What is your plan for Holy Week? Do you have one?
Gather the household and decide how you will follow in the footsteps of Jesus, from the Last Supper, to the Cross, to the Resurrection. Here are some ideas to get you started:
- Attend Mass and prayer services virtually during the week. Many dioceses and parishes are filming their services!
- Create a "sacred space" in your home where you can pray and attend Masses and services. Light some candles, enthrone an open Bible, or hang a crucifix.
- Prepare for each Mass by reading the Scriptures ahead of time. Use a Missal to help you follow along with the beautiful prayers for this week.
- Go to Confession. If your pastor cannot take appointments, make a spiritual Confession by confessing your sins directly to God, making an Act of Contrition from the heart, and resolving to go to Confession when you can. No pandemic can stop God's mercy!
- Make acts of spiritual communion. St. Thomas Aquinas reminds us that if we cannot receive Jesus in Holy Communion physically, He still comes to dwell in us we desire to receive Him and are in a state of grace. The grace of spiritual communion is JUST as real and effective!
- Do acts of mercy together as a family. Go for a walk and pray for your city; make Easter cards for the homebound or essential service providers; donate to a local charity; offer your fasting and abstinence on Good Friday for the sick, suffering, and deceased.
- Read and/or watch something spiritual.
- Pray the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary and the Stations of the Cross.
- Find a "virtual" Eucharistic Adoration Chapel and spend some extra time in prayer with the Lord.
- Hold onto beloved family traditions, like coloring Easter eggs, making hot cross buns or Easter bread, or cooking a favorite meal together.
What will you do this year? Share your ideas below!
This great idea came from our sisters in Canada! Here’s what I added:
- Pray the Divine Mercy chaplet together.
- Decorate a candle for Easter and light it Saturday night, using the prayers for the Easter candle from the Easter vigil service.
- Prepare a Passover meal (Seder meal) on Holy Thursday and/or read the story of the Exodus of the Jews from Egypt.
- On Good Friday, read the Gospel of the Passion aloud, dramatizing the different voices.
- Pray with the Seven Last Words of Jesus.
- Watch a DVD or movie on the Passion of Christ.
- Bake an Easter Lamb cake.
- Make an Easter egg tree.
- Make Easter decorations.
- Wear your Sunday-best clothes to your virtual Easter Mass.
- Put some decorations of Easter “new life” on your window or door (perhaps the words, “Christ is Risen, Alleluia!”)
- Have an Easter egg hunt at home or an Easter egg roll.
- Have an Easter “fashion show” at home.
- If weather permits and you have a space where you can do it, go kite-flying—homemade kites are the most fun!
- Of course, there’s always Easter cleaning…!
Image: Martha Artess for Cathopic