Dear St. Paul Family and Friends,

Palm Sunday begins Holy Week. Jesus makes his final entrance into Jerusalem, celebrates supper with his disciples, dies on the Cross, and rises again from the dead. As we progress from today, the solemnity of the week heightens leading up to the Paschal Triduum (sometimes called Easter Triduum).

The word triduum means three days. It begins from the evening of Holy Thursday evening and culminates in the evening of Easter Sunday. The liturgical services that take place during these days are Evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper, Good Friday of the Lord’s Passion and Mass of the Resurrection of the Lord. (Please see our bulletin or website for our times of services).

A common question about the numerical counting of days is, “Isn’t it four days?” It is four days if you count Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday as individual days. But the church’s counting of these “days” begins from the evening of the preceding day, following the language in Genesis, “evening came, and morning followed.” Thus, Thursday evening to Friday evening is Day 1, Friday evening to Saturday evening is Day 2, and Saturday evening to Sunday evening is Day 3.

Further, the word Paschal comes from the word Pasch which means Passover. It is the Jewish remembrance and celebration of the day when God brought the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt. God plagued Egypt forcing the Egyptians to free them. The last plague was the angel of death. The Jews were instructed to slaughter a spotless lamb and mark their homes with the blood of the lamb. In turn, the angel of death “passed over” their homes. This Old Testament event is the pre-figurement of the salvific work of Jesus, the Paschal Lamb of God.

Finally, another unique element about the Paschal Triduum is that although three days, they form one single saving moment. One can properly understand the Last Supper event when it is seen in the lens of the Crucifixion event, and one can truly rejoice on Easter when the meaning and purpose of the death of Jesus is fully understood. Thus, our three liturgies from one single celebration. At the end of the Mass on Holy Thursday, you will notice that there is no final blessing or dismissal. It is because the liturgy does not end; it simply pauses. It is the same with the Good Friday liturgy. It is only at the end of the Easter Vigil Mass when we shall hear the formal dismissal with the double alleluia. Our Conference of Bishops succinctly puts it, “Though chronologically three days, they are liturgically one day unfolding for us the unity of Christ’s Paschal Mystery.”

Have a blessed and meaningful holy week, St. Paul fam. I shall keep you all in my prayers.