The Sacred Triduum: Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter. The Mystery of Faith

Catholic Online ^ | 4/1/10 | Deacon Keith Fournier

[tcg]

...At the very epicenter of our Liturgical Calendar is the great Three days we celebrate, Holy Thursday, Good Friday and the Resurrection of the Lord, the Sacred Triduum. Good Liturgy is not simply a re-enactment of something that happened over 2000 years ago but an actual participation in the events themselves through living faith. ...

We will soon attend the Last Supper and receive the gift of the Holy Eucharist, the Body, Blood Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ. We will enter into the deep meaning of the Holy Priesthood. We will be invited to pour ourselves out like the water in the basins used to wash feet on Holy Thursday. We will be asked with the disciples in the Gospel accounts we will hear proclaimed to watch with the Lord. We will be invited to enter with Him into his anguish by imitating His Holy surrender in his Sacred Humanity in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Through the stark and solemn Liturgy of the Friday we call "Good", we will stand at the Altar of the Cross where heaven is rejoined to earth and earth to heaven, along with the Mother of the Lord. We will enter into the moment that forever changed - and still changes – all human History, the great self gift of the Son of God who did for us what we could never do for ourselves by in the words of the ancient Exultet, "trampling on death by death". We will wait at the tomb and witness the Glory of the Resurrection and the beginning of the New Creation....

[tcg]

These last Forty Days were a time of preparation for these great Three days, which is what Triduum means. These three days lead us to an empty tomb and an Octave, eight days, of celebrating the Resurrection. They also introduce an entire liturgical season, the Easter Season, which lasts for Fifty days until Pentecost.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church instructs us: "Beginning with the Easter Triduum as its source of light, the new age of the Resurrection fills the whole liturgical year with its brilliance....

[Salvation]

The Sacred Triduum: Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter. The Mystery of Faith
The Easter Triduum in General
On the Holy Triduum
Celebrating the Lord’s Passover (The Triduum): Suggestions for Personal and Family Prayer
Holy Week and the Triduum

The Triduum and 40 Days
We Will Relive the Passion, Death and Resurrection
Spiritual Reading for the Sacred Triduum and Easter
The Easter Triduum
THE EASTER TRIDUUM: With Fr. John Corapi