Dear Catholic Liturgies — Thank you: The Easter Triduum, 3 Sundays Later  

It is now the Third Sunday of Easter. What better time to reflect on Holy Week and the Triduum?

Reflecting on these liturgical experiences raises a key question: How can I keep living liturgically with the Church throughout the year? As Catholics are meant to enter this sacred mystery every time, we attend Mass. But practically, that can be difficult.

Holy Week and Easter were crazy, chaotic, and so so beautiful. Holy Week is one of the busiest liturgical seasons in the Church’s year, with many ornate liturgies to commemorate our Lord’s passion, death and resurrection.

From the Chrism Mass, Holy Thursday evening Mass, Good Friday service, to the Great Easter vigil, the Church offers a full-weeklong liturgical affair. And I had the joy in participating in it fully. But the joy is about more than the moment. How can I bring it back, today?

Now, I am by no means a liturgist, nor is attending all a family norm. This was my first time attending all the major liturgies — most years I just attend Holy Thursday Mass of the Lord’s supper and the Easter Vigil.

But this year, I decided to attend as many as possible to experience and live the Church’s liturgical life and I walked away with a deeper appreciation for the liturgy and the Mass. During Holy Week, the grandeur of liturgy was on display with all the bells and smells, calling to mind what Joseph Ratzinger, the future Pope Benedict XIV wrote about liturgy, “As (a) “feast”, liturgy goes beyond the realm of what can be made and manipulated; it introduces us into the realm of given, living reality, which communicates itself to us.”

As I reflected on these different elements, from the procession to the Tabernacle of repose during the Mass of the Lord’s Supper, to the veneration of the Cross on Good Friday, to the lighting of the Easter candle, each of these elements invites us to enter into Holy Week with Christ, to walk beside Him on his journey to calvary, to wait with the apostles for the return of the savior.

Spiritually, praying at these liturgies proved edifying and enriching, allowing for ample time to meditate and ponder Christ’s final days and his saving act. There, in the liturgies, I encountered Christ in a new and profound way. From sitting with Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, to listening intently to the story of salvation history during the great Easter vigil, many profound moments occurred.

Holy Week also offered the opportunity to join the Church in this moment, to wait with others and share our experiences. Our Church was filled for Holy Week, with people showing up day in and day out. It was beautiful listening to other’s stories, hearing how they were entering into these solemn liturgies.

Then, there came the rejoicing of the Great Easter Vigil, celebrating the Resurrection of our Lord with the procession of light into church, the beautiful Exultet, and the great Alleluia. That’s how one celebrates!

So, how to bring it all into the rest of life?

Upon returning to Benedictine College, I attended the funeral Mass for Father Aaron Peters OSB. While distinctly different from the pomp of the Easter liturgies, the funeral offered insight into the fruition of the Easter message — that Christ died and rose again so that we might have hope in Eternal life. The somber, simple funeral liturgy reflected this realization, watching as the monks bid farewell to their brother with a reverent Mass and a final procession from the abbey to the monastic graveyard.

That is the ultimate reason for these liturgies: applying them to the rest of life.

On the Third Sunday of Easter — the weekend of the Emmaus disciples’ encounter with Jesus — this begins by embracing the Eucharist and the disposition one has to entering into Mass well. St. John Paul II describes the Mass as a “encounter”, and at the Mass John Paul II says that we should, “Bring to your encounter with Jesus, hidden in the Eucharist, all the enthusiasm of your age, all your hopes, all your desire to love.”

Here, he provides the key, I think, to living liturgically — showing up, and bring all that we carry, and have to the Lord and allowing Him to take care of it. To bring our own agonies, our own crosses, and give them to Him, who conquered even death itself.

By Jack Figge