From the Pastor
March/25/2010
We begin, once again, the most sacred and most important week of the Christian calendar: Holy Week. These
days have precedence over all other celebrations. Palm Sunday (properly called Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion), calls to mind Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem to accomplish the Paschal Mystery. Accordingly, the memorial of this event is included in every Mass. On Holy Thursday and Good Friday, the Eucharist is distributed only during the Liturgy, though it may be brought to the sick at a different hour. On Holy Saturday, the Eucharist is not to be distributed before the Easter Vigil; it may only be given as Viaticum (literally, “with you on the way”) tothe dying.
Funeral Masses may not be celebrated during these days. The last opportunities before Easter for Confession
will be Monday at 9 AM, Monday night at the 7 PM Penance Service, and Wednesday at 9 AM. Though we
are called to fasting, and abstinence from meat once more on Good Friday, Lent actually ends with the conclusion of Holy Thursday’s evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper. The following days are called the Easter Triduum, from the Latin for “The Three Days.” These are the holiest days of the Church year!
What really do the liturgies of the Triduum celebrate? Most all of us believe we know the answer. We assume
that Thursday commemorates the day Jesus instituted Holy Orders and the Holy Eucharist; Friday commemorates the day He was executed on the cross; and the Vigil commemorates His emergence from the tomb. We assume, further, that the liturgies of these days are dramatic reenactments of events -- touching, tragic and triumphant-- which happened during Jesus’ last days, and culminated in His victory over death. In other words, we assume that the Paschal Triduum is simply springtime’s parallel to winter’s Christmas. As we gather on these days, we often think we are to be engaged in acts of historical “reconstruction” that re-create scenes in the “Upper Room,” on Calvary, and at the tomb. People have been encouraged to imagine they are actually present at these events -- comforting Jesus during His tearful watch in Gethsemane, walking with Him along the Way of the Cross, and witnessing His miraculous “return to life” on Easter morning.
This view is reinforced by popular hymns that focus on the “historical facts” of the celebration. But is history to be the central focus of celebration during the Triduum? Certainly, early Christians anchored their belief in the historical (“this-worldly”) circumstances that accompanied Jesus’ suffering and crucifixion “under Pontius Pilate.” Jesus’ life, career and death were, in other words, attached to a specific time, in a specific place. For sure, His proclamation of God’s arrival in the present moment (God’s “reign”), His challenge to understand God as being in our neighbor, and His obvious rejection of elements of what people thought was “religion” (especially when used as a means of social or political control) -- all this took place not in some cosmic cloud of unknowing, but in a remote province of the Roman Empire, at a time of a sociopolitical transition.
Precisely because these faith-anchoring events are historical, however, they cannot be repeated or “reenacted.”
This is why the Church’s long tradition insists that what happened once in history passes over into the mystery of the assembly’s sacramental / liturgical celebrations. What the Triduum actually celebrates is mystery, not history.
These liturgies aren’t supposed to “take us back to those thrilling days of yesteryear” – to the Upper Room or the path to Calvary. Their ultimate purpose is not to retrace or relive the last hours of Jesus’ life – nor to catch sight of Him emerging from the tomb at Easter’s dawning. They celebrate not what once happened to Jesus, but what is now happening among us as a people called to conversion, gathered in faith, and renewed with the Spirit of holiness.
They celebrate God’s taking possession of our hearts at their deepest core -- re-creating us as a new human
community, broken like bread for the world’s life, rich in compassion, steadfast in hope, and fearless in the search for justice and peace.
As another reminder, there are NO Saturday Vigil Masses this Saturday afternoon -- only the evening Mass of the Easter Vigil at 7:00 PM, in which we will receive some new members into the fullness of the Faith through Baptism, Confirmation and First Holy Communion. This Vigil Mass will fulfill our obligation to attend Easter Sunday Mass (and avoid the huge crowds that throng the Easter morning Masses!). Also, there is NO Sunday 5:30 Life Teen Mass on Easter Day. We will resume that on the following Sunday, Divine Mercy Sunday.
I ask your cooperation with the police and ushers on Easter Sunday morning. In order to meet the Fire Marshall’s demands, when the church is filled to capacity for the 10 and 11:30 Easter morning Masses, the church doors will be closed, and the rest of the people then will be directed to the well-decorated parish hall for the overflow Masses. Also, you may really want to consider these in advance, as you can be guaranteed seating there, but not in church.
Please make time to participate in the various services during Holy Week, and may the blessings promised to the faithful be yours in abundance at Easter. The priests, sisters, deacons and staff wish you God’s choicest blessings upon you and your family this Easter!
Very Rev. Canon Tom
days have precedence over all other celebrations. Palm Sunday (properly called Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion), calls to mind Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem to accomplish the Paschal Mystery. Accordingly, the memorial of this event is included in every Mass. On Holy Thursday and Good Friday, the Eucharist is distributed only during the Liturgy, though it may be brought to the sick at a different hour. On Holy Saturday, the Eucharist is not to be distributed before the Easter Vigil; it may only be given as Viaticum (literally, “with you on the way”) tothe dying.
Funeral Masses may not be celebrated during these days. The last opportunities before Easter for Confession
will be Monday at 9 AM, Monday night at the 7 PM Penance Service, and Wednesday at 9 AM. Though we
are called to fasting, and abstinence from meat once more on Good Friday, Lent actually ends with the conclusion of Holy Thursday’s evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper. The following days are called the Easter Triduum, from the Latin for “The Three Days.” These are the holiest days of the Church year!
What really do the liturgies of the Triduum celebrate? Most all of us believe we know the answer. We assume
that Thursday commemorates the day Jesus instituted Holy Orders and the Holy Eucharist; Friday commemorates the day He was executed on the cross; and the Vigil commemorates His emergence from the tomb. We assume, further, that the liturgies of these days are dramatic reenactments of events -- touching, tragic and triumphant-- which happened during Jesus’ last days, and culminated in His victory over death. In other words, we assume that the Paschal Triduum is simply springtime’s parallel to winter’s Christmas. As we gather on these days, we often think we are to be engaged in acts of historical “reconstruction” that re-create scenes in the “Upper Room,” on Calvary, and at the tomb. People have been encouraged to imagine they are actually present at these events -- comforting Jesus during His tearful watch in Gethsemane, walking with Him along the Way of the Cross, and witnessing His miraculous “return to life” on Easter morning.
This view is reinforced by popular hymns that focus on the “historical facts” of the celebration. But is history to be the central focus of celebration during the Triduum? Certainly, early Christians anchored their belief in the historical (“this-worldly”) circumstances that accompanied Jesus’ suffering and crucifixion “under Pontius Pilate.” Jesus’ life, career and death were, in other words, attached to a specific time, in a specific place. For sure, His proclamation of God’s arrival in the present moment (God’s “reign”), His challenge to understand God as being in our neighbor, and His obvious rejection of elements of what people thought was “religion” (especially when used as a means of social or political control) -- all this took place not in some cosmic cloud of unknowing, but in a remote province of the Roman Empire, at a time of a sociopolitical transition.
Precisely because these faith-anchoring events are historical, however, they cannot be repeated or “reenacted.”
This is why the Church’s long tradition insists that what happened once in history passes over into the mystery of the assembly’s sacramental / liturgical celebrations. What the Triduum actually celebrates is mystery, not history.
These liturgies aren’t supposed to “take us back to those thrilling days of yesteryear” – to the Upper Room or the path to Calvary. Their ultimate purpose is not to retrace or relive the last hours of Jesus’ life – nor to catch sight of Him emerging from the tomb at Easter’s dawning. They celebrate not what once happened to Jesus, but what is now happening among us as a people called to conversion, gathered in faith, and renewed with the Spirit of holiness.
They celebrate God’s taking possession of our hearts at their deepest core -- re-creating us as a new human
community, broken like bread for the world’s life, rich in compassion, steadfast in hope, and fearless in the search for justice and peace.
As another reminder, there are NO Saturday Vigil Masses this Saturday afternoon -- only the evening Mass of the Easter Vigil at 7:00 PM, in which we will receive some new members into the fullness of the Faith through Baptism, Confirmation and First Holy Communion. This Vigil Mass will fulfill our obligation to attend Easter Sunday Mass (and avoid the huge crowds that throng the Easter morning Masses!). Also, there is NO Sunday 5:30 Life Teen Mass on Easter Day. We will resume that on the following Sunday, Divine Mercy Sunday.
I ask your cooperation with the police and ushers on Easter Sunday morning. In order to meet the Fire Marshall’s demands, when the church is filled to capacity for the 10 and 11:30 Easter morning Masses, the church doors will be closed, and the rest of the people then will be directed to the well-decorated parish hall for the overflow Masses. Also, you may really want to consider these in advance, as you can be guaranteed seating there, but not in church.
Please make time to participate in the various services during Holy Week, and may the blessings promised to the faithful be yours in abundance at Easter. The priests, sisters, deacons and staff wish you God’s choicest blessings upon you and your family this Easter!
Very Rev. Canon Tom