What is this thing we call Holy Week and the special days within it? What is the history of the annual celebrations that happen in this leading to Easter? In other words, though we know that the events that we remember during Holy Week really happened to Jesus (e.g., the procession into Jerusalem, the Last Supper, His death on the cross, His resurrection), when did Christians begin to annually observe them as we do? And, what is the significance of our observances today? This article attempts to offer a brief introduction.
Holy Week
As we now practice it, Holy Week is the last week of the 40 day season of Lent and the week preceding Easter. In Holy Week we focus on the last week of Christ’s life, remembering especially His passion and resurrection. Though calling this week “Holy Week” is more of a recent innovation, the annual observance of the festivals within it are of ancient origin.
Palm/Passion Sunday
Palm Sunday is the commemoration of our Lord’s triumphant entry into Jerusalem five days before His crucifixion. Scripture records this incident in Matthew 21:1-11, Mark 11:1- 11, Luke 19:29-44, and John 12:12-19. This day takes it’s name from the fact that as Jesus approached Jerusalem on a donkey (in fulfillment of Zechariah 9:9), the huge crowd that followed carried palm branches as they praised Him. The people hailed Him as the long awaited “Son of David,” that is, the Messiah.
Though not annually observed at first, by 600-1000 a.d. Palm Sunday was being given full treatment, especially by Christians aligned with Rome. This treatment was part of a growing emphasis at the time to imitate as closely as possible the last days of Christ’s life.
Palm Sunday has a dual focus today. Our service begins with a joyful procession with palms to remember our Lord’s jubilant entry into Jerusalem. The hymns, prayers, and lectionary Scripture readings also reflect this joy. A second focus on Palm Sunday is our Lord’s Passion. When this second focus is observed, the entire passion story (Matthew, Mark, or Luke) is read (in place of the sermon).
Originally, however, Passion Sunday was held two weeks before Easter (since the ninth century) and it began the two week period known as “Passiontide” in which special stress was placed on Christ’s suffering and crucifixion. Actually, the two week Passiontide is older than Lent, having been observed since the third century.
Holy Thursday
Holy Thursday remembers the events in the upper room the night before Jesus died. These upper room events are described in Matthew 26:20-30, Mark 14:17-26, Luke 22:14-35, and John 13 – 17. Matthew, Mark, and Luke focus on the institution of the Lord’s Supper and the eating of the Passover meal. John focuses on the words of Jesus and His washing of the disciples feet.
Since it was on this night that Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper, that sacred meal has often been the chief emphasis of Holy Thursday. The Lord’s Supper is celebrated and often its meaning is rehearsed. At the end of the service, the altar is stripped, in preparation for Good Friday. This symbolizes Christ’s being stripped by the Roman soldiers prior to His crucifixion. Psalm 22, a Messianic psalm which clearly prophesies the Messiah’s death, is read while the altar is stripped.
From ancient times the Church in various places has also observed a ceremony of footwashing, in memory of our Lord washing his disciples feet on this night (see John 13).
The Pascha — Good Friday, Easter Vigil, and Easter
As we would expect, Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection have been annually observed from the earliest times. Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection are described in detail in Matthew 27-28, Mark 15-16, Luke 23-24, and John 19-21. However, Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection were not celebrated exactly as we do now. With texts such as John 1:29 and 1 Corinthians 5:7-8 in mind the first Christians celebrated Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection in one festival, called the Pascha (Greek for “Passover”).
The earliest evidence we possess points to the Pascha as the first of the annual Christian festivals. In fact, in the Second Century a. d. a church-wide split of staggering proportions almost occurred over the correct dating and meaning of the Pascha. The Christians in Asia Minor, citing the practice of the apostle John, bishop Polycarp and others, claimed that the Christian Pascha should be observed on the 14/15 of Nissan (the seventh day of the week), just as the Old Testament commanded (cf. Exodus 12). The rest of Christendom, including the bishop of Rome, Irenaeus, and the bishop of Jerusalem, held that the Pascha should culminate on the Sunday (since it was the day Jesus rose) after the first full moon after the vernal equinox. In the end the majority view won out.4 In recent years there has been a return in some quarters to a celebration of the Pascha, one festival celebrated over three days: Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter Sunday.
What about the Easter Vigil? Already in the Third Century a. d., Christians practiced a strict fast which ended after sundown on Saturday evening before Easter. After 313, the Vigil was the time for catechumens to be baptized. As such it also ushered in Christ’s resurrection following Paul’s linking of baptism with Christ’s resurrection (cf. Romans 6:1-5). The theme of light conquering darkness is also prominent.
Easter, the celebration of Christ’s resurrection, is the queen of the Christian holy days. The word “easter” and the German “Ostern” come from common source, referring to the direction from which the sun rises. In other words, the word referred to the celebration of the spring sun, when all things returned to life. This symbolism was transferred to the resurrection of Christ who brings us new life. There is no evidence that the word “easter” was the name of a Anglo-Saxon goddess “Eostre.” This is based on a passage in the writings of the Christian author, Bede, who in the eighth century erroneously ascribed the word to the goddess. To this day, no research has been able to find any mention of Eostre in Germanic mythology.
As mentioned above, the earliest word for the annual celebration of Christ’s resurrection was probably Pascha. As to the dating of Easter, this has been fixed ever since the Council of Nicea in 325. At Nicea it was decided that Easter would occur on the Sunday following the first full moon after the spring equinox, which occurs between March 22 and April 25.
Easter celebrates Christ’s victory over sin, death, and the devil, as well as the promise of our justification and everlasting life. The season of Easter lasts 50 days until the day of Pentecost.
Holy Week is a marvelous opportunity for Christian growth. It offers incredible potential for satisfying spiritual hunger. It does this by exposing those who attend its services to God’s Word and Sacrament. In other words, we grow in Holy Week not by imitating Christ’s last days. We grow as the Holy Spirit works through the Gospel and Sacrament that we hear and receive during these days. This Holy Week, taste and see that the Lord is good!
Jesus is the only savior accept or not @ muslim
You know the saying, give Jack his jacket and do not water down or deny the truth.
When you speak of Christians and when they first commenced observing Holy Week, Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Sunday, who are you referring to and giving the credence?
The Catholic Church was the First Church, established by Our Lord Jesus Christ and the First to have the Holy Bible that this mandate was given to. The Catholic Church did not borrow it from any religion since it was the First. It is not secondary or inferior to any other religion that was formed after it was established and down through the ages to today. The Catholic Church is not a denomination. It did not sprout out from any religion. Please keep this in mind.
Our Lord said to Peter: “Thou art Peter and upon this Rock I will build My Church…” Thereafter the Catholic Church was formed. Our Lord Jesus Christ is the Foundation of the Catholic Church.
Holy Week, The Week that changed the world. Jesus, Our Lord is Crucified and Resurrected. O come let us adore Him, Christ the Lord.
O Lord I am not worthy that Thou shouldst come to me…O Sacrament, Most Holy, O Sacrament Divine. All praise and all thanksgiving be every moment Thine.
Praise be to God, the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. Amen!
Jesus, remember me (us) when you come into your Kingdom!
Have a blessed Holy Week and joyful Easter. God bless!
This is just pure rubbish. You are repeating what you were told at Sunday school. Boss, the Catholic Church was definately not the first church established by our Lord, Jesus Christ. Havent you read about the Jewish Church? And I am sure the Coptic church will claim that it too was established by Jesus. Go and do some reading and stop disseminating that kind of heresy. And by the way, do you know that Lent originated from pagan practices? Read up on Tammuz and his mother Semiramis? I wish that DNO would make me their religion editor.
I support what muslim said. We have all been brainwashed by eurogentile christianity and have never even questioned the origin of European christianity. That’s the slave master’s religion that was forced upon our forefathers when they were taken out of the motherland. These Europeans were living in caves in Europe and knew nothing about God. The Africans were already worshipping God and had already a spititual life before European christianity. Christianity started started along the Nile valley and was a way of life of our ancestors. We have always been a spiritual people . The Europeans copied what was already in existence, changed it and gave it back to us in order to save us.The Europeans went to Africa with the bible and their guns and took the land and gave our fore fathers their European bibles. The slaves were not European christians when they were brought to the west. They were christianised in the slave master’s religion. John Hawkins had three slave ships called The good ship jesus, holy mary and grace of god. We need to study our history in order to know who we are as a race of people because our history has never been taught to us but we have been taught European history all along. We have been the first people and civilization started in Africa. The Europeans said that Africans were uncivilised and wanted to make them docile by giving them their God (Jesus), names, culture, religion and so on. It is high time that we get to our senses and stop worshipping the slave master’s god (Jesus)and religion. That is called mental slavery or spiritual enslavement. Do you think that the oppressor’s god can really deliver or save us? Jesus with blue eyes and blonde hair? We have been worshipping white people for so long because Jesus is in our psyhce and can’t seem to come out. The history and meaning of holy week has nothing to do with us as black people. Al of that is from Rome and is paganistic. All the other holidays that we observe such as christmas are also paganistic. There is a brother called Ashra Kwesi, who has been studying Egyptology for over thirty plus years. He is worth googling in order to find out about true christianity. We have been taught that the Egyptian symbols are paganistic because the Europeans do not want us to know our history and who we are. They want us to continue to know about them and their religion because of white supremacy. They do not want to relinquis power over us as a people so that we could never rise. We have adopted everthing from them and now we are almost on the verge of extermination as a people. We have been eating his food, wearing his clothes, carrying his name, speaking his language, using his weapons to kill each other, living his lifestyle (homosexuality)and so and so forth. Wake up my people. It is high time.
@ out of south city
Have you renounced your Christian religion/faith? If you did I feel sorry for you.
The Muslims, what you refer to as a religion came into existence approximately 600 years ago. The Christian faith, over 2000 years ago when God sent His Only Son that whoever believes in Him might be saved. Muslims cannot save themselves without recognizing Our Lord Jesus Christ. Their leader is not supreme to Our Lord Jesus Christ, Our Lord, King and Savior of the world.
Forget all that about white people and European and cease wasting your God-given precious time about that. Our Lord Jesus Christ is not interested in all that. What He wants of you is to recognize Him, worship Him, pray to Him and to save your soul. In the end this is what will matter to each and every one of us.
Thanks very much for this article. I appreciate the information.
As Catholics, during Holy Week we remember and commemorate the tremendous sacrifice that Christ made for us. It is not a burden on us. It is our right and our choice to remember. Every day is taken straight from the Bible. As this article says, this has been practiced for centuries.
Peter was the first leader of the Catholic Church. As it is written in Matthew 16:18, “You are Peter and upon this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”
Hell will try. We will have sinful popes and priests and all sorts of tribulations but the gates of hell shall not prevail.
I wish all Catholics a prayerful Holy Week and a beautiful Easter.
all misguided truths!!! muslim is right with regards to the white power structure and imagery used to portray the misguided truth that jesus christ was a white man. if we go through the biblical texts you will see that writers always quoted jesus as either saying, give the praises to my father for i came only to do his will. i have not come to overthrow the will of my father but to fulfill it. even gave us the pray “our father”, which basically renders everything to the one and only godhead, and that we give recognition to the godhead and his will.
this is pure monotheism. but it is only fitting that a jesus who is believed to come from god understand his father and his will in its entirety. therefore he would never accept praise that should be given to god.
Holy Week is simply a representation of the Passover Week, which God commanded ancient Israel to observe after He took them away from Egypt.
That week was observed, every year, in the first month of the year, starting on the 14th day of the month and ending on 21st day of the month
That observation involved eating of unleavened bread for the seven days along with the slaughtering of a lamb, in every household, which was used for the passover supper.
The passover week was observed in memory of the day that God freed or delivered His people–the Israelites–from the bondage of slavery in Egypt.
The blood of the lamb on the doors of the Israelites saved them from the plague of death to every first born in Egypt, because of Pharaoh’s hard heartedness against God’s commands.
Jesus died during the week of the passover, on the day after the passover supper, according to the Holy Bible.
His suffering, death, burial, and resurrection is to free or deliver mankind from their bondage of sin–but by their faith in the healing of His Blood–just as God freed or delivered the Israelites from their bondage of slavery in Egypt, having saved the first born of the Israelite’s family by the blood of the lamb painted on their doors.
However, as far as Good Friday is concerned, how is that 3 days and 3 nights to early Sunday morning?
Jesus told the Jewish leaders, who kept asking Him for a sign, so they could believe He was Son of God Almighty–that the “sign of Jonah was the only sign which they would see”.
The Word of God tells us that Jonah was in the belly of a large fish for 3 days and 3 nights–which according to Jesus saying: A day has 12 hours; meaning that day and night equal 24 hours. Hence 3 days and 3 nights equal 72 hours–that is not from Friday evening to early Sunday morning.
Jesus may have been resurrected on the first day of the week, which we observe as Sunday–but I cannot see how He died and was buried all in one on Friday–to give Him 3 days and 3 nights in the grave.
So I simply believe that Jesus died on a day during the passover week–to represent the Lamb which slaughtered for the sins of the world. And He was resurrected on the third day, for yours and my sake.
Hence it is because of what Jesus did on the cross, that I live–not because of following all sorts of complicated religious rules and regulations.
As Christians we ought to live by faith and not by sight, doing things by our human wisdom and philosophy. By faith we learn to walk in the Spirit; doing the things of Love, for Love is Life–God’s Holy Spirit in us, when we are connected to God through conscience.
Jesus rose “on the 3rd day” (Luke 24:7) NOT “after the 3rd day”. Using 72 hours is not accurate.
Did Jesus ever ask his followers to observe all those things mentioned above? I know he did for the ‘last supper,’ but….holy week, palm sunday etc..? Nah man, you all just putting burdens on the people to carry.
Muslim, what’s yr problem God = English.
very nice article…educates those who doubt what I stand for as a catholic.
This has been written by someone who has not genuinely researched the life of the Messiah. All the things spoken are of pagan origin. All these practices were accepted by the so called church (Rome)long after Yahshua lived and died.
i am not questioing your faith with catholicism,but i would like to put forward this enlightenment,and i would like you to annalize it,menelic was the son of solomon and sheba of ethiopia,he did not know his father until his mother permited him to go to jerusalem to know his father solomon,solomon was so pleased with him,that he tried to get him to stay in jerusalem,but he did not want to stay,so what solomon decided to do was to establish a province of jerusalem in ethiopia, with the heirachy sons of the preisthood to overlook and keep control of province with his son and his sons mother,but one of the sons of the preisthood was somewhat disgruntled with idea,anyway what they did,they went into the holy temple and stole the act of covenant and replaced it with a wooden one,and went their journey to ethiopia,when one of remaining preist concieved what had happened,he went and told solomon,who gave chase,but his son and preist had already crossed into ethiopia across the jordan river,so they gave up,so thus original christianity was established in ethiopia, up till this day the ethiopian othordox church remains as the original faith base of the ethiopians,when catholicism was introduced to the ethiopians war broke out,the ethiopians said that the ethiopian coptic church was disrespected,and so catholicism was expelled from ethiopia up to this day,what i am trying to say to you is,seeing ethiopia has today the direct blood line original church of old,is the catholic church which was expelled by the original church really the one to follow?,all i am asking is that you annalize that,you can also look up ethiopia-wikipedia.
None of these teachings has anything to do with Jesus may the peace and blessings of Allah be on him and his mother. This type of Christianity has been marred by European interpretation and Greek paganism.
The true message of the Messiah (peace be upon him) taught pure monotheism. He taught the children of Israel to worship God (Allah = Arabic name for God) directly without any mediators. This was the first and the greatest commandment he taught, however, centuries after the Messiah (p.b.u.h) left Christianity became Europeanized, they introduced pagan elements such as divinity of Christ and the idea of a trinity Godhead.
When one ask a Christian, what was the ethnicity and color of Jesus (p.b.u.h) they will say things like, ‘that’s not important.’ The reason for this is our people of African descent have been bombarded with a White Jesus, a white ‘god.’ These 400-500 years of constant bombardment of a white ‘god’ has destroyed the psyche of our black children. It has destroyed their identity. The reality is the Messiah (p.b.u.h) was an ancient Israelite/Hebrew. They were dark skinned or colored people. They were never white people. This is an insult to intelligence and it is time for Catholic church to destroy those images of white supremacy now and forever.
Lastly, it is time for Christians to come back to submission to the will of God. They have been stepped in the clutches and ills of polytheism. Every Christian who learns the truth regarding pure monotheism yet dies upon this trinity path will be in the hell fire for his pagan beliefs.
In the beginning God said let us make man in OUR(wish i could underline it) image. In the book of john; he write…”In the beginning there was a word and the word was God and the word became flesh (Jesus)…Go read a bible
I was raised in this blue-eyed brainwashing white Christianity. I’ve read the entire bible, those with 72 books like the Good News Bible, 66 books like the King James Version I have in my possession today which I bought on 2nd September 1999. I am very well acquainted with the bible perhaps even more than you.
Have you read the Quran? Do you have a copy? I can bet my last dollar you don’t even know what one looks like.
These verses you quoted shows that you have been affected with continuous indoctrination of white interpretation of scriptures. No ancient Israelite/Hebrew or any prophet ever taught the concept of God being three in one. You fail to understand that this nonsense was fabricated in the council of Nicea in 321 C.E (Christian Era). This is centuries after Jesus (peace be upon him) left.
Lastly, stop speaking rubbish and do your research, this is the problem with many Dominicans, they talk sh*t whole day, mind people business and backward like what I don’t you. People like you and your backward thinking are keeping the country back.
Many white reverts are embracing Islam. The churches are becoming empty in Europe. Europeans are dumping the filth of White Christianity and embracing Islam. Open your mind!
Where was Allah you deceived individual. Your religion has syncretised the pagan moon worshippers ideas, that of chritianity, Judaism, and have led millions to believe that fallacy and misguided so called truths
Only an illiterate jack who hasn’t read a damn about Islam would make a statement like that. Do you have a copy of the Quran? Have you read one piece of Islamic Literature?
You’re living in the 21st century, all the knowledge that is available from Muslim writers, you fail to look at things from proper perspectives. Open your mind and stop listening to crackers and illiterates.
Though i respect your belief, and all what you are entitled tp say, i hope you will entitle me to say, ” I think you have a serious problem”. As a Christian, we are free to practice our faith and believe in who or what we choose to believe, and so do u. You dont believe in the Holy week, then thats fine. But please, spear us the mumbo jumbo…
@ Dominican… – You are still under white influence. White Christianity is a mirage. This is a interpretation they forced our forefathers with. You want to practice that? You are still enslaved my friend to the white man, your mind is messed up!
To Muslim
It was very sad reading your comment. Have you not realize, that you to are a victim of religion, the very thing that robs the minds of humanity, and can be held responsible for some of the turmoil this world is facing. Your religion or any other religion is not the solution but the problem facing the human race.
The creative universal principle, The Architect of the Universe does not require anyone to adopt any religion to know that it operates, it does not need our religious beliefs,for it to operate.What that divine principle needs is our recognition of it, knowing how it works and it will bestow us with rewards.
Ah you atheist prick scram! You in the army killing Muslims when you’re done, you’re talking garbage. Rubbish!
@ Muslim
Times like these make you angry. Mohammid did nothing like this for the world or no one for that matter. I often wonder where his soul is in eternity. On Judgment Day we will know.
Our Lord Jesus Christ is sitting at the right hand side of His Father.
In Holy Scriptures: “My Lord said to my lord sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.” It is coming for his enemies when they die. It has already come for his enemies who have died. Eat your heart out.
Christ must reign as Our Almighty Father ordained. No one can change it, forever and ever.