We have reached the conclusion of the long Lenten season, and with the Paschal Triduum we enter fully into the celebration of Easter. But what is the Paschal Triduum? What does it involve? Let us look together at this great symphony celebrating a mystery that transcends us.
The Paschal Triduum: a single solemnity
The Paschal Triduum, as the word itself indicates, is a period consisting of three days celebrating Easter: Good Friday, Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday. These days must nevertheless be understood according to the ancient reckoning of the day, which runs from vespers to vespers. This is why the evening that we still consider part of Holy Thursday also fully belongs to it. Thus, “the Paschal Triduum of the Passion and Resurrection of the Lord begins with the Mass of the ‘Lord’s Supper,’ reaches its high point in the Easter Vigil and ends with Vespers on Easter Sunday (Roman Missal). The Paschal Triduum solemnly celebrates the great mysteries of our redemption and, through its distinctive celebrations, commemorates its Lord, crucified, buried and risen.
The Paschal Triduum therefore does not mean three days of preparation for Easter, as though it were a triduum in honor of a feast of the Virgin Mary or a saint. Rather, it means that Easter is celebrated over three days. The Paschal Triduum is one single solemn celebration taking place in three different moments: the Lord’s Supper, the liturgical celebration of the Lord’s Passion and the great Easter Vigil. Indeed:
– at the Mass of the “Lord’s Supper” there is no dismissal, but the assembly disperses in silence; on Good Friday the celebration begins in silence, without introductory rites, and ends without a blessing or dismissal, in silence; the Easter Vigil begins with the service of light, without the sign of the cross and without a greeting; only at the end of the Vigil are the final blessing and dismissal of the assembly given.
The Paschal Triduum therefore constitutes one single solemnity, the most important of the entire liturgical year.
It is therefore important to understand its moments, signs and rites in order to savor more deeply what we will experience on those days. Obviously, all the evocative rites cannot be explained in a short article. So let us try to gather a few insights, following what the heart suggests.
Holy Thursday “Lord’s Supper”
This evening celebration takes us back to the Last Supper to celebrate the new covenant established with us by the Father through the death and resurrection of Christ. This is the central mystery being commemorated. Alongside it are two other mysteries inseparably connected with it: the ministerial priesthood appointed to “make” the Eucharist and the Church as a community of brothers and sisters, “constituted” by the Eucharist, who love and serve one another.
The Eucharist, the summit of the sacraments of Christian initiation, enables us to live in the risen Christ with humility and love.
Among the most evocative rites are the washing of the feet, which recalls service to others; the reposition of the Blessed Sacrament and the stripping of the altar, which direct our attention to the fact that Jesus is taken away from us, but does not abandon us.
Good Friday “Passion of the Lord”
Good Friday is not a day of mourning, but shows us that there is one single Easter: of passion, burial and glorification. Therefore, this day too is Easter!
The celebration of the Lord’s Passion presents the celebrant’s silent prostration before the mystery of God’s love offered for us. Everything is silent, because every word is absorbed by the immolated and risen Word. We are not in a day of mourning, but in the presence of the mystery. Indeed, the liturgical color is red, the color of life, blood and martyrs. We stand before the One who does not suffer death but goes to meet it in order to defeat it and free all people from its poisonous coils, expressed in sin. Jesus Christ is the victor, the glorious One.
The celebration revolves around these moments:
1. Liturgy of the Word: it presents the prophecy announcing the Lord’s Passion and recounts its fulfillment in the Gospel according to John.
The Word of God that has been heard then becomes prayer in the solemn Universal Prayer, which celebrates the universality of salvation.
2. Adoration of the Cross: this is not an act of devotion or piety, but a liturgical act. On Good Friday we genuflect before the Cross because we adore the Son of God as he offers himself and gloriously defeats sin and death.
3. The final act is Eucharistic Communion. The bread is that consecrated on Holy Thursday, and the faithful, although they have not celebrated Mass, receive Communion with the Eucharist, the visible sign of the Paschal Mystery.
Easter Sunday “Resurrection of the Lord”
Easter Vigil in the holy night
The Easter Vigil comes at the end of a very special day, an aliturgical day, yet a meaningful and unfortunately forgotten one: Holy Saturday (we will discuss it in the next article).
This Vigil, known as the “mother of all vigils” (Augustine, Sermo 219), is the culmination of the entire liturgical year, and the Paschal Triduum converges toward it. Thus we see the connection between Jesus’ Passion and his resurrection. This unity of the two elements indicates to believers that there can be no life of union with Christ without first dying to sin, to everything that constitutes the old self.
The Vigil consists of 4 parts:
1. Liturgy of Light or Service of Light: the new fire is blessed, illuminating the night and celebrating the victory of the light of the risen Christ over all the darkness of sin, death, sadness, anguish, doubt and fear. Simple and solemn is the ceremony of preparing and lighting the Paschal candle. Then all the faithful, illuminated only by the light of the Paschal candle, a symbol of the risen Jesus, enter the liturgical hall, which slowly moves from darkness into light as the believers’ candles are progressively lit, accompanied by the repeated cry “Christ our light,” until the space is fully illuminated for the singing of the Easter Proclamation, the solemn announcement of Christ’s resurrection.
2. Liturgy of the Word: we meditate on how, in the ancient covenant, God saved his people and, in the fullness of time, sent his Son for our redemption. It therefore invites the Church to meditate on the wonders the Lord has accomplished for his people from the beginning of the world’s creation, leading to the final wonder of Christ’s resurrection. Each reading is followed by a responsorial psalm and a prayer that rereads, in the light of Christ and his salvation, the passage proclaimed.
Of particular importance is the Easter Alleluia, underscored by the fact that the Gospel Acclamation is more elaborate and solemn than on the Sundays of the year. It is our response to this wonderful history of salvation that culminates in Christ’s resurrection: an expression of uncontainable joy that fills all God’s people on this night because Christ is risen.
The Gospel passage recounts Christ’s resurrection, taken from one of the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark or Luke). It is the high point of the Liturgy of the Word.
3. Baptismal Liturgy: the Easter Vigil is experienced in its fullness when the community can present adults or children for baptismal rebirth. But even when this is not possible, the celebrating assembly must be aware that its Easter renewal requires a greater commitment to putting the baptismal promises into practice. The Paschal mystery of salvation through the risen Christ extends to all believers through the sacraments, especially Baptism and then the sacrament of Confirmation, which is also called Chrismation, because it confirms the grace of Baptism in the lives of believers and opens the way to participation in the Eucharist.
4. Eucharistic Liturgy: this is the culmination of the entire Lenten journey and the heart of the entire Vigil. Through the Eucharist we enter into full communion with the body of Christ and of the Church. And Jesus remains forever present with his disciples in the signs of his self-giving, so that they may learn to pass each day from death to life in charity.
Therefore, the risen Christ is the Light of the world, the Word who saves, the One who incorporates us into his death and resurrection through the sacrament of Baptism, the divine Bread that the Church gives us.
May we enter into a new way of thinking: no longer to regard the Paschal Triduum as a succession of days, but as the celebration of the one mystery of the Lord’s Passion and Resurrection.
May the liturgy lead us by the hand to participate fully in this Mystery, so that we may grow along the path of his love and bring everyone the announcement of joy and peace that the risen Christ gives us.
Happy Easter!
