Holy Week

“ Thursday of Holy Week is called Maundy Thursday from the "mandatum" or precept, the first word of the antiphon, "A new commandment I give you," which is sung while the feet of certain poor men are washed, as directed in the office of the day. ”

“ In this incident you have the origin of Palm Sunday. It is the first day of Holy Week, the week which is dedicated by the Catholic Church to the commemoration of the sufferings and death of Jesus. With the early church throughout Europe it was the custom to lay the branches of a tree upon the altar on this day, and as the palm tree does not grow in Europe, the box, the yew, and especially the willow tree, were used instead. The branches were blessed by the priest, sprinkled with holy water, and then carried in procession through the town. ”

“ Accordingly the liturgy of holy-thursday bears the impress both of sorrow and of gladness: it is not unlike a fitful day of April in our northern climes, when the sun now bursts from the clouds which had concealed his brilliancy, and now once more the sky is shrouded in murky gloom—an apt emblem this of the over-changing state of man, who at one moment quaffs the inebriating cup of earthly joys, and yet a little, and it is dashed from his grasp; and sickness, sorrow and death are his portion. ”

“ When God, of old, did sanctify for the use of his church a day, as he did many, he always called them either by the name of the day of the month, or of the week, or by some other signal by which they might be certainly known, why should it not then be concluded, that for this very reason the first day of the week is thus often nominated by the Holy Ghost in the testament of Christ? ”

“ Perhaps some devout souls who are eager to seize on any excuse or device for renewing their fervor will reproach themselves with having too completely overlooked the Eucharistic claims of Thursday, and with having scarcely heeded the invitation which its associations address to the pious faithful to extend practically to all the Thursdays of the year the liturgical title of Thursday in Holy Week — Feria quinta in coena Domini, Thursday of the Lord's Supper. ”

“ The voluntary observance of memorable days. In the Christian church, almost from the beginning, men voluntarily honored the fourth, the sixth, and the first days of the week, and also the anniversary of the Passover and the Pentecost, to commemorate the betrayal, the death, and the resurrection, of Christ, and the descent of the Holy Spirit, which acts in themselves could not be counted sinful. ”

“ That the Lord’s day is the Bible Sabbath, admits of clear and certain proof. The argument stands thus: When God gave to man six days of the week for labor, he did expressly reserve unto himself the seventh, on which he placed his blessing in memory of his own act of resting upon that day, and thenceforward, through the Bible, has ever claimed it as his holy day. ”

“ From the fact that on Maunday Thursday public sinners were reconciled to the church this week was known as "The Week of Indulgence." But it is most commonly called The Holy Week on account of the holiness of the mysteries celebrated.
2. Observance.—In the early church Holy Week was distinguished by the increased severity of the fast. St. Epiphanius tells us that some Christians observed a strict fast from Monday morning to the dawn of Easter. Many observed this severe fast for two, three and four days. The general practice was to fast from all food from Maunday Thursday to Easter morning. ”

“ I remarked in the last chapter, that anciently mass was not said either on good-friday, or holy-saturday, and I quoted Pope Innocent I, who assigns as a reason the example of the Apostles, who spent those days in mourning for their Master. It was formerly customary to celebrate mass on the night of Easter-eve or holy Saturday. ”

“ Holy Week is a vexation to most people. All the world crowds here to see its exhibitions and theatrical shows, and works hard to catch a glimpse of them, and is tired out, if not disgusted, at the end. The things to see and hear are Palm Sunday in St. Peter's; singing of the Miserere by the pope's choir on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday in the Sistine Chapel; washing of the pilgrims' feet in a chapel of St. Peter's, and serving the apostles at table by the pope on Thursday, with a papal benediction from the balcony afterwards; Easter Sunday, with the illumination of St. ”

“ For with the seventh day, he ceased to count, and, by the divine appointment of that day to a holy use in memory of his rest thereon, he causes man to begin the count of a new week so soon as the first seventh day had ceased. And as God has been pleased to give man, in all, but seven different days, and has given to each one of these days a name which indicates its exact place in the week, his act of setting apart one of these by name, which act created weeks and gave man the Sabbath, can never—except by sophistry—be made to relate to an indefinite or uncertain day. ”

“ If the bible argument, and testimony from history are to be relied on as evidence, then it is as clear as a sunbeam that the seventh day Sabbath is a perpetual sign, and is as binding upon man as it ever was. But we are told we must keep the first day of the week for the Sabbath as an ordinance to commemorate the resurrection of Jesus. ”

“ No men or body of men could appoint a day for public worship, without usurping in Christ’s kingdom, to be weekly observed as a Sabbath.—No human appointments or inventions are admissible in the Christian dispensation—and the Christian Sabbath has been one of the principal means of preserving, in the world, to this day our holy religion.—These are the reasons why all Christians are to observe, as holy time, the first day of the week. ”

“ And as this is the head of all other weeks, so the Great Sabbath is the head of this week. Therefore, in this week, many increase their labours; some adding to their fastings, others to their watchings; others give more liberal alms, testifying the greatness of the Divine goodness by their care of good works, and more intense piety and holy living. ”

“ The gathering of the nations that are saved to the presence of the Creator, from the whole face of the new earth on each successive Sabbath, attests the sacredness of the Sabbath even in that holy state, and sets the seal of the Most High to the perpetuity of this ancient institution. ”

“ To-day, we will say, is Sunday, God's holy day! To-day, of all days in the week, God has chosen to be set apart for His worship. He has given you time to be so employed. He has given you an open church to go to. He has given you health and power to go, and yet perhaps you reject all, and never go at all. Don't you see that you have taken of things of God, that you have taken His gift of health, and His gift of Sunday rest--things given that they might be spent in His service, and in worshipping Him in His church. ”

“ If we had no other passage than this of Gen. 2:3, there would be no difficulty in deducing from it a precept for the universal observance of a Sabbath, or seventh day, to be devoted to God, as holy time, by all of that race for whom the earth and its nature were specially prepared. The first men must have known it. ”

“ We Christians have a holy-day. We celebrate as our holy-day the first day in week, Sunday. We do not do this because God has commanded us to keep this day or any other day holy, more sacred than the rest of the week. ”

“ The Mortifications of Lent have brought our minds into sympathy with the penitential spirit of the church, and the gloom growing more and more intense during Passion Week has prepared our hearts so that putting away all worldliness as Moses put off the shoes from his feet we might stand in the holy place of our Lord's Passion. ”

“ To understand the services of Holy Saturday it is necessary to recall the fact that for nearly a thousand years the discipline of the Latin Church forbade the offering of the sacrifice of the Mass on Holy Saturday as well as on Good Friday, in remembrance of the time when the body of Our Lord lay lifeless in the tomb. ”

“ We next read of the Sabbath as follows:—
“And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto all the congregation of the children of Israel, and say unto them, Ye shall be holy; for I the Lord your God am holy. Ye shall fear every man his mother, and his father, and keep my Sabbaths: I am the Lord your God.... Ye shall keep my Sabbaths, and reverence my sanctuary: I am the Lord.” [138]
These constant references to the Sabbath contrast strikingly with the general disobedience of the people. ”

“ And in the first day there shall be an holy convocation, and in the seventh day there shall be an holy convocation to you; no manner of work shall be done in them, save that which every man must eat, that only may be done of you.” [168]
The third in order of the annual sabbaths was the day of Pentecost. ”

“ If the authority of the church is to be ignored altogether by Protestants, there is no matter; because opportunity and common expediency are surely argument enough for so ceremonial a change as the mere day of the week for the observance of the rest and holy convocation of the Jewish Sabbath. ”

“ Of course the condition of being gathered to God’s holy mountain must be complied with, namely, to love the name of the Lord, to be his servants, and to keep the Sabbath from polluting it. 4. And hence it follows that the Sabbath is not a local institution, susceptible of being observed in the promised land alone, like the annual sabbaths, [213] but one made for mankind and capable of being observed by the outcasts of Israel when scattered in every land under heaven. ”

“ The writer evidently believed in the observance of the Sabbath as an act of obedience to that law on which they were to meditate on that day. And the nature of the epistle indicates that it was observed, at all events, in the country where it was [326] written. But mark the work of apostasy. The so-called Lord’s day for which the writer could offer nothing better than an argument drawn from the title of the sixth psalm (see its marginal reading) is exalted above the Lord’s holy day, and made the queen of all days! ”

“ Christ has in this place sanctioned the Sabbath, and clearly shows us our duty to let no trivial circumstance cause us to break the law of the Sabbath. Yet how many who profess to believe in Christ, at this present day, make it a point to visit, travel, and feast, on this day? What a false-hearted profession must that person make who can thus treat with contempt the moral law of God, and despise the precepts of the Lord Jesus! We may here learn our obligation to remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.”—Exposition of Matt. ”

“ In confirmation of this explanation, we may observe that this candle is not removed from the church till the gospel has been sung on Ascension-day when Christ departed from among men: and it is lighted at solemn mass before the gospel and at vespers before the Magnificat on the Sundays and holidays which occur between holy saturday and the ascension. ”

“ The phantom of the next day, with the dreary five to follow, sate as a load upon my poor Sabbath recreations. What charm has washed that Ethiop white? What is gone of Black Monday? All days are the same. Sunday itself—that unfortunate failure of a holyday as it too often proved, what with my sense of its fugitiveness, and over-care to get the greatest quantity of pleasure out of it—is melted down into a week day. I can spare to go to church now, without grudging the huge cantle which it used to seem to cut out of the holyday. I have Time for everything. I can visit a sick friend. ”