{"id":12024,"date":"2021-06-30T02:15:21","date_gmt":"2021-06-30T02:15:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.franciscansusa.org\/?p=12024"},"modified":"2025-10-08T14:06:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-08T18:06:07","slug":"why-triduum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.franciscansusa.org\/it\/why-triduum\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Triduum?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The primary celebration of Christians is their gathering on Lord\u2019s Day. It is the Day of Christ\u2019s Resurrection on the first day of the week. Every feast in the liturgical calendar pales in comparison. It did not take long for early Christians to begin celebrating one of those weekly Sundays in a special way, once a year, so as to experience in an explicit, more powerful way the prime importance of every Sunday. Sunday is the remembrance and proclamation of \u201cthe mystery of faith.\u201d He is risen!<\/p>\n

This annual Sunday celebration of Christ\u2019s Passover, from death in mortal flesh into eternal life of glory at the right hand of the Father, begins with the Holy Thursday evening Mass of the Lord\u2019s Supper. Why? This then-new annual celebration of the Paschal (Easter) Lamb soon became a three-day celebration of the one Easter liturgy. It concludes with the renewal of the Alleluia near the end of Vigil of Easter on the night of Holy Saturday. It is important to remember that this three-day sacred celebration is not a commemoration. It is rather one single liturgy: actually to share in the ongoing here and now accomplishment of our salvation.<\/p>\n

The Holy Thursday introduction of the Lord\u2019s Supper is marked primarily by the humiliation of a servant pouring water into a basin and washing feet. From there he opens what it means to share in his Passion, namely \u201cto do the same.\u201d Good Friday brings us to the suffering of Christ in a Liturgy of the Word that proclaims the Gospel of the Lord\u2019s Passion. Holy Saturday is the stark silence with Jesus in the tomb, as he descends among the dead. No liturgy of any kind is celebrated.<\/p>\n

These three events find their completion during the night of the vigil of Easter. A primary symbol of the resurrection is that of light overcoming darkness: \u201cChrist our light!\u201d During that night we listen to the biblical narratives of the history of our salvation and anticipate a new dawn. We wait for the outbreak of a new Easter \u201cAlleluia.\u201d With that \u201cAlleluia,\u201d the Gospel of Jesus\u2019 Resurrection is proclaimed. The Easter Eucharist begins. All three Easter sacraments are celebrated: baptism, confirmation, and first Eucharist (for adults).<\/p>\n

This primary Easter Vigil Eucharist is the most important Eucharist of the entire liturgical year. It gives deeper meaning to every other Sunday of the year. Thereafter, beginning on Easter morning and through the seven Sundays of Easter leading to Pentecost, we continue to celebrate the \u201cone great Sunday,\u201d ever proclaiming anew the \u201cMystery of Faith.\u201d<\/p>\n

HE IS RISEN!<\/h1>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/section>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The primary celebration of Christians is their gathering on Lord\u2019s Day. It is the Day of Christ\u2019s Resurrection on the first day of the week. Every feast in the liturgical calendar pales in comparison. It did not take long for early Christians to begin celebrating one of those weekly Sundays in a special way, once...","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12025,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[82],"tags":[137],"class_list":["post-12024","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-2021-summer-newsletter-celebrating-the-paschal-season","tag-friar-wayne-hellmann"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-29 00:56:14","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.franciscansusa.org\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12024","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.franciscansusa.org\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.franciscansusa.org\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.franciscansusa.org\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.franciscansusa.org\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12024"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.franciscansusa.org\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12024\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12034,"href":"https:\/\/www.franciscansusa.org\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12024\/revisions\/12034"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.franciscansusa.org\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.franciscansusa.org\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.franciscansusa.org\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.franciscansusa.org\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}