The Irish standard., 1896-04-04
HOLY WEEK.


ly week began. The celebration by the
church of Our Savior's entry into Jeru-
salem is very ancient. The name Palm
Sunday was used in the fifth century,
although the ceremony OF blessing the
palms and marching in procession came
later. In Hoy Week the Offices Of the
church are particularly solemn and in
teresting The different days are set
apart to keep the mysteries of the faith
constantly in the mind of the Christian.
The commemoration of the Passion
and Resurrection of Our Lord is season
of the profoundest solemnity. The Off
ces Of the church during Holy Week are
worthy of the most careful and reverent
study; the ceremonies have &. touching
and deep significance and they are the
consecrated usages of centuries. Every
day has it's peculiar rites, and they de-
scend to us as unbroken tradition from
the very first ages The first Christians
after the time Of our Lord being hunted
and prosecuted, were obliged to meet in
obscure and gloomy places and to cele-
brate the lamentations by the light OF
candles, and these celebrations were the
first Tenebrae. But the extinguishment
of the lights, one after another, has a
symbolic meaning and denotes the dis
persal of the Apostles and the abandon
ment of the Redeemer to His fate. Iii
this desertion, even by those who were
most attached to Him, there is lesson
which was meant for all time, and some
have declared that it prefgures day in
the future when the world will be SO full
of wickedness and unbelief and the
church so rent by schis1n that she will
stand almost alone.
There is nothing in the Breviary older
than the offices of the last three days of
Lent. They have been said for more
than twelve hundred years in the same
manner as at present, in churches OF,
cathedrals where sufficient number OF
Offices is said in public. 1t is called the
office of the Tenebrae-that is, darkness.
In olden times, and even now among
some religious communities there is
during the whole year night Office. Al
midnight the monks rise to sing mathis:
The Holy Week office of Tenebrae is e
survival of this once general monastic
custom.
Bells are not rung during these three
days, because bells are indicative of joy,
and besides are unknown or very rarely
used in the East where the oldest Offices
originated.
The Vigil of Easter. the most solemn
of all the church's yigils, used to begin
at sunset and lasted till daybreak on
Easter morning. The last two days OF
Lent were days Of the most solemn fast,
Before Lent was as we have it now, In
some places it embraced only the forty
hours preceding Easter, which, of course,
included Holy Saturday; and all the
faithful were held to the strictest OBJ
servance Of fasting.
It was the time above all for baptizing.
The catechumens who had been prepar-
ing a long time-sometimes years--for
this event were put through their last
examinations and instructions. We have
relic of these baptismal rites in the
blessing Of the baptismal water on Holy
Saturday. The Paschal Candle is blessed,
after being pierced with grains of in
cense in the form of a cross, to symbol
ize the awakening faith of the church
which points to the life of Easter.
Everything about the Office of Easter
Saturday breathes of those dim morn
ings in the basilicas of the 4th century,
when the beautiful symbolism of the
catacombs, enigmatic and dark to the
unbeliever, took on the freer forms Of
Christian nOetrv