A Holy Week Journey: One Family, Eight Days, Four Religions

Holy Week is the most serious observance of the Christian year. Whereas Christmas consists of a little bit of church in the middle of a secular bacchanalia, Holy Week can be a serious religious journey for those who choose to participate. Holy Week also coincides with the Jewish Passover, so that the season is doubly profound. Religious holidays at our house are more complicated now that we belong to different denominations. While the Lutheran and Catholic churches are similar in many respects, the logistics of observing both can be a bit daunting.

Holy Week consists of the eight days from Palm Sunday through Easter. This year, parts of our family participated in observances from four different religions and denominations.

Palm Sunday

The week started on Palm Sunday. I attended the Lutheran church by myself, while Val and Stephanie went to their Catholic church. Palm Sunday is a preview of Holy Week. It begins with the procession of palms into the church and features the reading of the passion Gospel which leads up to the crucifixion. The music captures this contrast with "All Glory, Laud and Honor" leading in and "Were You There When They Crucified My Lord" ending.

Passover

On Wednesday night, Stephanie and I attended a passover seder at the home of one of the lawyers in my firm. The seder was almost a firm event, with five families of lawyers and employees attending along with two families of clients. Like many Jewish observances, this was held in the home and featured a hearty meal. The home setting made it more comfortable for the Christians like Stephanie and me. It was a combination of religious ceremony and socializing. The contrasts were interesting. There was a lot of singing, including both the traditional Hebrew from the Haggadah, and sillier songs in English, such as the Eight Days of Passover. There were the traditional religious symbols of passover, such as the bitter herb, the four cups of wine and the matzoh. However, there was almost an irreverent attitude toward rote recitation of the traditional "Maxwell House Haggadah." At one point, after several glasses of wine, while listening to Howard chant in Hebrew, I had a feeling of being in another place and time. For a Christian, the shared symbolism of passover and the last supper was very meaningful. Stephanie and I also had a lot of fun.

Holy Thursday

Thursday night began the Triduum. I did not know this before, but the Thursday, Friday and Saturday before Easter are not part of Lent in the Catholic Church. They are a separate three day season inbetween Lent and Easter. The three days consist of Holy Thursday commemorating the Last Supper, Good Friday marking the crucifixion and the Easter Vigil.

I took Stephanie to the Holy Thursday and Good Friday services at St. Catherine of Sienna Catholic Church. Val works nights so that she was not able to go with us. Stephanie is still at an age where she takes church seriously, so that it was a good time for father-daughter bonding. Holy Thursday ended with a candlelight procession taking the communion representing Jesus out of the sanctuary into the day chapel. All of the congregation filed out holding candles and lined up along with walkway. It tooks a long time for everyone to process out and for the group containing the priest and the cross to wind its way along. The long trail of hundreds of candles lining the way for the procession of the cross was very profound.

While Stephanie and I were at the Catholic Church and Val was batching paperwork at the IRS, Kristen attended a Jehovah's Witness meeting with friends. The two boys who are at the center of one of Kristen's circles of friends are Jehovah's Witnesses. Because one of Kristen's best friends is dating one of them, she was invited and Kristen went along for support. This particular meeting is called the Memorial and it is the Jehovah's Witness version of the last supper. It was serious enough that Kristen and Raven both bought dresses so that they would be properly attired. They are at the age where peer pressure is a lot more effective than parental demands. Kristen said that the meeting was "interesting" but offered few details. I had to go online to learn that the Memorial is the one time of the year when Jehovah's Witnesses celebrate communion and that only a very few (about 9,000 out of 17 million) actually take communion. In some meetings, the bread and wine are passed around without anyone being able to partake.

Good Friday

On Friday night, Stephanie and I went to the Good Friday service at St. Catherine's. All I really remember is that they chanted the entire Passion gospel and that it seemed to go on for an hour.

Easter Vigil

Saturday was the third night of the Triduum. Valeska could finally join us. This is a major service in the Catholic church because it is when they receive new members. Valeska was confirmed at this service two years ago. The service was rich in symbolism. It began outside with the lighting of the Paschal candle from a fire. The priest and the congregation processed into the church and candles were lit from the Paschal candle. The sight of the darkened church being lit up from the candles represented the light of Christ entering the world and was a powerful image. The service was so long that they had an intermission after the first hour and a half. There was a lot of repetition in the service, so that it was almost hypnotic. There is one hymn called the Liturgy of the Saints which is basically a chant asking various saints to pray for us. Also, there was a refrain which was sung after each candidate was baptised or confirmed. After 25 times, it was still meaningful because it was being sung for each person individually. The service ended with an Easter hymn. It was one of the few hymns that involved straight congregational singing as opposed to a leader singing the verses and the congregation singing the refrain. People started filing out and talking once the priest recessed which seemed odd, since the hymn had two verses left to go.

Easter Sunday

On Sunday morning, I returned to St. Martin's Lutheran where my Holy Week journey had begun. Val, Kristen, Val's mom and I went together. We were late because Kristen took forever getting ready, so we had to sit in the overflow seating in the narthex. The Lutheran service was heavy on music. There was a brass ensemble which caused the church to ring out with song. There were many joyful hymns to sing and everyone sang, even in the overflow area.

Final Thoughts

After going back and forth between different faiths, I have a few thoughts. The Catholic tradition appeals to all of the senses. Two of the three nights of the Triduum featured candlelight and two featured incense as well. The service was a combination of sight, sound and smell. The Catholic service was long on repetition. Sometimes this took on a hypnotic, almost mystical state and other times it was just boring. The Catholic music relied heavily on the choir to lead without a lot of outright congregational singing. Also, the Catholics have an almost anarchic sense of following the printed order of service, changing the order or skipping elements at will (although they never omitted anything essential). Finally, the Catholic church has an almost exotic immigrant quality to it. The two priests at St. Catherine's are Irish and Indian and speak with very distinct accents. The faithful represent every shade of America with stolid Germans sitting next to rambunctious Hispanic families, African Americans and Asian Americans, young and old.

The Lutheran service is very orderly. It follows the order of service precisely. While the Lutheran service closely follows that of the Catholic, the main difference to me is the music. The Lutheran music seems more democratic, with choir, instruments and congregration all serving as co-creators of the mighty sound. It is said that Martin Luther wrote hymns from German beer-drinking songs and the Lutheran hymns (even when they are the exact same songs as the Catholic hymns) have a full-throated, amost lusty feel to them. The central role of congregational singing was made clear when the organ trailed off and stopped playing on the third verse of a hymn, leaving the congregation to pick it up a capella.