palm sunday and holy week: tourist or pilgrim?

tomorrow is palm sunday, the beginning of "holy week," and for many christians a time of great business. there are more readings that i can begin to comment on, but i will direct you to the excellent site textweek for a guide.

what i would like to comment on is some of the origins of this busy time, and to suggest how we might use it. there seem to be two main sources of the crammed-packed "holy week"--well, three, if we consider the original celebration of the pascha (in english, easter). the earliest church celebrated the passover of our lord, the three days from "maundy thursday" to "the first day of the week, the day of the resurrection," as one great feast, recognizing that we cannot sort out any one part of the work of the christ as more important or independent of the others. death, burial, descent into hell, resurrection, they're all together one great event.

then especially after the ending of the persecution of the church, the week before the vigil became a sort of cram week for catechumens. so in addition to the events of the three days (the triduum), there were added special readings for each of the other days from "palm sunday" on.

then jerusalem was rebuilt splendidly under the auspices of the emperors, and "holy week" became the time for pilgrimages to the holy sites. what we know of the early events today comes mostly from the writings of egeria, a fourth century spanish abbess who described the events. there were four churches, with services spread between them, in addition to the processions of palm sunday and good friday through the streets of the city. the martyrium marked golgotha, where our lord as crucified. the eleona as at the mount of olives where he had taught. the imbomon was at the place of his ascension, and the anastasis marked the tomb, the site of his resurrection. it was not long before churches, first in spain, then throughout the empire, began to try to reproduce as much of the jerusalem events as they could.

we still try to reproduce those events, with results ranging from magnificent (i would recommend, for instance, holy week at st. mark's cathedral in seattle, to pitiful, at places i won't mention.) but i will suggest that to try to pack all of the activities possible into a week when most of us are already too busy for our souls tends to make holy week a tourist trap rather than a pilgrimage.

so, i recommend taking the week slowly, choosing some particular part for meditation and exploration. if the time is new to you, you might start with the palm sunday procession, and pay particular attention to its texts and hymnody. (the hymn "all glory laud and honor" is, according to eric werner in the sacred bridge, perhaps the oldest melody used by the christian church, originating in the jewish temple liturgy for the feast of tabernacles.)

each year, one can add to one's understanding, if the lord delay his return. if not, we will be singing "all glory laud and honor" in a different setting.