The Rich Rituals of the Triduum

Soon we will be celebrating the great rituals of Holy Week. This is Catholic liturgy at its best — or at least it should be — with an intricate blending of Scripture, prayer, music, symbols and gestures.

Your parish liturgy group and music ministry likely spent weeks preparing for these services to make them impactful and meaningful. If prayer is “raising our hearts and minds to God”, then this week is the epitome of all our praying.

I initially hesitated when I used the word “ritual” above, because it runs the risk of describing something that is lifeless. We tend to associate rituals with ancient practices that have no connection to the real world. But when rituals are observed properly, their impact should be to connect our spiritual practices with our sense of God incarnate.

For example, water — the most basic of elements — takes on a higher significance when it is used in baptism. It should remind us that embracing our identity as God’s children is not just something that happened decades ago, but rather is a vocation to which we are called every day of our lives, just as we wash in water every day.

But sometimes we go through rituals because everyone around us is doing them, and we forget, or perhaps never knew, what they signify and then they lose their impact. After a while, they just become “rote” rather than “rite”.

For example, are we conscious that we bless ourselves with holy water when we walk into church because it is a reminder that we originally entered the Church through baptism? Once we are aware of that, we are more likely to make the gesture intentionally (and less likely to do it in an unthinking way when we leave the church and actually do not need to bless ourselves again).

Rituals must have meaning

A ritual is a custom or ceremony, but it should have a deeper meaning. It is a way of making sense of the world. “Rite” may well be linked to a Sanskrit word meaning “visible order” or to the Greek word from which we derive “arithmetic”. In a world full of disorder, where things often seem to lack sense, a ritual is a way of coming closer to seeing the order that God has placed on the world. But we need consciously to think about, or be reminded of, what that meaning is.

Like many readers, I had the blessing of a grandmother who explained to me the meaning of various aspects of the Holy Week services. But it seems to me that increasingly people in the pews do not know, and it is not explained to them. So they go through the motions without really knowing what they mean — rather like the footballer who makes a half-hearted sign of the cross after scoring a goal.

So, at the risk of being too much the schoolmaster, may I make some suggestions for your Holy Week services to help people better understand and feel the significance of various elements:

Ideas for the Triduum

– On Palm Sunday, we are re-enacting the response of the crowd when Jesus entered Jerusalem and they tore down branches. So let’s equip the congregation with branches to wave (or ask them to bring them from home) — in many parts of the country, they will indeed be palm branches.

If afterwards people want to weave a palm into a cross to take home, then that could be a fun activity over coffee after Mass; but waving little crosses as Jesus enters Jerusalem hardly captures the vigour of that first Palm Sunday. (I leave the use of a live donkey to the discretion of each parish!).

– The multi-part reading of the Passion Gospel on Palm Sunday and again on Good Friday is a ritual act but also a great piece of theatre. It is a chance for us to feel ourselves walking alongside Jesus in those final hours.

So please take the trouble to make sure that the whole congregation can join in the crowd parts through handouts or, better still, projection. And also distribute the individual voices to multiple readers. That avoids the oddity of Peter replying to himself, or having the man who plays Pilate also being the voice of the servant girl! Such shortcuts might make it easier to rehearse, but they reduce the impact of the drama.

– The Triduum is not three services — it is one service spread over three days. That is why there is no dismissal at the end of the Thursday and Friday services, and no opening sign of the cross on Friday or Saturday. Once people understand this, they will, hopefully, see the importance of leaving and arriving in absolute silence between each of the services. And how vital it is to attend all three — if you go only on Friday, you are seeing the middle act of a three-act play.

– One of the beauties of Catholicism is that our rituals are alive and open to reinterpretation. We have seen this with the ritual washing of feet on Holy Thursday. Previous popes washed the feet of  men only, and indeed only of priests. But Pope Francis reawakened the underlying message of the Gospel — that no service is too lowly for Christ or for those who follow him — by going to a prison to wash the feet of inmates, not all of them male and not all of them even Christian. How can we re-imagine parts of our parish rituals?

The absence of Jesus

– The sense of the absence of Jesus as we leave on Friday and arrive on Saturday should be keenly felt — the open tabernacle and the lack of sanctuary lamp reinforce this (but not if the reserved sacrament is still in the church). Then we can appreciate why we do not genuflect when leaving on Friday or arriving on Saturday.

Hopefully, remembering not to genuflect when the Sacrament is absent will remind us to genuflect more intentionally when it is present, or use the double-knee genuflection when the Blessed Sacrament is exposed on Holy Thursday evening.

– Venerating the cross is one of the most emotional moments of the Church’s year. But the symbolism is ruined as soon as you have multiple crosses “to speed up the crowd”. It looks like we are also venerating the good thief and the bad thief! I assume that, were we actually blessed to be on Calvary on that first Good Friday, we would have waited patiently to take our turn; so let’s be grateful for the extra time to reflect.

– Please think about how you can maximise the visibility of key elements of each service. Too often we make sure that they are visible or convenient for the priest, but forget about the crowds at the back who can hardly appreciate what is happening.

Liturgy is laitos-urgia — the work of the people; even if we cannot do everything, we should be able to see and hear everything. Think especially about the washing of feet, the unveiling of the cross, and the lighting of the bonfire and the Paschal candle, and the baptising of adults.

– Where possible, explain to people what is happening and what it signifies. Though this could be read out loud by someone, churches with projectors have a great medium for sharing this information without disrupting the flow of the service. We have no right to complain that people do not know what is going on if no one has ever bothered to explain it to them.

– At the end of the Triduum, encourage people to take their candles with them and bring the light of Christ into their homes. This is a rather more appropriate “take-home gift” than a chocolate egg!

Holy Week is a grace-filled opportunity for us to come close to God, a chance to deepen our appreciation of how Jesus’ suffering, death and resurrection can help us to make sense of our own lives. I pray that the rituals in your parish will help all who participate find “visible order” in their own lives.