PhD Program in Historical studies
The origins of the Catholic Holy Week
The story of Holy Week begins before the birth of Jesus and not just because the arrival of the Messiah is considered to be the prophetic fulfillment of the Scriptures. In fact, it goes back to Jewish religious ritual, which in turn is hearkens back to Semitic traditions and archaic cults associated with the end of Winter. This symbolic and ceremonial material was then rethought in the salvific perspective of Moses and Jesus, respectively, on the occasion of the Exodus from Egypt and the Week of the Passion. It is from this symbolic and ritual link that the Catholic Holy Week originated. Christian Easter, in fact, reinterprets the theme of sacrifice (Jesus as the Lamb of God) and that of regeneration and of passage (the Resurrection of the Dead) in a perspective that transcends the limits of the symbolic Exodus (material liberation from slavery) and affirms the idea of spiritual rebirth (liberation from original sin).
Holy Week is held the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Spring equinox (March 21), the day when the sunlight follows the full moon. Easter, therefore, is a moveable feast, which is fixed from year to year between 22 March and 25 April. In the rite of the Roman Catholic Church, Holy Week ends with the forty-four days of Lent (which begin on Ash Wednesday), which is the liturgical season that evokes the penance of Jesus in the desert. Lent is preceded by Carnival, which starts on Fat Thursday and ends before Ash Wednesday, the day on which it is forbidden to eat meat (hence the etymology of the word “carnival”, carnem levare: eliminate flesh, abstain from meat). The end of Lent, Holy Thursday, marks the beginning of the Triduum, or the 72 hours between the Last Supper and Easter Sunday: the liturgical season in which the Church and the faithful celebrate and relive the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Christ.