From Holy Thursday to Easter: The Meaning of the Sacred Triduum

The holy season of Lent allows Christians the opportunity to do the hard work needed if they want to deeply immerse themselves in the Easter mysteries. Like an intricate symphony or an engrossing film, Lent’s themes, challenges, and practices slowly crescendo until they come together in the Sacred Triduum at the end of Holy Week.

Maybe the only thing more difficult than unpacking the deep and beautiful mysteries of the Triduum is actually figuring out how to say the word! Kidding aside, my hope is that this reflection on the three days of Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Vigil can be helpful.

The earliest mention in Christian history of the “three sacred days” or triduum sacrum, was made by Saint Ambrose in the 4^th century. We know from the Acts of the Apostles that commemorating the Last Supper and Easter Sunday are core to Christian faith and practice. Celebrating the entirety of Jesus’ Passion, from Holy Thursday through Good Friday and into Holy Saturday, became normative over the centuries as a way for believers to truly enter into the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

In the Roman Catholic Church, Easter is always celebrated on the first Sunday that follows the first full moon that occurs after the Vernal Equinox. This formula for calculating the date of Easter sounds as strange as the word triduum. It was the Council of Nicaea in 325 that set this way of calculating Easter. The Council wanted to retain a strong connection with the Jewish Passover and Sunday as the day to celebrate Easter each year. This formula connects the natural world with the spiritual world in powerful ways that can be spread over the Triduum.

In a way, the door opens to Triduum on Palm Sunday, as if the Church is taking a deep breath before diving into the Paschal Mystery. Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Easter Vigil are like a long, slow exhale when we emerge into new life at the end of the celebrations. We remember, we grieve, and we stubbornly hold onto hope that is stronger than death.

The Triduum begins to unfold with the evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper. It is a night for remembering, rooted in the sacred tradition of Passover. The apostles accepted Jesus’ invitation to celebrate the rites of Passover with him in which they remembered how God is a God of liberation and freedom. Still, the evening also contained an unsettling feeling of something ending. Judas is identified as a betrayer. Peter, the Rock, is told in front of everyone that he will deny he even knows Jesus. Like any good-bye dinner, Jesus feels a sadness that nothing will be same from this night onwards.

We commemorate the institution of the Eucharist on Holy Thursday when Jesus breaks the bread, says the blessing, and offers it to his disciples as his Body. There is joy, there is sadness, and there is loving tenderness. Jesus does not overcome the darkness of sin through power but through service in which he offers his very self. When Jesus says, “this is my body,” it is as simple as his saying, “this is me.” When Jesus says, “this is my blood,” it is as simple as him saying, “this is my life.”

The Triduum continues as one continuous liturgy. We continue our slow, steady exhale because we cannot hold our breath at the foot of the cross on Good Friday. When we gather in the church to commemorate Good Friday, the altar is bare. The tabernacle is empty. The starkness is intensified by the abrupt opening prayer and the way in which the Passion reading confronts us. Many theologians and mystics have observed with awe that the only time Jesus does not call out to God as Father or Abba is on the cross. He prays, my God, my God, why have you abandoned me? At this moment, every human experience of abandonment, alienation, hopelessness, and fear is exposed as Jesus becomes the Christ who carries it all.

I remember presiding at a Good Friday liturgy while we were locked down during covid. It was just me, someone working the camera, a lector, and a musician. No one else was in the church. During the homily time, I looked directly into the camera and said to the watching, absent congregation, “I cannot see you, but I know you are there.” This phrase reminds me of the silent, stubborn hope of Holy Saturday.

While Jesus was entombed and the disciples were scattered, they only had their memories to carry them through. The many meals they shared with Jesus together, attending his healing and miracles, walking the long roads between towns and villages, learning from his preaching on the hillsides, breaking bread…and clinging to His promise that He would save His people and not abandon them. It was as if they too were saying, “I cannot see you, but I know you are there.” Until the Resurrection, all they had were memories and the craziest of hope that God would be a God who fulfills promises.

Which God did. And does.

East Vigil begins with a fire in the darkness. The ancient church would celebrate the Easter Vigil during the darkest hours of the night so that its conclusion would be accompanied by the rising of the sun. Saint John of the Cross, the great Spanish mystic, wrote that the tiniest of lights in the deepest of darkness blazes like a mighty sun. That’s why we light the new fire on the night of our vigil, awaiting the return of the Christ. We each share the light of the Easter candle, hearing the words of the sung Exultet, a light divided yet undimmed. We hear the stories of our salvation history, just as the apostles had heard their stories of freedom at the Last Supper. Those who are joining our communities of faith embrace baptism, confirmation, and Eucharist. Everything is made new again.

Resurrection is not an easy-to-reach happy ending. It is the divine response to every human experience of fear, evil, abandonment, and death. We live in a world today in which it is easier to focus on the darkness and feel hopeless, especially as nations wage war and division in cities breeds fear. Christian faith does not bypass the realities of what it means to live in the world, today, as it is. The Triduum allows us to remember not only what happened to Jesus, but what happens to us all. It allows us to embrace the stubborn belief that hope, in the love of Christ, will always have the last word.