Holy
Thursday
Maundy Thursday (or Holy Thursday) is the day
that Christians remember Jesus’ last meal with his disciples, “The
Last Supper.” "Maundy" comes from the French word, "Mande,"
meaning "command" or "mandate.” Before the meal, Jesus
took a basin and towel and insisted upon washing his disciples’ feet.
He did this to demonstrate that one who would lead must serve those whom
he would lead. The towel has become a symbol of Christian servant leadership.
The meal Jesus ate with his disciples was a Passover meal. The Passover recalls God’s deliverance of his people, Israel, from bondage in Egypt. It recalls the night that the Angel of Death passed over the homes of the Israelites, sparing their first-born offspring. A lamb was sacrificed and the blood of the lamb was put on the sides and tops of the door frames of the houses where the lambs were eaten. (Exodus 12:1-20)
The Church raises its heart in joyous praise to God for the incomparable gift of the Eucharist, which Jesus bequeathed to us as the everlasting memorial of his life, death, and resurrection. At every Eucharist, the gathered Church encounters Christ in the mystery of Word and Sacrament until he comes again in glory. In the special annual commemoration of the first Eucharist, the Church manifests the meaning of Christ’s sacramental presence in terms of charity, love, and service to one another. The gospel reading is John’s account of Jesus’ washing his disciples feet. At the conclusion of the homily, the presiding minister washes the feet of several people from the assembly. The inextricable bond between worshiping God in the Eucharist and worshiping God through our daily lives is further highlighted at the beginning the Liturgy of the Eucharist. The assembly takes up a collection exclusively for the poor and, as the altar table is set, sings the ancient, traditional hymn for this liturgy, “Where Charity and Love Are Found, There Is God.”
That our celebration of the Easter Triduum is one long, continuous liturgy becomes markedly evident in the way the Evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper concludes with the transfer of the Holy Eucharist to a special chapel of reservation. Adequate supplies of the body and blood of Christ are consecrated on Holy Thursday evening to provide for communion on Good Friday, a day when the Church does not celebrate Mass, as well as to be able to minister the Eucharist as viaticum, should any of the faithful approach death in the coming two days. People may stay on Thursday night to pray and meditate before the reserved Blessed Sacrament, with the opportunity to do so continuing through the following day.
Ref: www.daughtersofstpaul.com
Good
Friday
Tthe liturgy
on Good Friday afternoon or evening is not a Mass. It is, rather, a celebration
of the Lord’s Passion, an act of solemn intercession for the Church
and the world, and a ritual of veneration of the Cross as the tree of
life, our salvation. The Liturgy of the Word begins abruptly in silence
and prayer. To the proclamation of Christ’s Passion, the Church responds
with ten profound intercessions, taking an extended amount of time on
its knees to bring a Church and world so much in need of God’s grace
confidently to the God whose grace has been revealed as boundless mercy
and forgiveness in Christ. Human reverence for this divine mystery overflows
in ritual, as the assembly approaches one large cross brought into its
midst and venerates it with kisses or other gestures. Holy communion is
shared before departing in silence. The liturgy of the Easter Triduum
continues.
Ref: www.daughtersofstpaul.com
Easter
Vigil
The Easter Vigil is the high
point of the Easter triduum celebrating the passion and resurrection of
Jesus. With a rich display of symbols, rites and readings, the church
in worship expresses her faith in the mystery that brings her into being.
Light conquers
darkness
The vigil opens
with a service of light. Like the Jewish Passover, our Easter celebration
coincides with the beginning of spring, when the sun offers new warmth
and earth is ready to flower again. Our words "lent" (from the
Middle-English word for spring,"lengthening days") and "Easter"
(possibly Germanic or Anglo-Saxon in origin, signifying "the east","the
rising sun") point to the long tradition of seeing this holy mystery
through signs of the natural world.
The lighting of the fire and the Easter candle go back to rites that long preceded Christianity. The candle, carried with loving reverence and lyrically praised in word and song, is a sign of Christ, "the light of the world," and celebrates the victory of light over darkness that humanity has ever longed for.
God's love endures
forever
A series of
readings recalls the great interventions of God in history, from creation
to the the redemption of Israel from Egypt, and ends with the story of
Jesus' resurrection. The great "alleluia" proclaims with quiet
joy the triumph of God's Son. Those preparing for Batpism then receive
the sacraments of initiation. The blessed water sprinkled over others
signifies the blessing of new life.
Rejoice! This night says as it brings before us the deepest symbols of our hopes and fears. The darkness, sign of evil and death, has been overcome by light. A lamp, a candle has been lit; a fire is enkindled in our hearts; a nourishing water flows through our lives; a baptism destroys what is unclean and brings to life again.
Rejoice! this night says to all creation. The Word who made all things, as a new Adam, freshly proclaims God's promise of life. All creation celebrates God's love.
Ref: www.cptryon.org
Easter
Scholars,
accepting the derivation proposed by the 8th-century English scholar St.
Bede, believe the name Easter is thought to come from the Scandinavian
"Ostra" and the Teutonic "Ostern" or "Eastre,"
both Goddesses of mythology signifying spring and fertility whose festival
was celebrated on the day of the vernal equinox
Traditions associated with the festival survive in the Easter rabbit, a symbol of fertility, and in colored easter eggs, originally painted with bright colors to represent the sunlight of spring, and used in Easter-egg rolling contests or given as gifts
The Christian celebration of Easter embodies a number of converging traditions with emphasis on the relation of Easter to the Jewish festival of Passover, or Pesach, from which is derived Pasch, another name used by Europeans for Easter. Passover is an important feast in the Jewish calendar which is celebrated for 8 days and commemorates the flight and freedom of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt
The early Christians, many of whom were of Jewish origin, were brought up in the Hebrew tradition and regarded Easter as a new feature of the Passover festival, a commemoration of the advent of the Messiah as foretold by the prophets. (For more information please visit our Passover celebration - Passover on the Net)
Easter is observed by the churches of the West on the first Sunday following the full moon that occurs on or following the spring equinox (March 2I). So Easter became a "movable" feast which can occur as early as March 22 or as late as April 25
Christian churches in the East which were closer to the birthplace of the new religion and in which old traditions were strong, observe Easter according to the date of the Passover festival.
Ref: www.holidays.net
So...
How is the date of Easter calculated?
Prior to AD325, churches in different regions celebrated Easter on different
dates, not always on Sundays. The Council of Nicea (AD 325) clarified
this a bit by stating that Easter would be celebrated on Sundays. Still
a number of methods were used until a method defined by Dionyisius Exiguus
was adopted in about AD 532. This was not widely accepted until it was
described and defended by the Venerable Bede in his De temporum ratione
(AD 725). Aloisius
Lilius (d. 1576) devised the system that would become the basis of the
Gregorian Calendar, as well as the tables that would be used to determine
the date of Easter. Christoph Clavius modified the tables slightly, and
was one of the prime defenders of the Gregorian calendar. The tables used
to determine the date of Easter (in the West) since AD 1583 are these
modified tables of Clavius. All algorithms for calculating the date of
Easter since then are based on these tables.
Easter is the Sunday after the Paschal Full Moon. The Paschal Full Moon may occur from March 21 through April 18, inclusive. Thus the date of Easter is from March 22 through April 25, inclusive. The date of the Paschal full moon is determined from tables, and it may differ from the date of the the actual full moon by up to two days. This definition, along with tables, etc. may be found in "The Explanatory Supplement to the Astronomical Ephemeris and American Ephemeris and Nautical Almanac". This definition that uses tables instead of actual observations of the full moon is useful and necessary since the the full moon may occur on different (local, not UT) dates depending where you are in the world. If the date of Easter was based on local observations, then it would be possible for different parts of the world to celebrate Easter on different dates in the same year.
To further confuse the issue, many countries did not start using the Gregorian calendar in October 1582, so Easter in those countries was celebrated at times different than is listed here UNTIL they began using the Gregorian calendar. And some countries that switched to the Gregorian calendar used a different definition of Easter for some time (parts of Germany and Sweden used tables based on the observations of Tycho Brahe to determine Easter for many years after the Gregorian calendar was adopted in those locations).
An interesting upshot of the algorithm is that the cycle of Easter dates (in the Gregorian Calendar) repeats every 5,700,000 years - and no sooner!
Ref: www.smart.net
Triduum
Articles
From National Catholic Reporter
& Recipes
Related Catechism
Go
to
US Conference of Catholic Bishops Website
www.usccb.org
Use search box at upper right to search for terms. Numbers refer to paragraph numbers of the Catechism.
|
Baptism |
#535-37,
#1213-45, #1262-74 |
|
bread
and wine |
#1329,
#1333-36, #1375-76, #1406, #1413, |
|
conversion |
#541-46,
#1427-33, #1886-89, #1896, #2581-84, #2608-09 |
|
cross |
#616-18,
#1741 |
|
Eucharist |
#1322-1414 |
|
Jesus
Christ (suffering servant) |
#608,
#623 |
|
justice |
#1807,
#1905-12, #1928-48, #2407-63 |
|
paschal
mystery |
#571-73,
#599-618, #638-58 |
|
passion
and death of Jesus |
#571-630 |
|
resurrection |
#638-658 |
|
salvation |
#218,
#430-31, #456-57, #541-50, #599-605, #620-22, #1019, #1811,
#1816 |
|
suffering
and redemption |
#571-73,
#601, #605, #612-618, #623, #776, |