What’s your least favorite week of the year? Unless you’re an accountant (the week before April 15 or the last week of your fiscal year), I’d bet your answer is the same as mine: the week before Christmas. I don’t mean to say Christmas is anyone’s least favorite holiday. I’m only saying that our culture places unreasonable demands on the week before Christmas. We frontload
so many Christmas celebrations in that week that most of us are dead tired by Christmas afternoon. Forget about the Christmas season that officially runs through Epiphany. By the Twelfth Day of Christmas, we’re actually sick of it.
Okay, something more positive: what’s your favorite week of the year? I have two answers: Holy Week and Easter week. For priests, Holy Week obviously holds major obligations, but I think that most of us cancel or postpone our usual obligations in favor of preparation for what we call the Easter Triduum, Holy Thursday’s Mass of the Lord’s Supper through Easter Sunday.
Effectively, the pace is more reasonable this week. I genuinely enjoy celebrating the Triduum liturgies and I invite you to join me for the schedule below as your own obligations allow:
Wednesday
Penance service at 7 PM
Holy Thursday
Mass of the Lord’s Supper at 7 PM
Good Friday
Mary of Calvary at 12 noon
Service of the Lord’s Passion at 3 PM
Holy Saturday
Blessing of Easter Food at 11:30 AM
Easter Vigil from 8 to 10 PM
To enter the spirit of Holy Week is to appreciate again the love of the Father that brought his Son to the earth and hung him on the Cross in our place.