2017

THE HOLY WEEK

Ministry of Education
Belonging to:
Joshua Gomez

Work :
English

Theme :
The Holy Week
Level: 11 H
 Introduccin

Among all the weeks of the year, the most important for Christians is the holy
week, which has been sanctified precisely by the events that we commemorate in
the liturgy and consecrated to God in a very special way. The Church,
commemorating the passion, death and resurrection of Christ, sanctifies and
renews itself.

This week was also known as "the great week", a title that was preserved until
recently in the Roman breviary 1. It is, in effect, a great week, since it constitutes
the center and heart of the liturgy of the whole year. In it the mystery of redemption
is celebrated. The Christians of old were well persuaded of their greatness; A writer
of the first centuries summed it up in this lapidary phrase: "Easter is the summit".
The Holy Week is preceded by Lent, which ends in the Passion Week where the
Eucharist is celebrated on Holy Thursday, commemorates the Crucifixion of Jesus
on Good Friday and the Resurrection at the Easter Vigil during the night of Holy
Saturday to Sunday Of Resurrection.

Explanation of the celebration

Holy Week is the most intense liturgical moment of the whole year. However, for
many Catholics it has only become an occasion of rest and fun. They forget the
essential: this week we must dedicate it to prayer and reflection in the mysteries of
the Passion and Death of Jesus to take advantage of all the graces that this brings
us.

To live Holy Week, we must give God the first place and participate in all the
richness of the celebrations proper to this liturgical time.

At Easter was called in the beginning "The Great Week". It is now called Holy
Week or Wage Week and in their days they are called holy days. This week begins
with Palm Sunday and ends with Easter Sunday.

To live the Holy Week is to accompany Jesus with our prayer, sacrifices and
repentance of our sins. Attend the Sacrament of Penance in these days to die to
sin and be resurrected with Christ on Easter Day.

The important thing about this time is not to remember with sadness what Christ
suffered, but to understand why he died and rose again. It is to celebrate and relive
his surrender to death for love of us and the power of his Resurrection, which is the
first of ours.
Holy Week was the last week of Christ on earth. His Resurrection reminds us that
men were created to live eternally with God.

Holy Week is preceded by Lent which refers to the time of preparation where the
40 days of Jesus Christ are remembered in the desert. The main celebrations of
Holy Week are: Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday.

Holy Week is the time to dedicate ourselves to prayer and reflect on Jesus Christ,
in the moments of the Paschal Triduum, who with his infinite mercy decides to take
the place of man and receive the punishment to free him from his sins. Likewise, it
is the ideal time for human beings to meditate on their actions and the changes
they must make to get closer to God and fulfill his commandments.

During Holy Week, the Catholic performs various acts, such as: processions,
staging of the drama of death and passion of Christ. The penitents are subjected to
heavy burdens as a symbol of their self-sacrifice and, on Good Friday, the faithful
must fast and abstain from eating meat.

Palm Sunday

We celebrate the triumphal entry of Jesus to Jerusalem in which all the people
praise Him as king with songs and palms. Therefore, we bring our palms to the
Church to bless them that day and participate in the Mass.
Holy Thursday

This day we remember the Last Supper of Jesus with his apostles in which he
washed their feet giving us an example of helpfulness. At the Last Supper, Jesus
stayed with us on bread and wine, left us his body and blood. It is Holy Thursday
when he instituted the Eucharist and the Priesthood. At the end of the last supper,
Jesus went to pray to the Garden of Olives. There they spent all night and after
much time of prayer, they came to apprehend him.

Holy Friday

On that day we remember the Passion of Our Lord: His imprisonment, the
interrogations of Herod and Pilate; The scourging, the crowning of thorns, and the
crucifixion. We commemorate it with a solemn Via Crucis and with the ceremony of
the Adoration of the Cross.
Holy Saturday or Saturday of Glory

It remembers the day that passed between the death and the Resurrection of
Jesus. It is a day of mourning and sadness because we do not have Jesus among
us. The images are covered and the Tabernacles are open. At night a paschal vigil
is held to celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus. Vigilia means "the evening and night
before a party." In this celebration it is customary to bless the water and light the
candles as a sign of the Resurrection of Christ, the great feast of Catholics.

Sunday of Resurrection or Easter Sunday

It is the most important and joyful day for all of us Catholics, since Jesus overcame
death and gave us life. This means that Christ gives us the opportunity to save
ourselves, to enter Heaven and to live always happy in the company of God.
Easter is the passage from death to life.

Why does Easter change dates every year?

The Jewish people celebrated the feast of the Passover in memory of the
deliverance from slavery in Egypt, the day of the first full moon of spring. This date
was fixed on the basis of the lunar year and not the solar year of our modern
calendar. It is for this reason that every year Easter changes the day, because it is
made to coincide with the full moon.

At the feast of Passover, the Jews gathered to eat roasted lamb and salads of
bitter herbs, recite blessings and sing psalms. They toasted liberation from slavery.

Jesus is the new paschal lamb that brings us the new liberation, of sin and of
death.
Suggestions for living the Holy Week

To attend in family or to the offices and ceremonies proper of the Holy Week
because the Christian experience of these mysteries must be community.

A small representation about the Holy Week can be organized.

Put some concrete purpose to follow for each of the days of Holy Week.

Make some posters about the days of Holy Week and some important ideas about
each day.

Meaning of Holy Week for Christians.

Holy Week or Week is full of Christian meaning and according to these should be
time to reflect on Jesus Christ, son of God who gave his life to live in peace.

The meaning of this week is purely Christian, however, this holiday period is used
by many people to engage in recreation and fun activities.

This "holy time" could very well be used to reflect on what we can do to make
positive changes in our lives, work, the country and why not even in the world.

For Christians, Easter is the most important liturgical time, and is dedicated to
prayer and reflection on the mysteries of the passion, death and resurrection of
Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

The time begins with Lent, known as the time of preparation, where we remember
the forty days of Jesus in the desert. It begins with Ash Wednesday and culminates
with Palm Sunday.

It is good to clarify that all the acts that are carried out since the beginning of Holy
Week have a Christian meaning, and with that it seeks to remember the sacrifice of
Jesus on the cross.
The true meaning of the great Easter Feast, as it is also called this period, is to
have an encounter with God and to get closer to the neighbor doing good deeds.

Christians interpret Holy Week, not as the memory of a historical fact, or a moment
of vacation without meaning, for them it is a time of forgiveness and fraternal
reconciliation, expelling from their hearts anger, hatred and envy.

The Easter Week begins on the first of April with Palm Sunday, a day in which the
triumphal entry of Jesus to Jerusalem is remembered and ends on Sunday, the 8th
of the same month, with the Resurrection Sunday.

For his part, Holy Thursday opens the Easter Triduum, which is no more than the
three days in which Catholics celebrate the passion, death and resurrection of
Jesus Christ. It includes the time from the afternoon of Holy Thursday to the
evening of Easter Sunday. It's the heart of the liturgic year.

Good Friday is the saddest episode of Holy Week commemorating death on the
cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Holy Saturday meditates on the mystery of the Passion of Christ, on Easter

Sunday, it is the moment of greatest joy where the resurrection of Jesus is
celebrated.