Lent and Holy Week
Lent and Holy Week is the Roman Rite season of baptismal preparation and penance leading through Palm Sunday to the Paschal Triduum.
The forty days
Lent runs from Ash Wednesday until the Mass of the Lord's Supper begins on Holy Thursday. Its forty-day pattern evokes Jesus' fast and biblical periods of testing and preparation; Sundays belong to Lent but are not counted among its traditional forty penitential days.
Vatican II identifies a baptismal and penitential character. Catechumens prepare for initiation, the baptized renew conversion, and the whole Church gives intensified attention to Scripture, prayer, fasting, almsgiving, and reconciliation.[1]
Holy Week
Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord opens Holy Week by joining Christ's entrance into Jerusalem to the solemn proclamation of his Passion. The Chrism Mass, ordinarily celebrated during Holy Week, manifests the presbyterate's communion with the bishop and consecrates or blesses oils for sacramental use.[2]
Holy Thursday before the evening Mass remains part of Lent; with the Mass of the Lord's Supper the Paschal Triduum begins. Eastern Catholic churches have their own Great Fasts and Holy Week structures and should not be described as following the Roman sequence by default.
References
- Back to citation Sacrosanctum Concilium — Sections 109–110 on Lent's baptismal and penitential character.
- Back to citation Homiletic Directory — Official treatment of Lenten and Holy Week liturgies.