ABOUT THE PASCAL TRIDUUM . . . The Easter Triduum (three days) celebrates the Passover (Pascha) of the Lord from death to life. It begins in the Upper Room. It ends at a tomb wherein Christ rises from the dead. Some of the most ancient rites of the Christian community are observed these three days.
 
On Thursday, the entire assembly is invited to participate in the Washing of Feet. Bread and wine are consecrated for the ministration of Holy Communion both Thursday and during the Liturgy of Good Friday. Following the Transfer of the Eucharist to the Altar of Repose, the altar and sanctuary are stripped of all ornament and furnishing, and silence is observed. Following the Mass, the Watch before the Blessed Sacrament is observed until the Celebration of the Passion of the Lord on Good Friday. You are invited to join in the watch before the Holy Sacrament as you are able. The Church will remain open throughout the night for this purpose.
 
On Friday the liturgy begins with the priest prostrate and the people kneeling before the altar. Following the liturgy of the Word and the preaching of the Gospel, the Church offers her intercessions on behalf of the world as the Body of Christ, the great High Priest, in a form used by the ancient Church at every liturgy but now used exclusively on Good Friday. Then we are invited to participate in the Veneration of the Cross and to make that cross our own. Finally we receive Holy Communion from the Sacrament consecrated on Thursday night at the Evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper. The choruses for the Passion are by Tomas Luis de Victoria.
 
On Saturday we begin in the dark, awaiting the light, which proclaims the resurrection. Then we share that light. The ceremonies of this night are about an old Adam and a new Adam, about death and life. The central Christian belief is that Jesus was crucified and he rose from the dead. In the liturgical tradition of the Church this is not a past or abstract reality. The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is remembered and made present in our worship and in our common life.

“Jesus Christ, yesterday and today, the Beginning and the End, Alpha and Omega.
His are all times and all ages. To him be glory and dominion through all eternity.”

THE SUNDAY OF THE RESURRECTION . . . Easter Day, the “Queen of Feasts,” is the celebration of the central truth of the Christian faith, that Christ is risen from the dead.  The liturgy on Easter Day continues from, and crowns, the liturgy of the Easter Triduum Sacrum (the “Three Sacred Days”); we have moved from the anxious foreboding of the upper room, through the agony in the garden, to the horror of Jesus’ betrayal, condemnation, and brutal execution, and seen him laid lifeless in the tomb.  Yet from the place of deepest darkness springs a ray of light that brightens into the glory of a new day—a light that shows an empty tomb.

It is an historical fact that Jesus was crucified.  It is the core of the Christian faith that he rose from the dead.  But in the liturgical tradition of the Church, these are not things of the past or abstract theories.  The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is remembered and made present in our worship, and manifested in our common life today and always.