What are the seven days of Holy Week?

With Easter now just a few days away, we are in the middle of Holy Week for Christian believers all around the world. The seven-day celebration marks the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and this year began on Sunday, 24 March.

In many Catholic nations the Holy Week, or Semana Santa in Spanish, is proceeded by a Palm Sunday procession through the streets of towns and cities. The ceremony celebrates the triumphant return of Christ to Jerusalem in the week leading up to his death.

Christian teachings say that he was greeted with crowds wearing palm leaves. This practice is now followed around the world and Pope Francis led the ceremony in St. Peter square at the Vatican last Sunday. Palm Sunday is the sixth Sunday of lent, bringing the period to a close and heralding the beginning of the Holy Week.

The seven days of the Christian Holy Week

In the Christian religion the Holy week is comprised of the seven days leading up to Easter Sunday. It marks the week after Jesus Christ returned to Jerusalem for a final time.

Each day of the week has its own significance in Christian teachings and represents a different event in final days of Christ’s life.

The seven days of the Holy Week are:

- Palm Sunday – Christians celebrate Christ’s return to Jerusalem, when people welcomed him by waving palm branches and laying the leaves in his path

- Holy Monday – Jesus Christ is said to have attended the temple and cleaned it, noting that a fig tree was not bearing fruits.

- Holy Tuesday – Christ condemned the religious authorities in the city, leading the Pharisees and the Herodians to conspire against him.

- Holy Wednesday (Spy Wednesday) – Judas Iscariot is said to have met with religious leaders and agreed to betray Christ for 30 pieces of silver.

- Maundy Thursday – Also known as Holy Thursday, this day is when Jesus had his last supper.

- Good Friday – The day on which Jesus Christ was crucified, now often remembered with church services, annual procession and a Good Friday address from the Pope.

- Holy Saturday (Black Saturday) – The day on which Christ was buried in a tomb in the mountains above Jerusalem.

The Holy Week is followed by Easter Sunday, the day on which the resurrection of Jesus Christ is celebrated by Christian believers all around the world. It also marks the first day of the new season of the Great Fifty Days, which covers the period from Easter Day to Pentecost Sunday.

The Church, from as early as the third century, let the Easter joy overflow into a 50-day season from Easter to Pentecost, in which kneeling in prayer was forbidden and the newly baptized delved into the meaning of what they had experienced. Fifty days is also just about one-seventh of the whole year, so these 50 days hold the same relationship to the year as Sunday does to the week. That’s why the 50 days of Easter are known as the Great Sunday of the entire year.