitals to soothe the sickness of the sufferers. They visited the asylums to see the orphans. They called on the poor to give them alms. They gladdened the home of the widow to give her a ray of hope.

     Those are remains of the olden times when God was ever uppermost in the thoughts of men; when the letters of kings were dated with the words, "Reigning our Lord Jesus Christ." Then the royal families were obedient to the Church. Then there were no secret societies, no Socialists, no Nihilists eating out the foundations of governments, for all were Catholics and all looked up to their rulers as having their power and their authority from God. From the converted nations of Europe sprang the governments, and all worshipped the Lord their God. But in this age of ours, they call progress that onward tendency towards the denial of authority, towards the rejection of the rule of the Church, towards the decay of society, towards the dying out of the race itself basins against the sanctity of marriage, and that revolting evil which we call divorce.

      At the preaching of the apostles, slavery, that son of sin, had spread throughout the world as a relic of the pagan ages before the time of Christ. One of the first acts of the Church, wherever she had spread, was to discourage slavery, and in time it came to pass that there was not a slave to be found in the whole of Europe. They were delivered from their bondage by the preaching of the priests and by the still but prudent work of the clergy, without war or bloodshed, as happened in our own country during the late civil war. Although law courts could not be held during Holy Week, still such was the lenient spirit of the Church that we find in the Justinian code, that "it will nevertheless be allowed to give slaves their liberty, and no act required for their delivery will be rejected by that law." Justinian here but gives force to the laws made by his predecessor, Constantine, the morning after the triumph of the Church, when she came forth from the darkness of the catacombs. For a long time before Constantine gave liberty to the Christians, the Church, like a mother, had looked after the slaves, and had made laws obliging their masters to give them a fortnight to rest at Easter, till in centuries after she set them at liberty, so that there has not been for many ages a slave in Europe.

    In the same way the people have always been told to give to the poor during this holy time, to help them in their poverty and aid them in their distress, preaching that, "Who giveth to the poor lendeth to the Lord." This has always been the way the good Christians spend the time of Lent, but especially during Holy Week. St. Chrysostom praises the charity and liberality of the people of his day for their goodness to the poor.

     Three things are in the mind of the Church during the time of Lent: the Passion of our Saviour, which from week to week draws nearer; the preparation of the newly converted, who are to be baptized on Holy Saturday, and the reconciling of sinners, who are to receive the Blessed Eucharist at Easter.

    The catechumens or the newly converted draw nearer and nearer each day to the fountains of living waters. Their catechism and their instruction goes on. The figures of the Old Testament are explained to them; the mysteries of our holy religion are unfolded to them; the Apostles' Creed is given to them; the wonderful humiliations of the Redeemer are shown them, and now with the people they wait for the ceremonies of the Church, typifying the sufferings and the resurrection of their Lord and Saviour. On Holy Saturday they are to be washed from their sins in the waters of regeneration. They can be baptized at any time in the year, but Holy Saturday has been from the beginning of the Church the time when they are most solemnly baptized after the blessing of the baptismal font.

    The reconciling of sinners is the second work of the Church in this time. From Ash Wednesday they have carried the ashes on their heads as a sign of penance and of sorrow for their sins. They fasted from food during Lent; they practiced self-denial all these weeks; they offered many acts of sorrow to the Lord; and as the time of the death of the Lamb of God, " Who taketh away the sins of the world," draws nearer, they live in the hope of being forgiven for their sins, and that like him they will rise gloriously from the grave of sin to the glories of a better and a holier life.

    The Church, like a widow weeping over the murder of her Spouse, sits in the deepest sadness. She covers the crosses, the pictures, the statues, the works of art, and the sculptures of the great masters in the churches with veils of violets, so that the people see but "Jesus and him crucified." For a long time the heavenly "Alleluia" is heard no more; the "Glory be to God in the highest" is silent; the "Glory be to the Father," etc., ending each Psalm in the Office during the year, is said no more. The Psalm, "Judge me, O Lord," beginning Mass, is omitted. Her holy chants and sacred anthems breathe but woe. All the services, all the ceremonies, all the rites of this time, from the evening before Passion Sunday, are of the most sad, solemn and sombre kind. Only when we celebrate the feast of some Saint does the Church relax a little in these rites and ceremonies, which wake the deepest sensibilities of the heart of man, making every sympathetic chord vibrate with affliction, with sadness, with sorrow, with woe and desolation, in remembrance of the death of the Saviour of the World.

    Saturday eve before Passion Sunday the cross and the images are covered with a violet veil, because, say the great writers on these subjects, it signifies the humiliation of our Lord in his passion, when in his sufferings he veiled his Divinity, and because from this time, when the Jews tried to put him to death, he hid from them. The law of the Church relating to this veiling of the cross and the images is so strict, that even when the feast of the Annunciation comes in Passion Week they are not uncovered. From this time till Trinity Sunday we have no commemoration of the Saints, for the whole Church is completely taken up with the mysteries of our Lord.

    During the year different parts of the Bible are read in the Offices and in the Masses, but during this time the sad words of the prophet of sorrows, Jeremiah, are read.

                  Palm Sunday

Palm Sunday is also called the Sunday of the Boughs, because of the branches we carry in our hands; it is named Hosanna Sunday, because of the triumphant cry of the Jews; it is called Flower Sunday because Easter, which is but eight days coming, is like the flower of the year. As a remembrance of this Sunday, the Spaniards, when they discovered the coast of Florida, on Palm Sunday, called it Florida, the Spanish for flowers, in honor of the feast of our Lord's entry into Jerusalem.

    Again, it is called the Sunday of washing the heads, because on this day in ancient times those preparing for baptism on Holy Saturday, washed their heads for the Holy Oils. It is called the Sunday of the Admitted, for on this day those who were prepared for baptism were admitted to the Mass till the Canon; while by the Greeks it is called by a word which means to carry palms.

     Palm Sunday is thus named from the Jews taking branches of palm from the trees and strewing them in the way, and carrying them in their hands as they came with Jesus into the city, crying, " Hosanna, blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord." As a remembrance of our Lord's triumphant entry into the holy city each year we celebrate Palm Sunday. On the 20th of March, when the Lord and his disciples were going up to Jerusalem to celebrate the feast of the Pasch, they came to Bethphage, a little village on the side of the Mount of Olives. From there he sent two of his disciples into the village, telling them to bring him an ass and her colt. Going they found them as he said, and brought them to him. Placing their garments on the colt, which was never rode before, the Saviour rode the animal into the city of Jerusalem, as foretold by the prophet. According to the custom of the Jews, great crowds had come to celebrate the feast. Spreading their garments in the way, and breaking boughs of palm, they spread them in the road, and all cried: "Hosanna to the son of David, blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. Blessed be the kingdom of our Father David that cometh, Hosanna in the highest."

From the oldest traditions we' learn that the ass, the mother of the colt which had been used to being ridden, signified the Jewish people, who had been used to the law of God, who were, as it were, the mother of the Christian Church, and the colt which had not been broken typified the Gentiles, who had not received the law. Our Lord, taking the colt in place of the mother, foretold the choosing of the Gentiles, who were to be called to the law of God in place of the Jews who were rejected. Hosanna is a Hebrew word signifying about the same as our English hurrah, and means an exclamation rather than a thing. Such was the word used by the Israelites in honoring any of their public men.' "Hosanna to the Son of David," tells of his human nature. "Hosanna in the highest," proclaimed his divine nature.

     Palm signifies victory, for that reason the martyrs are represented with palms in their hands. He rode upon an ass after the custom of princes and the nobles of the Jews, for they did not use horses.

      In honor and in remembrance of this triumphant entry of our Lord into Jerusalem, in the last year of his life, and on the Sunday before his death, we celebrate each year the solemnities of Palm Sunday. We find that this custom of celebrating Palm Sunday comes down from the most ancient times — from the days of the apostles. It is found in the calendars of the Church in the IVth century. It is seen in the sacramentaries of Pope Gelasius and of Gregory the Great. It is mentioned in the most ancient Missals, in the oldest Ceremonials and Liturgical works which have remained to us since the times of the destruction of the Roman Empire, when so many books were destroyed by the barbarians of the North. They all speak of Palm Sunday.

The ceremonies of Palm Sunday begin by the celebrant and ministers coming to the altar clothed in violet vestments, which they wore during the services of the Church since the beginning of Septuagesima Sunday, as a sign of fasting and of penance for their sins. At the corner of the altar the celebrant begins the services by the words of the Jews, when our Lord rode into Jerusalem, and a prayer for faith and hope in the Lord. He reads the Scriptures from the book of Exodus, which tells of the wonders of the Lord to the people of Israel at the fountains of waters and at the seventy palm trees, followed by the history of our Lord entering Jerusalem in triumph, as given in the gospel. The celebrant then blesses the Palms with appropriate prayers, sprinkling them with Holy water as a sign that they are washed from all bad influences, and become holy and clean for the services of the Church. They are then incensed to show that they become like so many prayers of peace in the hands of all those who carry them. They are sprinkled with holy water three times incensed in honor of the three most holy persons of the Trinity.

The Station where the Mass is celebrated is in the great Basilica of St. John Lateran, the mother and the chief of all the churches of Rome and of the world. In former times, when the Popes resided at the palace beside this venerable Church, before St. Peter's was built, the papal ceremonies were here carried out with great splendors. But since Michael Angelo with those who followed him laid the plan of St. Peter's, the grandest building ever raised to the worship of the true and living God, the Pope celebrates Palm Sunday at the Vatican. The Mass of this Sunday has none of the traits of joy and gladness we find in the ceremonies of the blessing and of the procession of the palms.

PALM SUNDAY

Early in the morning of this day, Jesus sets out for Jerusalem, leaving Mary, his Mother, and the two sisters Martha and Mary Magdalene, and Lazarus, at Bethania. The Mother of Sorrows trembles at seeing her Son thus expose himself to danger, for his enemies are bent upon his destruction; but it is not Death, it is Triumph that Jesus is to receive to day in Jerusalem. The Messias, before being nailed to the Cross, is to be proclaimed King by the people of the great City; the little children are to make her streets echo with their Hosannas to the Son of David; and this in presence of the soldiers of Rome’s Emperor, and of the High Priests and Pharisees,  the first, standing under the banner of their Eagles; the second, dumb with rage. The Prophet Zachary had foretold this Triumph which the Son of Man was to receive a few days before his Passion, and which had been prepared for him from all eternity.

Rejoice greatly, 0 Daughter of Sion! Shout for joy, daughter of Jerusalem! Behold thy King will come to thee; the Just and the Saviour, He is poor, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt, the foal of an ass. Jesus, knowing that the hour was come for the fulfillment of this prophecy, singles out two from the rest of his Disciples, and bids them lead to him an ass and her colt, which they would find not far off. He had got to Bethphage, on Mount Olivet. The two Disciples lose no time in executing the order given them by their divine Master; and the ass and the colt are soon brought to the place where he stands.

The holy Fathers have explained to us the mystery of these two animals. The ass represents the Jewish people, which had been long under the yoke of the Law; the colt, upon which, as the Evangelist says, no man yet hath sat, is a figure of the Gentile world, which no one had ever yet brought into subjection. The future of these two people is to be decided in a few days hence: the Jews will be rejected, for having refused to acknowledge Jesus as the Messias; the Gentiles will take their place, be adopted as God’s people, and become docile and faithful.

The Disciples spread their garments upon the colt; and our Savior, that the prophetic figure might be fulfilled, sat upon him, and advances towards Jerusalem. As soon as it was known that Jesus was near the City, the Holy Spirit worked in the hearts of those Jews, who had come, from all parts, to celebrate the Feast of the Passover. They go out to meet our Lord, holding palm branches in their hands, and loudly proclaiming him to be King. They that had accompanied Jesus from Bethania, join the enthusiastic crowd. Whilst some spread their garments on the way, others cut down boughs from the Palm- trees, and strewed them along the road. Hosanna is the triumphant cry, proclaiming to the whole city, that Jesus, the Son of David, has made his entrance as her King.