What is Holy Week
Holy Week is an anticipation of the Lord’s paschal mystery. Pascha is an ancient way to speak of the events of Christ’s passion, death, and resurrection. It is a Greek word corresponding to the Hebrew pesah , which means “pass over.” In the Jewish tradition, this word refers to the angel of death passing over the homes in Egypt marked with the blood of a spotless lamb and also to God’s people passing through the Red Sea to escape Pharaoh’s army. Both meanings are present in Holy Week: Christ is the Lamb of God who causes death to pass over those marked with his blood, and he passes through the “Red Sea” (i.e., the grave) to deliver us from death, thereby defeating death by death. We celebrate Easter on the Sunday after the Jewish Passover. Holy Week: A journey through the Passion Narrative Each day of Holy Week is significant. The Four Gospels, taken together, cover about three decades. However, most of the text in ...