2009-03-30 14:45:43

Pope’s Holy Week schedule


(March 30, 2009) The collection that will be made during Pope Benedict XVI’s Holy Thursday Mass of the Last Supper on April 9th will be sent to the tiny Catholic community in Gaza Strip. The Office of Papal Liturgical Celebrations made the announcement on Monday as it released Pope Benedict’s Holy Week programme this year. The 40-day Lenten period that Christians observe each year culminates with Holy Week that celebrates the most sacred mysteries of the Christian faith, namely the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The Pope will start the Holy Week on April 5 with the celebration of Palm Sunday in St. Peter’s Square, which marks the triumphant entry of Jesus into Jerusalem before his death. Palm Sunday is also marked as World Youth Day at the diocesan level, and this year’s theme is ‘We have placed our hope in the living God.” On Holy Thursday the Pope will concelebrate the Chrism Mass in the morning in St. Peter’s Basilica with cardinals, bishops and priests of Rome diocese. In the evening he will celebrate the Mass of the Last Supper in St. John Lateran basilica, during which the tradition of the Washing of the Feet ceremony will be observed. On Good Friday, April 10, the Pope will preside over the Liturgy of the Word in St. Peter’s Basilica in the morning. In the evening he will lead a candle-lit Way of the Cross at Rome’s famed landmark, the Coliseum. This year, Pope Benedict has asked Indian Archbishop Thomas Menaparampil of Guwahati to write the meditations of the Way of the Cross. On the night of April 11, the Pope will lead the Easter Vigil Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica. The following morning, he will celebrate Easter Sunday Mass in St. Peter’s Square, at the end of which he will deliver his special Easter ‘Urbi et Orbi’ message and blessing from the main balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica.







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