We will discover how the three holy days – Passion, Burial and Resurrection of Christ – are a single mystery to be lived with full faith, not as separate events but as a single saving action. A meditation that invites each person to question his or her own place in the Church and the authentic meaning of the Easter celebration.
For the implementation of the Liturgical Reform promulgated by the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, St. Paul VI established a Council that was to draw up the principles and norms for implementing what the Constitution for the Sacred Liturgy had decreed, after its approval at the hands of the Council Fathers, the secretary of this Council was Fr. Annibale Bugnini C.M., later ordained archbishop and sent, again by St. Paul VI, Nuncio In Iran. To his dedication and suffering we owe much if today we can enjoy the implementation of the Liturgical Reform. In this regard, I warmly invite you to read the following works: ANNIBALE BUGNINI C.M. Liturgiae cultor et amator. He served the Church. Autobiographical Memoirs, Edizioni LITURGICHE, Rome, 2012; A. LAMERI, Annibale Bugnini, Liturgia pastorale e riforma liturgica. Lezioni lateranensi, Rome, 2023, Edizioni Liturgiche; P. MARINI, I primi passi della riforma liturgica del Concilio Vaticano II. The Consilium ad exequendam Constitutionem de Sacra Liturgia. Rome, 2024, Edizioni Liturgiche.
Fr. Bugnini C.M. and his Council (Consilium ad exquenda constitutionme de Sacra Liturgia), made a remarkable effort to fine-tune the celebrations of the Three Holy Days. The experience of several years has shown the excellence of this work. Of course. Not everything that appeared ideal was achieved. The difficulty lay in keeping the right balance in a return to the past, not archaeological, but expressing a clearer and more pastorally evident theology. In parishes where an effective work of adult catechesis has been carried out, the result of this renewal is evident. Elsewhere, such a renewal has all the air of a mere change of rubrics; it is then completely useless. One notices, particularly in certain communities, the tendency to shorten celebrations or to fix them at inopportune times that mutilate them in part of their meaning. This is the case, for example, of certain Easter Vigils that often begin too early, citing tiredness on the part of the faithful. Which proves that the central meaning of Easter has not yet been fully grasped.
As is known, since the celebration of Holy Saturday had been moved to the morning, the days of the Sacred Triduum had shifted and had become Thursday, Friday and Saturday. The difficulty lay in bringing Holy Thursday into the Triduum, while maintaining and affirming that the Triduum is that of the dead, buried and risen Jesus. In this regard, a solemn celebration of Holy Saturday and a mass on Easter Day could compromise this traditional theology of the Triduum. Apparently what has been achieved, taking into account a certain evolution, leaves the theology of the Triduum in evidence. Provided that these days are not presented as a fraction and thus a dispersion of the one Easter mystery, but as a unified way of celebrating it, so that each individual day is firmly connected to the other two.
Already at the end of the 4th century, St Ambrose of Milan used the expression Triduum Sacrum. With it he intended to indicate the historical stages of the paschal mystery: during these three days Christ et passus est, et quievit, et resurrexit[1] . St Augustine, on the other hand, used the expression Sacratissimun Triduum to designate the three days of Christ cricifixi, sepulti, suscitati[2] . The expression Easter Triduum appears to be no earlier than 1930[3] . The Eucharistic celebration on the evening of Maundy Thursday and that of Easter Day risked destroying the ancient unity of the Triduum. St Leo the Great, however, is so aware of the unity of the paschal mystery that he defines the Easter night pascale sacramentum[4]
The importance of the celebration of the Easter Triduum for the daily implementation of the Father’s will for every Christian.
The central point of the Christian life is to do the will of the Father, which is to live one’s vocation happily. Of course it is essential that each one of us occupy the place in the Church assigned to him by the Father and not the place he has set for himself, or that others have forced him to occupy, otherwise one cannot be a happy Christian.
The celebration of the Easter Triduum, each Liturgical Year, could be the occasion to summarise our Christian life, that is, the occasion to reflect on whether we occupy the place in the Church that the Father has assigned to us.
Let us start meditating from the Vigil, the mother of all vigils.
Let us ask ourselves if we have met the Risen One! When we say: Christ is truly Risen is it a phrase we repeat, or is it a reality. Can I affirm daily that I meet the Risen One in my brothers and sisters? When the Easter candle is lit at the vigil, which I will follow as a light for my life, will it be just one gesture among many, or will it be a sign that reflects a daily reality?
If I have met the Risen One, I will not conform to what the majority thinks about an issue, but I will have the courage to seek the truth, even if I am alone: the majority is not synonymous with truth. The trial of Jesus is the most eloquent sign of this. In my life as a Church I am a person who does not want trouble, a weak person, a person who conforms to the law of the strongest, so at the trial would I have shouted for Barabbas? If I play a role, do I have the courage of Jesus, because I have met the Risen One, or am I the Pilate of the situation and wash my hands of it and try to cover up even the most blatant lie, so that the weak remain the victim of the powerful of the moment?
Does my celebration of the Eucharist reflect the reality of the words and deeds I perform, or is it an expression of my self-referentiality, even in the exercise of charity which, on Holy Thursday is expressed by the sign of the washing of the feet?
My encounter with the Risen One leads me to recognise myself as a hired labourer in the building site of the Holy Spirit, so that I never consider the good done to be my merit, but His merit?
These lines can, during the Easter Triduum, help us to summarise our Christian life.
By Fr. Giorgio Bontempi C.M.
[1] AMBROSE OF MILAN, Epist.,23, 12-13; PL. !6, 1039.
[2] AUGUSTINE OF HIPPONA, Epist. 55,24: PL 33, 215.
[3] According to P. Jounel, Le Triduum pascal in A. G. Martimort (ed), L’Eglise en Prière, IV, Paris, 193, 59 n. 28 [tr. It. La Chiesa in preghiera, IV, Brescia 194, 65 n.28].
[4] LEO MAGNO; Serm., 72, 1:, CCL 138, A, 441.
