When the Blessed Mother, St. Joseph and even St. Patrick have to step aside to make room for something else, you know it has to be important. With Holy Week and Easter Week on the horizon, feasts of Mary, of Joseph and of the great Irish evangelizer are not being observed on their traditional dates this year. Mary’s Annunciation will be celebrated on Monday, April 7. St. Joseph’s Day is Saturday, March 15. St. Patrick’s Day is being observed on a variety of days, depending on the local pastor. Liturgically, it’s not on our calendar here this year.
Yes, Holy Week and Easter Week are the centerpiece of the liturgical year of our Catholic family. It all begins on Palm Sunday with the blessing of the palms and the procession into our churches. It concludes on Divine Mercy Sunday, April 6, when we acknowledge that the paschal mystery of the Lord’s passion, death and resurrection is the reason we are all confident that healing and reconciliation are indeed possible.
This week I would like to say something about Holy Week in our parishes. Next week I will focus on our great Easter feast, one that actually lasts not just for a week but for several weeks. The news of the Lord’s resurrection is so good that one day or one week could never be enough to celebrate all those wonderful events that happened outside Jerusalem nearly two thousand years ago.
In his Holy Thursday homily last year, Pope Benedict XVI reflected on the apparent contradiction between the gospel of St. John and the synoptic gospels about the Last Supper of Jesus. According to John, Jesus died on the cross precisely when the Passover lambs were being sacrificed in the temple. Matthew, Mark and Luke suggest that the Last Supper was truly a Passover meal at which a slain lamb was already the centerpiece. Until the Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran were discovered several decades ago, most exegetes concurred with the synoptics, believing that John was hesitant to tell the true historical date of the death of Jesus and chose a symbolic date. But the discovery of the scrolls now leads us to believe that John’s account is historically accurate.
As our Holy Father relates, Jesus shed his own blood at the very time of the immolation of the lambs. More than likely He celebrated the Passover supper without a lamb, like the Qumran community. When Jesus celebrated the Passover with his friends, the lamb present was not one that had been sacrificed in the temple. The lamb was Jesus, who the next day gave himself, his own body and blood, for the salvation of the world!
You may recall that at the beginning of his public ministry, Jesus was pointed out by John the Baptist who said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1: 29) When Jesus was nailed to the cross on Good Friday, He himself became the lamb of sacrifice. It is for that reason that the cross has become the focal point of the new Passover of Jesus which we Christians celebrate whenever we gather for Eucharist. On Holy Thursday evening we commemorate the institution of the most Blessed Sacrament of the altar. We receive Holy Communion with reverence and we spend a good part of the night in adoration before the Lamb present among us in the tabernacle of our altar.
Another major celebration for us each year is the Mass of the Blessing of Holy Oils. According to the liturgical books, it should be celebrated on the morning of Holy Thursday. But diocesan bishops are given permission to celebrate this liturgy at a time when priests may more conveniently gather to concelebrate this important Eucharist with their bishop. Here in the Archdiocese of Portland we celebrate this Mass on Monday night of Holy Week. Given the great distances many of our priests must travel, it would not be feasible for them to be present at the cathedral on Holy Thursday morning and then return in time to their parishes for the Holy Thursday evening liturgy. I am grateful each year for the wonderful turnout of religious and laity for this liturgical celebration.
Through the Eucharist we are nourished with the very life of Jesus on our journey of faith. But the holy oils blessed each year before Easter also mark us in a very unique way as God’s holy people, chosen to be the instruments of his evangelizing mission in today’s world.
The oil of the sick is usually reserved for healing in our parish communities. We still have some folks who misunderstand the use of this sacramental oil, waiting to call a priest for the sacred anointing only at the time of death. The name of the sacrament was changed years ago from Extreme Unction to the Anointing of the Sick so that people would understand the nature of these prayers for healing and forgiveness. The sacraments for the dying are Reconciliation and Viaticum, that is, Holy Communion, the important spiritual nourishment we need for the final and sometimes difficult steps on the journey of faith.
The oil of catechumens is used to prepare those about to receive the sacraments of Initiation so that they will be assisted by the grace of God in their struggle with temptation and evil. On the very first Sunday of Lent we meditated on the temptations of Jesus. Like the Lord himself, we too are prompted by the devil to seek prestige, power and possessions rather than the will of God. Jesus resisted the temptations. It’s a much more difficult task for us, just as it was for our first parents, Adam and Eve. We see all around us how people want to be their own gods, controlling life and death, decrying virtue and embracing freedom in all things, even in the realm of what is both unhealthy and unholy.
The final oil that we bless before Easter each year is the sacred chrism, our “Christ oil,” the sacramental sign whereby in Baptism, Confirmation and Holy Orders Christians are set aside to be “other Christs,” bringing the love and care of Jesus to all around us. We all are gifted with the royal priesthood of Jesus in Baptism and re-anointed with chrism at Confirmation to remind us that the gift is one meant to be shared. Some are anointed again through Holy Orders so that they might carry on the servant-ministry of Jesus as did the first apostles.
There is much to ponder in Holy Week each year. It is a most sacred time. I encourage all of you to attend the liturgical services in your parish churches throughout the week. Please pray for all of us clergy, bishops, priests and deacons, and all our lay pastoral ministers who have come among you to serve and not to be served. When we look to the cross throughout Holy Week, we do so with great love, abiding hope, and renewed faith that this Jesus who loved us to the end still lives among us and will be with us until our end.
