Holy Week (The Holy Pascha)
Churches and monasteries are preparing from now to receive Holy Week.
It is the holiest of all the days of the year, and the deepest in its impact on the soul.
Christian emperors used to suspend the affairs of the state during this week in order to give people the opportunity for worship; they even released prisoners from jails so that they might participate in the prayers of this week.
Christians would conduct themselves during this week with very severe asceticism; their food in it did not exceed bread and salt. Those of weak health and the sick who were compelled to take sustenance to support them would eat other foods, but they would not eat cooked dishes, nor would they eat anything sweet-tasting, whatever it might be, among plant-based foods.
As for the monks, many of them would fast continuously for days. Most of them would take no food at all from Great Friday until the Prayer of the Feast of the Resurrection.
But abstaining from food in fasting naturally requires the guidance of the confessor father.
The people would spend the entire week in the church, in worship, fully immersed in the hymns of this week with all the depth and spirituality they bear, and in the selected Pascha readings that trace the steps of Christ step by step throughout this week, and in listening to sermons, contemplations, and the sayings of the holy fathers.
All the people would prepare themselves to partake of Holy Communion on Covenant Thursday, because all the liturgies of the year are derived from this immortal day.
In these days, the people gather spiritual books that contain contemplations on Holy Week and its events, so that they may be their provision throughout this week, focusing all their thought on the sufferings of Christ, who suffered for our sake, out of love, offering, and redemption.
The sight of the churches, draped in black, with the sanctuary closed, and the people in the second choir (outside the camp) calling upon the Lord in His sufferings, saying, “Yours is the power and the glory and the blessing and the might forever. Amen,” truly leaves a very deep impact within the heart, encompassing all human feelings.
Let us therefore prepare ourselves spiritually for this great week, which is the deepest of the days of the year in spirit, the richest in contemplation, and the most compelling toward a life of repentance.
An article by His Holiness Pope Shenouda III – Al-Keraza Magazine – Seventh Year (Issue Sixteen), 16-4-1976.
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