A Walk Through Holy Week
Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion
On this day, the Church celebrates Christ’s entrance into Jerusalem to accomplish his paschal mystery.
Following the instructions of the Church and the tradition of our Faith, we will celebrate a procession at each of our Palm Sunday Masses. We will gather just outside the church at the Saginaw Street entrance and process up to the Church. This important action helps us understand the beginning of our Holy Week Journey, when we commit ourselves to “walking with Christ” through His passion, death and resurrection. Obviously, for some, this will be difficult or even not doable. If that is the case, please take your seat in the Church and know that we will be joining you there shortly after Mass begins.
Holy Thursday – Mass of the Lord’s Supper
No Morning Mass this day
Mass of the Lord’s Supper 7pm
This is a special day when we, as Catholics, focus on the Gift of the Eucharist. We have only one Mass this day at Church, with a special Mass also at the Cathedral in the morning.
At 10:30 am in Lansing, many Catholics from all over our Diocese will gather together for the Chrism Mass. At this Mass, the Bishop will bless the oils that every Church in our diocese will use over the next year. Also at that Mass, all Priests will renew their vows. This is an exciting and blessed celebration. Please remember to pray for priests to be faithful followers of Christ and servants of His People.
We also have a Mass on Holy Thursday night called The Mass of the Lord’s Supper. Here, we remember the Last Supper Jesus celebrated with His disciples to begin His passion and death. In a unique way, we recall the
events of the Last Supper and include within this some beautiful rituals. We have a procession of the oils we will use for the rest of the year: the ones I will bring back from the Morning Mass at the Cathedral. We also will remember and celebrate Jesus washing the feet of His Disciples, in order to connect in hearts the necessity of our love of the Eucharist compelling us to serve our fellow human beings.
As Jesus left the Last Supper to go to the Garden of Gethsemane, we process with the Eucharist out of the Church and down to the Parish Hall, where we will place the Blessed Sacrament. Here, we will incense the Blessed Sacrament and sit in silence for a bit. All who wish to are encouraged to stay and pray in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament for a bit.
Good Friday
No morning Mass this day
Good Friday Service 1:30pm
Good Friday is the day where we place our Spiritual Focus on the suffering and death of Jesus. We recognize that our sins come with a terrible price and that Jesus paid that price willingly out of love for us. We pray that this day compels us to sorrow for our sins and a recognition of the love that drove Christ to such an incredible act of love.
As a result of this reality, Good Friday is a day of fasting and abstinence. Our celebration this day is not a Mass, it’s called our Good Friday Service or Service of the Passion of the Lord.
This service begins in silence, with the priest laying prostrate before the cross. It continues with a reading from Scriptures and a homily that focuses on the role of suffering and loss in our life, as well as that of sin. We then will pray a special set of prayers, asking God’s blessings and mercy on all areas of our world and Church. Next, we adore the cross with a sign of reverence: some will kiss the cross, some will embrace it.
Finally, we will bring the Blessed Sacrament out from the place of reservation and all who are not prohibited can come forward to receive. The service ends in silence.
The Vigil in the Holy Night of Easter
This is the only Mass we will celebrate on Saturday
Continuing our walk with Christ, we will have spent Friday and Saturday “in the tomb” with Jesus. With our service on Holy Saturday, we move from the tomb to the Glory of the Resurrection.
The service contains four parts: the service of Light, Liturgy of the Word, Christian Initiation and Renewal, and Holy Eucharist.
The Service of Light begins outside where we bless our Easter Fire and Pascal Candle. The Mass continues inside in darkness to remind us of Jesus in the tomb.
The Darkness in Church continues as we move into the Liturgy of the Word, where we read multiple readings from the Old Testament. Then, the lights will all come on as we sing the Gloria together and read from the New Testament. The lights coming on and the Gloria being sung are the sign of our movement from the darkness of the tomb into the Glory of the Resurrection. We haven’t sung or said the Gloria in more than six weeks and we rejoice at this time. If you wish, you can bring bells to this service and ring them as we sing. We will read from the New Testament and Gospel and have a homily.
We then move into the time when we bring into the Church those who have been going through RCIA for the last many months. This is a great and beautiful time where we remember our own baptism and thank God that we are a part of an unbroken chain of Catholicism and rejoice in those who join our faith.
Mass then proceeds as normal while we move into the Liturgy of the Eucharist.
The Resurrection of the Lord – Easter Sunday
Mass at 8am, 10am, 12pm
We rejoice with great joy at Jesus victory over sin and death: His victory is our victory! We have hope and joy in our lives because of the wonder of Christ’s love conquering our sin and His life overcoming our death.
