Templar Edification

Holy Week is Sunday for the entire year. Early on in our history, the Church celebrated but two holy days: Sunday, the weekly day of Resurrection; and Pascha, our Lord’s annual Passover from death to life. While most Christians throughout most of history have continued to celebrate Jesus’ Resurrection as Pascha, we in English call it Easter. Even so, you can hear echoes of the Greek in terms such as Paschal Lamb or Paschal Candle—for indeed, Jesus is our Passover Lamb. In liturgical traditions, Holy Week marks the culmination of the Church year, celebrating with great solemnity and jubilation our Lord’s Passion, Crucifixion, and Resurrection. It all begins with Palm Sunday, when Christ rides triumphally into Jerusalem to shouts of “Hosanna!” while crowds lay their cloaks and palm branches before Him. Keep in mind that Jesus has journeyed to Jerusalem several times a year throughout His life in order to celebrate the biblical holy days, especially Passover: the foundational story of God...

March 25 passes largely unobserved in much, if not most, of the modern Western Church. Yet for the majority of Christian history this has proved an auspicious date indeed. March 25, precisely nine months before Christmas, commemorates the Annunciation—sometimes known in English circles as Lady Day—when the angel Gabriel announced to the Blessed Virgin Mary that she would bear the Son of God. This event marks the beginning of the Incarnation; that is, of the Creator becoming one with Creation by taking on human flesh. Regardless of our stances on when human life begins, we cannot deny that each of us begins within the womb. And so Mary becomes what Martin Luther called finitum capax infiniti: the finite containing the Infinite. She is the New Ark bearing forth the New Creation. She is, in short, the Theotokos, the Holy Mother of God. To deny her this title would be to deny the divinity of her Son. Medieval tradition understood that March 25 marked not only the date of Jesus’ death on th...