Quadragesima Sunday, the first Sunday in Lent, is so called by analogy with the three Sundays which precede Lent, and which (as has already been stated) are called respectively Septuagesima, seventieth; Sexagesima, sixtieth; Quinquagesima, fiftieth; and then Quadragesima, fortieth; in round numbers forty days before Easter.
Holy Week, the last week in Lent, called also Passion Week, because within it is commemorated our Lord’s sufferings. The days specially solemnized are Palm Sunday, Spy Wednesday, Holy, or Maundy Thursday, and Good Friday.
Palm Sunday (Latin Dominica Palmarium, or Dominica in Palmis) is the name usually given the Sunday before Easter; a day celebrated in commemoration of Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem, so called because the people who had come to the feast, when they heard that Jesus was coming, took branches of palm trees and went forth to meet him, and cried, “Hosanna; blessed is the King of Israel that cometh in the name of the Lord.”
Spy Wednesday, so called in allusion to the betrayal of Christ by Judas, or the day on which he made the bargain to deliver him into the hands of his enemies for thirty pieces of silver.
Maundy Thursday (from Dies mandati, mandate Thursday), so called either from the command given his disciples to love one another, or to commemorate the sacrament of His supper.
Good Friday, so called in acknowledgment of the benefit derived from the death of Christ.
The closing scenes in the life of Christ, the events of Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of Holy Week, are events of much more importance than were ever before crowded into any one week in the history of the world. The betrayal on Wednesday, the institution of the sacrament on Thursday night, also the words of our Saviour as recorded in John’s gospel, from the 14th to the 17th chapters inclusive, the agony and the bloody sweat in the garden, the arrest and trial during Thursday night and Friday morning, the crucifixion at the third hour, the darkness that was over all the land from the sixth to the ninth hour, and the last words of the blessed Jesus, “It is finished,” (tasted death for every man); these we say, are events of more importance to man than were ever before crowded into any one week in the world’s history.
The prophets who prophesied of these things, inquired and searched diligently, “searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow.” And about an hour before this prophecy began to be fulfilled our Saviour uttered these words: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, that ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice; and ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy.” It was probably not more than an hour from the time these words fell from the Saviour’s lips, that he was arrested and led away to undergo a trial; cruel mocking and scourging, crucifixion and death upon the cross.
Then cometh Joseph of Arimathea, bringing fine linen, and Nicodemus with his hundred pounds of myrrh and aloes, and they two took the body of the Lord Jesus and wrapped it in the linen with the spices, and laid it in Joseph’s own new tomb, which he had hewn out in a rock, wherein never man before was laid, and rolled a great stone against the door of the sepulcher and departed. Thus endeth Passion Week. While the body of Jesus is in the sepulcher the world is rejoicing, and the disciples are weeping and lamenting, according to the words of the Saviour, “Ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice.”
He dies! the friend of sinners dies!
Lo! Salem’s daughters weep around;
A solemn darkness veils the skies,
A sudden trembling shakes the ground.