April 4, 2023, Class Update: Holy Week, Triduum, and Us

Holy Week Greetings Everyone!


Holy Week culminates in the most important days of the liturgical calendar, when we recall the central events of our faith, the death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

During our class, we spent time learning about and praying in the spirit of these events and their meaning.

Palm Sunday is at the beginning of Holy Week, commemorating when Jesus Christ entered Jerusalem to the crowd's shouts of "Hosanna", which is part of the Sanctus chant each time we gather at Mass, and it was our opening prayer in class.

To save us from sins, Christ emptied Himself in coming to earth, becoming human, and then dying a painful death on the Cross, which St. Paul describes in an early Christian hymn in Philippians 2:6-11.

Christ offered Himself in a New Covenant, drawing from the Old Covenant that hearkens back to Passover.  Everyone in class tried some matzah crackers, which is a customary Passover food for Jewish people. Christ offered the bread and the cup as His Body and Blood in the New Covenant. 


 The next day, in dying upon the Cross, Christ's body was destroyed, just as the bread is broken, so that we could be made whole again.  

Thursday of Holy Week is also called Maundy Thursday:  It comes from the Latin word "mandatum", which means commands.  In the New Covenant, Jesus Christ commands us to love others as He has loved us.

It's important that we attend Mass every weekend because that's when we celebrate this New Covenant that has brought purpose to our lives, which Christ instituted the night before His death on the Cross.

During the latter part of class, we gathered with the other RE classes as the students in grades 4-6 led us in praying through the sacred days of the Paschal Triduum: Maundy Thursday, Good Friday of the Cross, and Holy Saturday.

At the end of class, I gave everyone a cup to use for an activity for this week:  Keep it somewhere where you'll see it often to remind you that Christ poured Himself out for us so that we could be free from sin and live new life in Him.  We enter into this new life in our baptism, so at least once during the next week, especially once we get to Easter Sunday, take a drink of water out of the cup.  There is no required online submission for this activity.

Before we celebrate the Resurrection of Christ on Easter Sunday, we observe the days of the Triduum.  There are special liturgies held at church on the evenings of Thursday, Friday, and Saturday of this week.  Friday has additional opportunities for prayer throughout the day.  (Because of storm damage at St. Edmund's, all liturgies for our parish will be at Ascension Church.)

If you go to Ascension, or any other church, for any liturgy/prayer time on Thursday, Friday, or Saturday, you get extra credit.  Please record that you did it in this form, and write at least one sentence about what stood out to you in the liturgy.  The schedule of all liturgies is on this webpage.

We are off from class on Easter Tuesday, April 11, and we resume class on April 18.  Our plan is to unpack the meaning of the Easter Season, which lasts for 50 days, starting on Easter Sunday and concluding on Pentecost Sunday, which is May 28, 2023.

As usual, please feel free to contact me with any questions, etc.

I pray that as we observe these sacred days of the Triduum and recall the events of the Paschal Mystery, the death and Resurrection of Christ, that we join ourselves more closely to Christ in dying and rising.  And may we be renewed in our relationship with God.

May you and your families be blessed in these sacred days of Holy Week, Triduum, and Easter Week, and in all you do to celebrate.

We remain connected as One Church:
All my relations.

God's blessings,
Paul

P.S. I listed some optional extra credit activities in previous posts on the class website, like watching the movie Amazing Grace in the post from March 21.  You are still welcome to do those if you choose, and you can mark that you did it in this form.

Three years ago, I recorded this video about Maundy Thursday that explains the connection of the elements of the Eucharist with Passover.

One illustration I used in class from US history is how George Washington, who amassed a great deal of power and authority as General of the Continental Army, walked away from that power and resigned his commission at a meeting of the Continental Congress.  The scene I showed is in the Liberty's Kids episode "The Man Wouldn't be King".

I also shared the story of how Prince William spent the night out on the streets of London to bring attention to the situation of homeless people.

In a greater way, Christ emptied Himself to identify Himself with us, sinners, and now we worship Him as our Savior.

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