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...

In the early centuries of the Church, Christianity tended to be rather selective regarding whom we would or would not Baptize. It wasn’t a matter of proving one’s worth; the grace of Christ is freely given to sinners, superabundantly, profligately. But people had to know what they were getting into. Jesus promises His followers a cross, after all, and for nearly 300 years Christians had been persecuted by the Roman Empire. The baptismal symbolism of death and resurrection—joined to Christ’s own death, already died for us, that we need never fear death again, and to Christ’s own eternal life already begun—would have been far more than mere sentiment in those days. Christians courted death simply by professing our faith in Christ. Indeed, many were killed while awaiting their Baptism, thus held to have been “baptized in their blood.” In ancient Rome, catechumens could expect a three-year period of preparation, prayer, and formal instruction for at least an hour a week. Jerusalem sped thi...