The Triduum
Everything important has rituals and traditions. Fireworks on the Fourth of July, who gets to cut the turkey on Thanksgiving, how you start your day, or tailgating at your favorite team’s games. There is something within us that naturally builds habits, traditions, and rituals around the things that we care about and around the moments where we are most impacted. If we don’t start with our cup of coffee in the morning, the whole day starts on the wrong foot.
We of course have our usual traditions and rituals in the liturgy every Sunday, but it shouldn’t surprise us that as we enter into Passiontide. During this time, our eyes turn towards Jerusalem, and we begin the final days of preparation. During Passiontide and Holy Week, we will have more imagery and rituals in the liturgy than the rest of the year combined. Images of Christ are veiled, the Gloria Patri is omitted, and the music reflects this. The setting becomes somber and solemn, with glimmers and glints of joy and hope.
Why? Why do we add so much more at the end of Lent? No one is checking on you to make sure you follow the rituals. It is because during this liturgical season, we are preparing ourselves to give honor, love, and worship to God. And we prepare ourselves to receive the love of God and to encounter him and his glorious and saving work.
The Bible doesn't tell us we need to do these things. Nowhere can I recall in all of Scripture the command "thou shalt veil images during Passiontide" or "thou shalt have an Easter Vigil." But St Paul does tell us "For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve." (1 Cor. 15:3-5). If Easter is the climax of the Christian year and of "first importance" should it not also be the richest in terms of symbolism and ritual. This shift is reflected in how the people of God were told to worship in the Old Testament: the sacrifices, the bowls of incense, the clothing of the priests, and the feasts and fasts are commands from God to his people on how to worship him because they convey the deeper reality. Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, consisted of specific rituals and rites to convey its importance.
As we come together to worship in the Feast of Feasts, we believe that we participate in the events proclaimed: this is the climax of the Christian year. We live them out in a way that allows us to embody the love of God. It is real participation, done in a way that confronts the fullness of ourselves with the redemption of Christ in his death and resurrection. If all of this was just for show to pull on our heartstrings to elicit emotion, then we are just competing against the megachurch down the road. No, in our liturgy, we are participating in the work of Christ. The liturgy and the ritual point us to the greater reality, the death and resurrection of Christ made present. As St. Paul says in 2 Corinthians, "While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal." If we focus only on the rituals, we lose sight of what they point us to, and then we are just acting. But if we enter fully into this time and open our eyes and hearts to see Christ present, then the liturgy and rituals of Holy Week and Easter are done correctly.
In the Old Testament, the prophets warned against making worship into a play. They were not rebuking the people of Israel for doing what God asked in their worship, but they only paid lip service to it. For some reason, it has become the norm to flee from lip service by cutting out the things that point us to what should be happening. The prophet's critique has always been one of the heart.
As we draw near to Holy Week, I know that it is a lot. But I encourage you to come to it as much as you can. Remember, the Triduum is a single service; try to make it to as many parts as possible. The early Church saw the Triduum (the three holy days of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Great Paschal Vigil) as so important that it has been a part of Christian worship since the fourth century and was seen as the climax of the Christian year. Should we not offer God the best of what we have and the best of our worship, but most importantly, the best of ourselves, our souls, and our lives?
God's Peace,
Fr. Aaron