Today starts what is arguably the most important week of the Christian year. Palm Sunday marks the beginning of Holy Week. As Christians are a people of the risen Christ, Easter and His resurrection are the most important time of the church year.

Palm Sunday marks Jesus’s triumphant ride into Jerusalem. At this time as Christians around the world celebrate, this year so do our Jewish brothers and sisters as Passover begins at sundown tomorrow.

Thursday is one of my favorite services of the church year – the celebration of the last supper or the first eucharist. Christianity is like that a last is actually a first in a lot of ways. While this marks the anniversary of the last time Jesus would be with His disciples in this life, it marked the first time He would share His body and blood with them also. This is a basic tenet of Catholicism and a special weekly celebration in the church. There is no time like Holy Thursday, often in other sects of Christianity called Maundy Thursday, to celebrate before the horrible acts of the following day.

Good Friday is a complex day. I have often wondered how a day where the world lost, and yet also gained, its Saviour could be called good. The horrible things that happened on Good Friday are to always be remembered because they led to the wonderful resurrection. Jesus had truly done no harm. I am sure as a child, teen and young man He had annoyed those older than He but He had not done anything wrong. Yet, those people who did not know better, who did not believe sentenced Him to death.

As a young person who was raised an Episcopalian, I can remember Good Friday services. They were long. They started at noon and went until three o’clock. The significance was brought out in the readings done that day. Now, as an adult Catholic – a convert during those searching years of college, I attend a communion service and veneration of the cross at 3 pm on Friday. Then, my church – which hosts Stations of the Cross every Friday in Lent – holds a special Stations of the Cross at 7 or 7:30 pm. This time the stations are done Mary’s way. I did the readings for this one year. They are very hard to read as they are very much from a mother’s point of view. I still have a hard time just listening to them. These stations, not only done from Mary’s point of view, are also done backwards – from Christ’s death on the cross to his sentencing to death.

The celebration of light and life at the Easter Vigil Mass is the most wonderful mass of the entire year. First, as a convert, this mass holds special meaning as it is when new converts become Catholic. Second, it holds that special confirmation that we are a people of the risen Christ. It embodies all we believe in as Christians.

My next favorite mass will be Sunday, Easter morning. The children’s choir will celebrate in a more youthful manner. The church will be decked out in balloons and other symbols – mostly of new life – that children enjoy and understand. There will be butterflies and the children will sing at mass.

My thoughts and prayers, of course, will be with all my family and friends as we enter this glorious week.