The Origin of the Holy Week

Two days ago we celebrated Palm Sunday signifying the start of the Holy Week. While others look forward to this holiday as a time to relax and unwind, most of our Christian brothers are preparing themselves towards celebrating the solemnity of the holiday. Wherever you go, bus terminals and airports seem like a mardi gras event as people crowd themselves hoping to get home to their provinces and spend the sacred occasion with their families.

Being a Catholic country, this has always been the practice of Filipinos during this season. Holy week, also known as Semana Santa (spanish), Cuaresma (Latin) or Mahal na Araw (Filipino), is the last week of lent and the days vary depending on the Catholic calendar, but falls mostly during the month of April. For this year, it started last April 1 and will end on April 7.

The Catholic Church always announce this celebration even a month before the actual event, and people already know this through tradition. People are called to prepare themselves for the observance of this event. In the provinces, we see people slash themselves with whips -- even allow themselves to be crucified as a form of penitence and/or atonement for their sins. In the city, people never fail to join the processions and the mass services performed during these times. The Holy Week is one time we see people showing their true devotion to the Catholic faith (since Protestants don't really observe this holiday).

But, with all these devoutness in the observance of the Holy Week, how many of us really know how these all started? When did the Holy Week originate?

I bet a lot of people think that the observance of the Holy Week started during the time of Jesus, however, this is inaccurate. The celebration of the Holy Week actually started in 600-1000 AD in Rome, during the early times of the Catholic Church. Three hundreds years before that, the great Roman Emperor Constantine had just declared Christianity as the main religion of Rome. Though not annually observed at first, the first Palm Sunday was given full treatment as a part of a growing emphasis at the time to imitate as closely as possible the last days of Christ's life among the early Christians.

Palm Sunday is the commemoration of our Lord's triumphant entry into Jerusalem five days before His crucifixion. Scripture records this incident in Matthew 21:1-11, Mark 11:1- 11, Luke 19:29-44, and John 12:12-19. This day takes it's name from the fact that as Jesus approached Jerusalem on a donkey (in fulfillment of Zechariah 9:9), the huge crowd that followed carried palm branches as they praised Him. The people hailed Him as the long awaited "Son of David," that is, the Messiah.

Originally, Palm Sunday or Passion Sunday (as it was previously known) was held two weeks before Easter (since the ninth century) and it began the two week period known as "Passiontide" in which special stress was placed on Christ's suffering and crucifixion. Actually, the two week Passiontide is older than Lent, having been observed since the third century.

Maundy Thursday (also known as Holy Thursday and Green Thursday) remembers the events in the upper room the night before Jesus died. These upper room events are described in Matthew 26:20-30, Mark 14:17-26, Luke 22:14-35, and John 13 - 17. Matthew, Mark, and Luke focus on the institution of the Lord's Supper and the eating of the Passover meal. John focuses on the words of Jesus and His washing of the disciples feet.

The name "maundy" comes from the words of Jesus, "Mandatum novum" ("a new commandment," John 13:34). From the Fourth Century on, Maundy Thursday, was viewed as the last day of the Lenten fast and also as the day of reconciliation (i.e., when those excommunicated could repent and be reconciled to the Church).

Since it was on this night that Jesus instituted the Lord's Supper, that sacred meal has often been the chief emphasis of Maundy Thursday. The Lord's Supper is celebrated and often its meaning is rehearsed. At the end of the service, the altar is stripped, in preparation for Good Friday. This symbolizes Christ's being stripped by the Roman soldiers prior to His crucifixion. Psalm 22, a Messianic psalm which clearly prophesies the Messiah's death, is read while the altar is stripped.

From ancient times the Church in various places has also observed a ceremony of footwashing, in memory of our Lord washing his disciples feet on this night (see John 13). This liturgy of footwashing came to be called mandatum.

As expected, Christ's crucifixion and resurrection have been annually observed from the earliest times. Christ's crucifixion and resurrection are described in detail in Matthew 27-28, Mark 15-16, Luke 23-24, and John 19-21. However, Christ's crucifixion and resurrection were not celebrated exactly as we do now. With texts such as John 1:29 and 1 Corinthians 5:7-8 in mind the first Christians celebrated Christ's crucifixion and resurrection in one festival, called the Pascha (Greek for Passover).

The earliest evidence points to the Pascha as the first of the annual Christian festivals. In fact, in the Second Century a. d. a church-wide split of staggering proportions almost occurred over the correct dating and meaning of the Pascha. The Christians in Asia Minor, citing the practice of the apostle John, bishop Polycarp and others, claimed that the Christian Pascha should be observed on the 14/15 of Nissan (the seventh day of the week), just as the Old Testament commanded (Exodus 12).

The rest of Christendom, including the bishop of Rome, Irenaeus, and the bishop of Jerusalem, held that the Pascha should culminate on the Sunday (since it was the day Jesus supposedly rose) after the first full moon after the vernal equinox. In the end the majority view won out. In recent years there has been a return in some quarters to a celebration of the Pascha, one festival celebrated over three days: Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter Sunday.

What about the Easter Vigil? Already in the Third Century a. d., Christians practiced a strict fast which ended after sundown on Saturday evening before Easter. After 313, the Vigil was the time for catechumens to be baptized. As such it also ushered in Christ's resurrection following Paul's linking of baptism with Christ's resurrection (see Romans 6:1-5). The theme of light conquering darkness is also prominent.

Easter, the celebration of Christ's resurrection, is the queen of the Christian holy days. The word "easter" and the German "Ostern" come from common source, referring to the direction from which the sun rises. In other words, the word referred to the celebration of the spring sun, when all things returned to life. This symbolism was transferred to the resurrection of Christ who brings us new life. There is no evidence that the word "easter" was the name of a Anglo-Saxon goddess "Eostre." This is based on a passage in the writings of the Christian author, Bede, who in the eighth century erroneously ascribed the word to the goddess. To this day, no research has been able to find any mention of Eostre in Germanic mythology.

As mentioned above, the earliest word for the annual celebration of Christ's resurrection was probably Pascha. As to the dating of Easter, this has been fixed ever since the Council of Nicea in 325. At Nicea it was decided that Easter would occur on the Sunday following the first full moon after the spring equinox, which occurs between March 22 and April 25.

Easter celebrates Christ's victory over sin, death, and the devil, as well as the promise of our justification and everlasting life. The season of Easter lasts 50 days until the day of Pentecost.

Now that you already know origin of the Holy Week, I hope that this will help you have a deeper understanding of the meaning of the holiday and not just believe in what popular culture or tradition dictates us.

I, myself, am not a Roman Catholic and I have never observed the Holy Week the same as how the Christian Catholic celebrates it but I do acknowledge the meaning and importance of remembering what our Lord Jesus Christ did for our salvation. And because of this, I hope that someday, the time will come that the Holy Week will become a celebration of praise and worship rather than a circus of people whipping and crucifying themselves for the forgiveness of their sins. Jesus already did that for us 2 millenniums ago! Why still do those things? Certainly, God did not ask for that. 1 John 1:9 says “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” No whipping necessary. That's just ironic to the entire meaning of the Holy Week.

Holy Week is a awesome opportunity for Christian growth. It offers incredible potential for satisfying spiritual hunger. It does this by exposing those who attend its services to God's Word. In other words, we grow in Holy Week not by imitating Christ's last days. We grow as the Holy Spirit works through the Gospel that we hear and receive during these days.

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