Triduum 2022

 

Triduum 2022 at St. Paul's

This week we call Holy Week. It is holy in part because it has a theme of its own, and because it builds to the most solemn day of the church year. The theme generally has to do with the last week of Jesus life. In that sense it is about Jesus passion, focusing day by day on different aspects Jesus death on the cross. From the earliest days, literally from the earliest documents we have in the New Testament, namely Paul's letters, we see emphasized the centrality of the experience of the earliest Christians related to Jesus death. On the one hand it was experienced as a devastating conclusion to a ministry that had fired people up. Within days however there was a solemn sacred reversal that was understood to be the resurrection of the same one who had days before been executed.

So in the church services of the week we see unfolding before us a retelling of a narrative of Jesus final days and an anticipation of the celebration of the overcoming of death that the experience of Resurrection brought. The days of Thursday Friday and Saturday evening or understood to be at the continuation of a single liturgical event. Monday Thursday and Good Friday services do not have a dismissal. The church understands them to be a part of a single liturgy.

As a way of emphasizing the continuity of the liturgy through the three days, this year we scheduled each of the services at the same time: 6pm.

Maundy Thursday	6:00 pm
Good Friday	6:00 pm
Easter Vigil (Saturday evening}	6:00 pm

You will see these liturgies of Holy Week referred to as the "Triduum". It is a Latin word meaning "3 days." Specifically in the church it refers to "3 days" leading up to an especially solemn day. In this case Easter.

The Thursday liturgy focuses on the day before Jesus dies. Because it draws on elements from both John's Gospel and the synoptic gospels of Matthew Mark and Luke, we see 2 contrasting but complimentary themes. The event remembered is Jesus's last meal with his disciples. They are remembered differently in the synoptic gospels and in John's Gospel. In the one we have what is remembered as the institution of the sacrament of the Eucharist. It is to be associated with the Jewish Passover. In John's Gospel Jesus has a long extended message for his disciples, from which we hear only a part. The part we hear however features Jesus commanding his disciples to serve one another and he shows them symbolically how to do that by washing their feet.

Although the gospels remember Passover occurring on different days in Jesus's last week, each of them places his death on the day before the Sabbath, Friday. The cross is the singular focus of Good Friday. But in so far as the cross of Christ is understood by Christians to be the central event of our faith, it is clearly a rich and often times emotional liturgy. The narrative of the passion according to John is read every year at Good Friday, there are solemn prayers for the whole world in its many circumstances. There is an opportunity to show solemn respect and adoration for the cross itself. This year in our liturgy we will receive communion from the sacrament consecrated on Thursday, because by ancient custom on Good Friday our Eucharist is never celebrated.

On Saturday evening we will celebrate our Easter vigil. Like Christmas midnight mass it is the initial liturgy of the solemn day upcoming. It is the first Eucharist of Easter. It features a solemn lighting of the Paschal candle. There is then a series of readings intended to span the whole of sacred scripture, from "In the beginning" leading up through prophets and the coming of the Messiah in Jesus. From ancient times it was the moment that those preparing for baptism received initiation into the community. This Saturday we at Saint Paul's will reaffirm our baptismal vows. Then follows the first Eucharist of Easter. For us this year it will be the first official time that wine will be received since the pandemic began. We look forward to seeing you there.