Holy Week

When: The week from Palm Sunday to Holy Saturday (the dates change each year)

Holy Week is the most serious week of the Christian year. Christians remember the last meal of Jesus with his friends on Thursday, his death on Friday, and the silence of Saturday, before the joy of Easter.

Where it came from

The Gospels spend a surprising amount of space on the last week of Jesus's life. Early Christians in Jerusalem walked the places where it happened. The pilgrim Egeria, in the late 300s, describes services at the Mount of Olives, the place of the Last Supper and the tomb. These services spread across the church and became Holy Week.

Holy Thursday remembers the Last Supper and the washing of feet, when Jesus said to love one another (John 13). Good Friday remembers his trial and death on the cross. Holy Saturday is a day of waiting. The services of the Easter Vigil begin after dark.

How it is kept around the world

• Spain. In Seville, Málaga and many towns, brotherhoods carry heavy floats (pasos) with statues through the streets in slow processions, with music and crowds.
• Guatemala. In Antigua, people make carpets (alfombras) of coloured sawdust, flowers and pine needles in the streets, and processions walk over them.
• The Philippines. People go on Visita Iglesia on Holy Thursday, chant the Pasyon, and act out plays (senakulo). On Good Friday many keep silence. In a few villages, people practise intense public penances. The Church does not encourage these. On Easter morning comes the Salubong.
• Greece and Orthodox countries. On Good Friday, people decorate a flower-covered tomb (the epitaphios) and carry it through the streets by candlelight.
• The United Kingdom. People eat hot cross buns on Good Friday.
• Jerusalem. Pilgrims walk the Via Dolorosa on Good Friday and visit the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

Christians differ

Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican and Lutheran churches keep Holy Week with special services on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Many other Protestant churches keep Good Friday and Easter, and some gather for a service on Thursday as well. Some churches treat Good Friday with dark silence, others with a more hopeful tone. What all share is the wish to take the story of the cross seriously, and so to understand why Easter is joy.

Do it together

Ages 0 to 2

• Share a simple meal, such as bread, together, and say “thank you”.
• Wash a toy's hands or feet gently in a basin and dry them with a towel.

Ages 3 to 5

• Share bread and grape juice and say what you are thankful for.
• Wash someone's feet or hands gently as a sign of caring, and say “I love you”.

Ages 6 to 8

• Read John 13:1–17 and wash one another's feet at home, or serve someone at the table.
• Make a quiet corner with a candle and a cross for the week.

Ages 9 to 12

• Follow Holy Week day by day in a Gospel, noting where Jesus is each day.
• Choose one act of service for each day: one quiet, one hidden, one for someone who cannot repay.

Ages 13 to 17

• Read the account of the Last Supper and of Good Friday in one Gospel, slowly. What stands out to you?
• Spend ten minutes in silence on Saturday, and write about waiting.

A short prayer

Jesus, thank you for loving us to the end. Teach us to serve one another, and keep us with you in the waiting. Amen.

Mark as done

Where this comes from

• Gospel of John 13 to 19; Gospel of Matthew 26 to 28
• John F. Baldovin, Liturgy in Ancient Jerusalem (Grove Books, 1989)
• F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone, eds., The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd ed. (Oxford University Press, 2005), entries “Holy Week”, “Maundy Thursday” and “Good Friday”
• UNESCO and Guatemalan cultural sources on the Holy Week carpets of Antigua Guatemala

Written with AI assistance and checked against the sources listed. Please read it before sharing it with a child.