Dr Paul Allen

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 ...

English: Baptist communion elements (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) When I was growing up, I did not like going to church. For a young boy in a rural town, church was boring, long, and filled with old, stodgy people singing old, stodgy songs. I would have rather been playing and watching football. However, there was one Sunday out of every month in which I did look forward to church—the first Sunday. The first Sunday was communion Sunday. The mothers (older woman) of the church would dress in all white. The pastor would wear his white robe. The communion table, normally bare, would be draped in a white cloth under which was clearly the communionware containing the bread and the wine. I was impressed with the ceremony involved and the care taken in preparing the table. There was care in handling and distributing the elements. The deacons wore white gloves and the trays were passed between them with a deliberate orchestration of movements and reverence. I really enjoyed the anticipation ...