Our long journey to the font cilminates in the Easter Trduum. These three days draw us into the mystery of our salvation. whatever we are doing these days, these prayers and resources can help us be open to the graces the day offers. Each mornig, we can pause to acknowledge the meaning of the day ahead. Each night, we can give thanks.

Even if we cannot celebrate these days liturgically, we can reflect upon the symbols and rituals, and let the prayers of the liturgies draw us in. All, that we might know the depth of the love being offered us, and power of the gift of life won for us.

The Holy Thursday liturgy, celebrated in the evening because Passover began at sundown, also shows both the worth God ascribes to the humility of service, and the need for cleansing with water (a symbol of baptism) in the washing, in Jesus' washing the feet of His disciples, and in the priest's stripping and washing of the altar. Cleansing, in fact, gave this day of Holy Week the name Maundy Thursday.

The action of the Church on this night also witnesses to the Church's esteem for Christ's Body present in the consecrated Host in the Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, carried in solemn procession to the flower-bedecked Altar of Repose, where it will remain 'entombed' until the communion service on Good Friday. No Mass will be celebrated again in the Church until the Easter Vigil proclaims the Resurrection.

And finally, there is the Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament by the people during the night, just as the disciples stayed with the Lord during His agony on the Mount of Olives before the betrayal by Judas.

On Good Friday, the entire Church fixes her gaze on the Cross at Calvary. Each member of the Church tries to understand at what cost Christ has won our redemption. In the solemn ceremonies of Good Friday, in the Adoration of the Cross, in the chanting of the 'Reproaches', in the reading of the Passion, and in receiving the pre-consecrated Host, we unite ourselves to our Savior, and we contemplate our own death to sin in the Death of our Lord.

The Church - stripped of its ornaments, the altar bare, and with the door of the empty tabernacle standing open - is as if in mourning. In the fourth century the Apostolic Constitutions described this day as a 'day of mourning, not a day of festive joy,' and this day was called the 'Pasch (passage) of the Crucifixion.'

The liturgical observance of this day of Christ's suffering, crucifixion and death evidently has been in existence from the earliest days of the Church. No Mass is celebrated on this day, but the service of Good Friday is called the Mass of the Presanctified because Communion (in the species of bread) which had already been consecrated on Holy Thursday is given to the people.

Traditionally, the organ is silent from Holy Thursday until the Alleluia at the Easter Vigil, as are all bells or other instruments, the only music during this period being unaccompanied chant.

The omission of the prayer of consecration deepens our sense of loss because Mass throughout the year reminds us of the Lord's triumph over death, the source of our joy and blessing. The desolate quality of the rites of this day reminds us of Christ's humiliation and suffering during his Passion. We can see that the parts of the Good Friday service correspond to the divisions of Mass:

• Liturgy of the Word - reading of the Passion.
• Intercessory prayers for the Church and the entire world, Christian and non-Christian.
• Veneration of the Cross.
• Communion, or the 'Mass of the Pre-Sanctified'.

The Veneration of the Cross

In the seventh century, the Church in Rome adopted the practice of Adoration of the Cross from the Church in Jerusalem, where a fragment of wood believed to be the Lord's cross had been venerated every year on Good Friday since the fourth century. According to tradition, a part of the Holy Cross was discovered by the mother of the emperor Constantine, St. Helen, on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 326. A fifth century account describes this service in Jerusalem. A coffer of gold-plated silver containing the wood of the cross was brought forward. The bishop placed the relic on the a table in the chapel of the Crucifixion and the faithful approached it, touching brow and eyes and lips to the wood as the priest said (as every priest has done ever since): 'Behold, the Wood of the Cross'.

Adoration or veneration of an image or representation of Christ's cross does not mean that we are actually adoring the material image, of course, but rather what it represents. In kneeling before the crucifix and kissing it we are paying the highest honor to the our Lord's cross as the instrument of our salvation. Because the Cross is inseparable from His sacrifice, in reverencing His Cross we are, in effect, adoring Christ. Thus we affirm: 'We adore Thee, O Christ, and we bless Thee because by Thy Holy Cross Thou has Redeemed the World'.

Holy Saturday (in Latin, Sabbatum Sanctum), the 'day of the entombed Christ,' is the Lord's day of rest, for on that day Christ's body lay in His tomb. We recall the Apostle's Creed which says "He descended unto the dead." It is a day of suspense between two worlds, that of darkness, sin and death, and that of the Resurrection and the restoration of the Light of the World. For this reason no divine services are held until the Easter Vigil at night. This day between Good Friday and Easter Day makes present to us the end of one world and the complete newness of the era of salvation inaugurated by the Resurrection of Christ.

The night vigil of Easter signifies Christ's passage from the dead to the living by the liturgy which begins in darkness (sin, death) and is enlightened by the fire and the candle representing Lumen Christi (the Light of Christ) just as the Church, the Mystical Body of Christ, the community of believers, is led from spiritual darkness to the light of His truth. Christ's baptism, which our own baptism imitates, is represented during the liturgy by the blessing of the water of baptism by immersing (`burying') the candle representing His Body into the font.

During the liturgy we recall God's sparing of the Hebrews whose doors were marked with the blood of the lamb; we are sprinkled with the blessed water by which we were cleansed from original sin through Christ's sacrifice, and we repeat our baptismal vows, renouncing Satan and all his works. We rejoice at Christ's bodily resurrection from the darkness of the tomb; and we pray for our passage from death into eternal life, from sin into grace, from the weariness and infirmity of old age to the freshness and vigor of youth, from the anguish of the Cross to peace and unity with God, and from this sinful world unto the Father in heaven.

The Easter Vigil includes a blessing of water. The water is a sign of purification and of baptism. Holy water, that is, water that has been ceremonially blessed is a sacramental. Sacramentals are "sacred signs which bear a resemblance to the sacraments [by which the faithful are] given access to the stream of divine grace which flows from the paschal mystery of the passion, death, and resurrection of Christ the fountain from which all sacraments and sacramentals draw their power". [Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, No. 60. Second Vatican Council Documents] Some other common sacramentals are blessed palm (and the ashes used on Ash Wednesday made from them), candles, medals, priestly blessings and other prayers.

Water blessed during the Easter Vigil is used for baptisms and other blessings. This water does not last the whole year, so there is a special blessing for holy water used at other times of the year, also. Traditionally the blessing of holy water includes an exorcism, or protection against evil, and the addition of salt, a spiritual symbol of wisdom which preserves our faith.

Catholic churches have basins, or fonts, containing holy water near the entrance so that believers can dip their fingers in it before making the sign of the cross as they enter the House of God as a symbol of purification. This simple gesture reminds believers of their consecration to Christ in baptism, and visibly indicates their acceptance of the Catholic faith.

The blessed water is available for members of the parish to keep at home, to use for special prayers and blessings. In European Churches there are usually large stone basins filled with holy water near the entrance which are used by people in making the sacramental sign and also serve as reservoirs.

A bottle of holy water used to be found in virtually every Catholic home, but the private use of holy water has diminished, probably because people no longer know what it is used for or how to use it. However, it is a very powerful sign and children especially love to learn to use holy water to bless a wreath or flowers or other special religious articles used in the home as a sign of consecration to the Lord. It would be good to have a small bowl or font of holy water near the entrance door of the house for family members to use during the penitential season of Lent.

The Paschal candle represents Christ, the Light of the World: "I am the light of the world. He that followeth me walketh not in darkness" [John 8:12]. The pure beeswax of which the candle is made represents the sinless Christ who was formed in the womb of His Mother. The wick signifies His humanity, the flame, His Divine Nature, both soul and body. Five grains of incense inserted into the candle in the form of a cross recall the aromatic spices with which His Sacred Body was prepared for the tomb, and of the five wounds in His hands, feet, and side.

During the Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday night the priest or deacon carries the candle in procession into the dark church. A new fire, symbolizing our eternal life in Christ, is kindled which lights the candle. The candle, representing Christ himself, is blessed by the priest who then inscribes in it a cross, the first letters and last of the Greek alphabet, (Alpha and Omega 'the beginning and the end') and the current year, as he chants the prayer below; then affixes the five grains of incense.

The Easter candle is the largest and most beautiful in the Church. It is a reminder of the Risen Redeemer "who shining in light left the tomb". It is lighted each day during Mass throughout the Paschal season until Ascension Thursday.

In Rome, the wax of the Easter candle from St. Peter's is used to make little locket-like Agnus Dei (Lamb of God) medals. The heart-shaped gold-colored locket is embossed with a cross and a lamb and contains a drop of blessed wax.