By Michael Patrick O’Brien–
A century ago, London sociologists suggested, “The purpose of liturgy is to quicken the mind, energise the body, awaken the soul.” Based on my own experience, they were describing what I call the annual Catholic three act dramatic play—Holy Week and the Easter Triduum.
Palm Sunday…the prelude
Every good three act play needs a prelude, and there is not a better one than Palm Sunday. On this day in the Christian tradition, Jesus rode triumphantly into Jerusalem, less than a week before his death on a cross and his resurrection. It’s probably the greatest roller coaster ride in salvation history.
Our longtime family parish, St. Thomas More Church in Sandy, Utah, typically has reenacted that procession with the entire congregation, all walking in together waving palms and singing uplifting Hosannas. The recent pandemic added a new twist—a 2020 procession of cars and drive-by palm distribution.
Over the years, O’Brien family members contributed to the annual Palm Sunday celebration in our own special ways. My unorthodox contribution was to educate the kids about another important Sunday, when we would use clever wordplay to tell Bible stories. I called it “Psalm Punday.”
More conventionally, my wife Vicki and our daughter Megan helped read aloud the passion story as lectors. Our son Danny served as an altar boy. And artistic daughter Erin braided the fresh palm branches into crosses or crowns.
No matter our various and unique roles, Palm Sunday reminded us that the week to follow was special.
Holy (Maundy) Thursday…quickening the mind
We O’Briens always called the Thursday during Holy Week “Holy Thursday,” but it’s also known as “Maundy Thursday.” Maundy comes from the Latin ‘mandatum,’ referring to the mandate and instructions Jesus gave to his disciples at the Last Supper.
My Catholic Holy Thursday memories include many wonderful traditions, including watching live reenactments of Christ washing the feet of his disciples. It’s probably the only time you would see bare feet in church. My favorite Holy Thursday memory, however, is when I attended a seder meal as a child at our old St. Rose of Lima parish hall in Layton, Utah.
Seder (“order” or “procedure” in Hebrew) is a Passover ritual dinner remembering the Jewish liberation from captivity in Egypt. A good description of the service is available here, which explains that seder is “an exciting blend of elements designed to make the story of the Exodus from Egypt as riveting as possible.”
Easter happens at about the same time as the Jewish celebration. As a result, sometimes Catholics host a seder to commemorate the context for Jesus’s final celebration of Passover at the Last Supper on Holy Thursday.
Our seder meal years ago included all the traditional food and drink. Parsley signified the branch used to put blood on Israelite doorposts during the death plague afflicting Egypt’s first born. Horseradish recalled the bitterness of Hebrew slavery. A combination of apples, nuts, spices, and wine/juice symbolized the hard labor and mortar used to make the pharaoh’s bricks.
Lamb and hardboiled eggs represented the sacrifices offered to God in the Temple. We also had matzah (cracker bread, unleavened because the Israelites had to be ready to move quickly), salt water for the tears of the Israelites, and red wine or grape juice for the four cups consumed during the celebration.
At the time of my first seder, the very immature me was most excited about getting sips of wine. Today, I appreciate the unique celebration of the rich Judeo-Christian heritage of spirituality I’ve inherited.
Good Friday…energising the body
I stumbled upon my most memorable Good Friday while traveling with my wife and children in Sorrento, Italy. During “La Passeggiata,” our evening Italian walk, we encountered the annual local funeral march for Jesus held on “Venerdi Santo.”
Sorrento is the Southern Italy gateway to the famous Amalfi Coast. It sits on high sea cliffs with temperate weather, palm trees, and stunning views of the Bay of Naples. In springtime, when we visited, the town’s citrus tree groves filled the air with the subtle but unmistakable aroma of fresh lemon.
Sorrento hosts two ritual processions on Good Friday, both dating back several centuries. The morning “White Procession” (“Processione Bianca”) includes marchers dressed in all white robes and hoods, and recalls Mary—the Mother of Jesus—searching for her son.
During the “Black Procession” (“Processione Nera”), which we attended in the evening, Mary finally finds her crucified son. We watched in solemn awe as it started with a band playing famous classical music funeral dirges.
Someone dimmed the city’s lights. Black-robed and hooded marchers appeared carrying torches and, on their shoulders, a life sized sixteenth century statue of the dead Christ. A series of choirs and other walking mourners followed.
They chanted lamentations in Gregorian style and sang the “Miserere” (“Have mercy on me, O God”) from Psalm 51 (there is a stellar version of it here). The marchers also carried the instruments of crucifixion.
The procession ended with a large statute of Mary, who now mourned her dead son as Our Lady of Sorrows. My wife and our children─then two teens and a pre-teen—were transfixed and reflective. Other Good Friday services we had attended were poignant, but not as intensely personal as what we witnessed in Italy.
This was a real funeral, marked by palpable grief and loss. As we walked back to our hotel, I knew how the story turned out─this death culminated in triumph and life was changed not ended.
On our remarkable Venerdi Santo in Sorrento, however, the occupied tomb loomed larger than the empty one, and the Easter moment seemed like a very long three days away.
Easter…awakening the soul
I’ve enjoyed many wonderful Easter celebrations, including one at the Duomo in Florence, Italy (see Easter in Firenze). The best of them, however, were closer to home in Northern Utah at the Huntsville Trappist monastery where I grew up.
Here’s a descriptive excerpt from Monastery Mornings, my book about that unusual boyhood:
Much the same as they did at Christmas time, at Easter the monks joyfully participated in a wonderful vigil service, held at midnight on Holy Saturday and continuing on through early Easter Sunday morning. In the back of the abbey chapel, or outside, just in front of it, in near total darkness, the monks would consecrate the Easter candle, light it, and share its light with all in attendance, who, with their own individual candles, would eventually illuminate the entire church building. Then, with bells, ringing, the regular Mass would begin. Unlike the regular Mass, however, there were nine readings proclaimed at the Easter Vigil—a scriptural marathon, which I considered a liturgical rendition of the Bible’s greatest hits.
It started with Genesis 1:3 and the creation story: “And God said, ‘let there be light,’ and there was light.” In the next reading from Genesis 22:17, God blessed Abraham for his obedience: “I will, indeed bless you, and I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven and the sand which is on the seashore.” Moses followed, leading the Israelites out of captivity in Egypt in Exodus 14: 15–15:1. The prophet Isaiah spoke up next, with tender and reassuring words of God’s love (Isaiah 54:10), “For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you, and my covenant of peace shall not be removed.” Sometimes by the end of the fourth reading, I was getting a little sleepy, but I persevered.
In the fifth reading, Isaiah issued an invitation for a closer relationship with God (Isaiah 55:1): “Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters” The prophetic scribe Baruch then reminded us that, “if you had walked in the way of God, you would be dwelling in peace forever” (Baruch 3:13). Yet another prophet, Ezekiel, next told of the saving forgiveness of God: “A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will take out your flesh the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh” (Ezekiel 36:26). Just before the gospel, Saint Paul’s letter to the Romans announced the great hope of resurrection for all of us, and explained, “We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead, by the glory of the father, we, too, might walk in the newness of life” (Romans 6:4). Finally, the Liturgy of the Word reached its dramatic climax with the Gospel reading, when the angel at the tomb announced the resurrection of Jesus, saying, “He is not here; for he is risen, as he said” (Matthew 28:6).
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, “Our Lord has written the promise of resurrection, not in books alone, but in every leaf in springtime.” The Utah monks found that same promise in the buds that appeared on their lilac bushes coincident with the annual paschal celebration.
If Easter is—as I think—a lovely and moving three act drama, it could not ask for a more appropriate seasonal venue than one known for the reemergence of life and hope after a long dark and cold winter. I’ve seen it play out in that fine theatre annually for six decades now.
I’ve got my ticket this year too. As usual, I cannot wait to go.
*Mike O’Brien (author website here) is a writer and attorney living in Salt Lake City, Utah. Paraclete Press published his book Monastery Mornings, about growing up with the monks at the old Trappist monastery in Huntsville, Utah, in August 2021. The League of Utah Writers chose it as the best non-fiction book of 2022.
