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Holy Week

Excerpts from two ancient Holy Week homilies followed by a special Holy Week thanksgiving prayer appropriate for either personal or corporate use. Super devotions for the sacred Triduum of Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday....

This post on the sufferings and passion of our Lord Jesus Christ is focuses on Palm Sunday but makes for a great read anytime during the Lenten Season or Holy Week. Frequent meditation on the Passion of Christ is important because the Passion is...

This excerpt from an festal letter by Saint Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria in the 4th century, emphasizes the proper spiritual preparation for the feast of Easter. We must purify ourselves for the worthy celebration of the festival, which is better commemorated by deeds than...

This Holy week reading on imitating Christ's death by being buried with him through baptism amplifies St. Paul's words in Romans 6:11 that in the sacrament of baptism we are baptized into Christ's death, being buried as it were with him under the saving waters...

St. Augustine here speaks of Christ's laying down of his life, handed over to us in the Eucharist, as the perfection of love. Augustine's words, written in the early 5th century, are also compelling evidence for the practice and meaning of devotion to the...

This powerfully poetic sermon on the Cross of Christ as the Cosmic Tree was preached during Holy Week in the early church, somewhere around the 5th century, by someone whose name has been lost. It was wrongly attributed to the great preacher St. John Chrysostom....

Benedict XVI's homily for the Chrism Mass of Holy Thursday 2009. The annual occasion on which the bishop, who is the only one who do so, blesses sacred chrism and other holy oils to be used throughout the diocese in the coming year. ...

This piece by St. Bernard of Clairvaux on the wounds of Christ is very fitting to be used in Lent and especially during Holy Week as we meditate on the Passion of the Lord Jesus & his mercy. St. Bernard, perhaps the greatest preacher...

"Exultet"is the opening word in Latin of The Easter Proclamation, an ancient hymn sung by the deacon over the Easter candle which is lit at the start of the Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday evening which celebrates the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. The...