It is very
noticeable that many people during Pascha Week are one thing inside
church and completely different outside. In side church, black curtains, somber hymns, solemn readings, and concentrating on the
suffering of Christ. Outside of church, we often laugh, joke around,
socialize, think and talk about many worldly issues. We lose all the
spiritual depth that we gained inside church. Let us concentrate our
thoughts, conversations, and meditations around the events of this holy
week and the Passion of our Savior.
2. Retreat
During our regular fasting days, we pt the words of the bible before
us, “Consecrate a fast, call a sacred assembly.” (Joel 1:14). How much
more then should we apply this commandment during Holy Week? This week
should be characterized by solitude and retreat with God, by staying
away from idle discussions and various means of entertainment of
pleasure. Reserve your time to God and to spiritual activities worthy
of this week.
In the first hour of the Monday of the Holy
Pascha, we read Saint Shenouda’s homily, which warns us: “Brethren if
we want o escape God’s punishment and find mercy in His eyes, let us
sit every evening alone by ourselves and search our souls…”
3. Follow the Steps of Christ
Meditate on the events of the week one by one: from Palm Sunday, when
Christ refused His worldly kingdom and the Jews gave up their hope in
Him, until they crucified and buried Him. On Palm Sunday, ask
yourself, “Is Christ King and Lord over everything in my life? Do I,
like Christ, turn down worldly glory for spiritual and eternal glory?
During the General Funeral Service, do I consider myself attending my
own funeral?”
And when the church denounces Judas’ traitorous
kiss on the eve of the Wednesday of Pascha Week, ask yourself in
prayer, “How often, O Lord have I betrayed You? How many times have I
told You words of love in prayers, while my actions show the opposite
and my heart is far away from You?”
4. Share in the Fellowship of His Suffering
Saint Paul said, “That I may know Him and the power of His
resurrection, and the fellowship of His suffering, being conformed to
His death.” (Philippians 3:10) Can we give ourselves an exercise this
week to share in the fellowship of His suffering and be conformed to
His death? Can we follow Him in His suffering and ascend with Him to
the Cross? Can we say with Saint Paul, “With Christ I have been
crucified; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” ?
(Galatians 2:20).
Therefore, in order for Christ to live in
us, we have to carry our cross and follow Him. If you have a cross in
your life, do not complaint about it. Instead, rejoice in it and bear
it for Christ’s sake. “for to you has been granted on behalf of
Christ, not only to believe in Him but to suffer for His sake.”
(Philippians 1:29).
5. Asceticism
Whoever
puts the suffering of Christ before him will not take any pleasure in
eating and drinking or pampering the body. But in order to succeed in
pursuing asceticism, we must satisfy our souls with spiritual food so
that it may thrive and overcome physical hunger. It was customary for
the Church to fast until at least the 9th hour on normal fasting days
and until sunset during the Holy Week of Pascha.
Saint
Athanasius even declared that this period of Holy Week should be
received with “longer prayers, fasts, and vigils so that we may be able
to anoint our lintels with precious blood and escape the destroyer.”
And again, the blessed saint says, “Let us thus engage in the holy
fasts, as having been prescribed by Him, and by means of which we find
the way to God.”
6. Spiritual Readings
Spiritual
readings are also food for the soul. The church has organized for us a
treasure of appropriate readings for every day of the Holy Week,
comprised of Gospel readings, Old Testament prophesies that correspond
to the events of each day, spiritual explanations and sermons of the
Church Fathers. On Bright Saturday (Apocalypse night) the church reads
the entire Book of Revelation.
7. Hymns
The hymns of
the Pascha Week are moving and full of spiritual depth. Hymns, like
reading, preserve the thought from wandering and guide it in spiritual
direction. We should continue to recite the hymns while walking,
meditating, resting.
8. Prayer
Since the prayers
of the Agpeya are not used during Holy Week, we are to substitute
personal prayers in their place, in addition to the intensive prayers
of the church, asking the Lord who bore the sins of the world and died
for us, to forgive and have mercy upon us according to His great mercy.
9. Confession and Communion
During this week,
each person must sit with himself and remember his sins and put them on
Christ’s shoulders and tell Him in shame, “Carry O Lord my sins too,
with the sins of the rest of humanity. Take my sins and nail them to
the Cross with You, so that Your Blood may wipe them away!”
Look carefully at your sins and know that they are the cause of His
crucifixion. Many people cry out of their sorrow for Christ’s
suffering while they crucify Him every day with their sins. We should
not feel sorry for Christ during this week, but should be sorry for our
sins that caused Him these pains. As Jesus told the women that were
crying over Him, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not cry for Me, but cry
for yourselves and your children.” (Luke 23:28).
Before the
Cross, we all stand as sinners, all under the condemnation. “no one is
righteous, not even one.” (Psalm 14:3). We confess our sins and
prepare ourselves for communion. There are three liturgies during Holy
Week: on Passover Thursday, Holy Saturday, and Easter Sunday (Preceded,
of course, by the Liturgy of Palm Sunday).
10. Spiritual Storage
Pascha Week is not an opportunity to benefit for a week only, but a
time to store up spiritual nourishment enough to last the whole year,
particularly needed during the 50 days after the Resurrection when
there is no fasting.
Resources 
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