The Great Three Days
The Paschal Triduum
“The three days from Maundy Thursday through the Great Paschal Vigil of Saturday night is the source of our spirituality. Our spiritual journey throughout the year springs from this week, the great paschal mystery of Christ’s death and resurrection, and it returns to this week to die with Christ and to be born anew in him.”
Robert Webber
Maundy Thursday
“In [washing the disciples’ feet], Jesus reverses every assumption that might have been held about the rights and privileges of power as well as the very nature of love.”
“Have we caught the smallest glimpse of what it means for the Christ of creation to wash the feet of common people – people like ourselves? Has the magnitude of his compassion penetrated our composure? Has his love broken the hard shell of our guilty conscience?”
Steven Purcell
Rembrandt Van Rijn, Christ Washing the Disciples’ Feet
Good Friday
“Alone to sacrifice Thou goest, Lord,
Giving Thyself to death whom Thou wilt slain.
For us Thy wretched folk is any word,
Whose sins have brought Thee to this agony?
For they are ours, O Lord, our deeds, our deeds.
Why must Thou suffer torture for our sin?
Let our hearts suffer for Thy passion, Lord,
That very suffering may Thy mercy win.
This is that night of tears, the three days’ space,
Sorrow abiding of the eventide,
Until the day break with the risen Christ,
And hearts that sorrowed shall be satisfied.
So may our hearts share in Thine anguish, Lord,
That they may sharers of Thy glory be:
Heavy with weeping may the three days pass,
To win the laughter of Thine Easter Day.”
Peter Abelard
Bruce Herman, The Flogging
“O God, who made this most holy night to shine with the
glory of the Lord’s resurrection: Stir up in your Church that
Spirit of adoption which is given to us in Baptism, that we,
being renewed both in body and mind, may worship you in
sincerity and truth; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives
and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God,
now and forever. Amen.”
Book of Common Prayer
Giotto di Bondone, Lamentation of Christ
“The message of Easter is that God’s new world has been unveiled in Jesus Christ and that you’re now invited to belong to it.”
“… with Easter, God’s new creation is launched upon a surprised world, pointing ahead to the renewal, the redemption, the rebirth of the entire creation … every act of love, every deed done in Christ and by the Spirit, every work of creativity—doing justice, making peace, healing families, resisting temptation, seeking and winning true freedom—is an earthly event in a long history of things that implement Jesus own resurrection and anticipate the final new creation and act as signposts of hope.”
N.T. Wright
Makoto Fujimura, Charis