Sometimes, looking to the past can enrich our present. Mere nostalgia or a wish to return to the way things always were is often unhelpful. But the past can indeed remind us of things we have lost. I was recently reminded of something we have lost when reading the fourth-century pilgrim Egeria’s descriptions of Holy Week and Easter in the Holy Land.
Egeria tells us that the fourth-century liturgies of Holy Week and Easter were stational. Crowds (and I mean a lot of people) moved from holy site to holy site in a deep remembrance of the saving events of our Lord’s passion, death, and resurrection. Hundreds of people, along with the bishop, fasted, kept vigil, prayed, and sang hymns, journeying up and down hills, hardly taking time to rest. Egeria also notes that the crowds included both catechumens (adults preparing for baptism) and children. Adults carried children in their arms. This was an intergenerational affair.
Egeria movingly relates one moment on Maundy Thursday.
“And from [the place of our Lord’s ascension] with hymns, even down to the smallest child, they come down on foot with the bishop to Gethsemane, where on account of the large size of the crowd both wearied from the vigil and weak from the daily fasting, because they have come down such a large mountain, they come very slowly with hymns to Gethsemane. More than two hundred church candles are prepared to give light to all the people. So, when they have arrived at Gethsemane, first an appropriate prayer is made, then a hymn is recited; then is read that passage from the gospel where the Lord was arrested. When that passage has been read, there is such a groaning and moaning from all the people, with weeping, that the lamentation of all the people is heard about as far away as the city” (The Pilgrimage of Egeria, trans. Anne McGowan and Paul F. Bradshaw, Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2018, p. 174).
So, what have we lost in comparison with the fourth-century observances of Holy Week and Easter? For one, I think we’ve lost a sense of how important it is to observe these liturgies in the fullness of the local church community. These days, spring break from schools often occurs during Holy Week, which means that we usually miss the intergenerational aspect of the liturgies if families are traveling. Second, we’ve lost the sense of the rigor of Christian practice in early Christianity. Recall that in the recent memory of Egeria’s contemporaries, Christianity had been illegal. People were torn apart by wild animals for confessing Christ. Following Jesus was more than lip service; it was a way of life. Third, perhaps we’ve lost an ability to identify physically and emotionally with the suffering of Jesus’s passion and death. We can’t recreate it (nor should we, nor should we “reenact” it), but a weeklong observance involving strenuous processions, fasting, and much prayer can’t help but recall some of the sacrifice of following Christ.
And this collective loss of memory is why it’s so important for us to observe the entirety of Holy Week as a community. By attending all the liturgies, we find ourselves entering into an extended drama that plays out over the course of a week. While we don’t reenact those historic moments, by ritual observance and prayer, the saving events of over two thousand years ago become present to us. As we say in Godly Play, those events are here, and we are there.
We are just over two weeks away from the start of Holy Week. I encourage you to do what you can to prioritize the saving liturgies of Holy Week and Easter on your calendars. It might mean taking off a day of work to show up at noon on Good Friday, but the rest of the liturgies should be easier to attend, as they are evening or Sunday morning liturgies. If you have children, please bring them to all the services as well. Children are not only welcome; they are integral to our corporate worship. They may get antsy or bored, but in that antsyness and boredom, they will learn something, and that learning will stay with them for a lifetime. And adults who hear the sounds of children in their midst will learn something, too. If you have never attended all the Holy Week liturgies, once you do, you will never want to miss them. If you were not able to attend the recent Zoom presentation I led on these liturgies, you may wish to view that video online.
Every year, the Holy Week liturgies have a different meaning for us depending on what’s happening in our world. This year, the suffering and death of innocent victims in the war in the Middle East will inevitably be on our hearts, and we must bring knowledge of that suffering to our prayers in the Holy Week liturgies. On Good Friday, in the Solemn Collects, we will pray for people across the world in all circumstances. The Holy Week liturgies protect us from ourselves—from our tendency to pray for our own selfish desires or only out of our partisan loyalties or solely for our “friends.” The liturgies command, as Christ does, to pray for all, and this is a prayer that transcends the world’s fragile, skewed efforts at justice or peace. This Holy Week, come, one and all, to pray for the peace that passes all understanding, the peace that only Christ can bring.
Yours in Christ,
Father Kyle