Holy Week

Holy Week, the week immediately preceding Easter, and specially consecrated to the commemoration of the Passion of our Redeemer. This institution is of very early origin, and the name Holy Week is but one of many by which its sacred character has been described. In English use it is called 'Passion Week' (a name appropriated, in Roman use, to the week before Palm Sunday). It was also called the 'Great Week,' the 'Silent Week,' the 'Week of the Holy Passion,' the 'Vacant Week,' the 'Penitential Week.' In the Roman Catholic Church the special characteristics of the celebration of the Holy Week are increased solemnity and gloom, penitential rigour, and mourning. If any of the ordinary church festivals fall therein, it is deferred till after Easter. All instrumental music is suspended in the churches, the altars are stripped of their ornaments, the pictures and images are veiled from public sight; manual labour, although it is no longer entirely prohibited, is by many persons voluntarily suspended; the rigour of fasting is redoubled, and alms-deeds and other works of mercy sedulously enjoined and practised. All church services of the week, moreover, breathe the spirit of mourning, some of them being specially devoted to the commemoration of particular scenes in the Passion of our Lord. The days thus specially solemnised are Palm Sunday, Spy Wednesday, Holy (or Mandy, q.v.) Thursday, Good Friday (q.v.), Holy Saturday. Holy Thursday in the Roman Catholic Church is specially designed as a commemoration of the Last Supper, and of the institution of the eucharist, although there are several other features peculiar to the day. To Holy Saturday belongs the solemn blessing of fire and of the water of the baptismal font; and from the earliest times it was set apart for the baptism of catechumens, and for the ordination of candidates for the ecclesiastical ministry. From the 'new fire,' struck from a flint, and solemnly blessed on this day, is lighted the Paschal Light, which is regarded as a symbol of Christ risen from the dead. This symbolical light is kept burning during the reading of the gospel at mass throughout the interval between Easter and Pentecost. It must be added, however, that in many instances the primitive institution of the Holy Week was perverted, and that the suspension of labour, designed for purposes of devotion, was turned into an occasion of amusement not infrequently of a very questionable character. Such abuses are now universally discontenanced by the ecclesiastical authorities. See FASTS, FESTIVALS; and Feasey's Ancient English Holy Week Ceremonial (1897).