Holy Thursday Good Friday Easter
We prepare to celebrate the most sacred and holy moment of our year- the celebration of the Lord's Passion and Resurrection- the Paschal Triduum. Lent has led us here to the Cross but not just to it. No, we are led through the Cross to the joy and new life of Easter, to the Resurrection. These three days mark the triumph of life over death.
These three days are reckon as the Jewish people record a day, from sundown to sundown, so that the Triduum begins with sundown on Holy Thursday and continues to sundown on Easter Sunday. But in many ways these days stand outside of time and should feel like one. We enter the mystery on Thursday evening and emerge somehow changed on Easter Sunday.
Holy Thursday
Evening Mass of the Lord's Supper, 7:00pm, Holy Trinity Chapel
We begin the Paschal Triduum with the celebration of the evening mass of the Lord's Supper where we remember in a profound way where we are called, our mission. In the sharing of Eucharist and in the ritual of washing feet, we are reminded that to follow Christ is to follow a humble path of service. We are asked to wash each other's feet, to give our lives away, to work for and proclaim justice and mercy, and to not be so full of pride that we fail to recognize our own need to be washed and our dependence on others.
At the end of the liturgy, we strip the altar bare and remove the Eucharist to a special altar of reservation. Here, our focus is on Jesus Christ alone as we wait with our Lord for the confrontation with death.
Good Friday
Stations of the Cross, 12:15 pm, Holy Trinity Chapel
simple meal of soup and bread, 12:35 pm, Social Hall
Good Friday of the Lord's Passion, 7:00 pm, Holy Trinity Chapel
At this liturgy we remember the Lord's Passion. There will be no Eucharist consecrated but rather we share the Eucharist from the evening mass of the Lord's Supper; it is that Eucharist that continues to sustain us. We will enter this liturgy in silence. We have been waiting and all are focus is on Christ's final act of love.
We venerate the Cross this day as a sign and symbol of our embrace of Christ. We bring ourselves to the wood and touch it, kneel before it, kiss it, and hold it knowing that by it we are transformed and redeemed.
Holy Saturday
no liturgy celebrated
This is not an extra day in the Triduum but a part of the second day. Jesus has died and is laid in the tomb; we wait there and grieve.
Easter Vigil
Saturday, 9:00 pm, Holy Trinity Chapel
