The Triduum

As we honor Good Friday, it is a good time to reflect on these three days. Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter. Some will say it is four days, but we celebrate the Easter Vigil after sundown on Saturday because this is how the Jewish people measured a day. Instead of midnight to midnight, it was form sundown to sundown.

These days, the Triduum is one Liturgy or Mass. They cannot be separated. If you notice, we begin Holy Thursday Mass with the normal sign of the cross. We do not end the Mass with a blessing as normal, but instead usher Jesus to the garden of repose where He went to pray and then be arrested.

On Friday, we do not have an opening sign of the cross nor a closing blessing. We enter into the Passion of Jesus. At the Easter Vigil we do not have an opening sign of the cross but begin in darkness with Christ our light coming out of the tomb. Him, the light, shining in the darkness of death, and in the darkness of the world.

We cannot separate these events.

The resurrection cannot happen without the Passion and Death of Jesus. In essence it is one Mass lasting three days. Today, as we are in the middle of the Triduum, we first reflect on the gift He gave us last night, His Body and Blood, then today completed it by offering His life for us, and we look forward to the Glorious Resurrection which brings the promise of eternal life.

 Jesus went through this and so do we in union with Him. We have given of ourselves to loved ones, to friends and families. We now seem to be in a terrible passion with the virus, losing money, having to change and adapt miserably at times to this lifestyle, but we also look forward to the Glorious resurrection that will come when this is over.

Stay strong by uniting your suffering during the pandemic to Jesus’ passion, knowing the glorious resurrection is to come.