Holy Week is the most important week of the Christian year. But here’s what many people miss: this week isn’t just a memorial service where we remember events from long ago. It requires participation. We do not just recall Christ’s passion — we walk with Him through death into life.
Those familiar with the writings of the Carmelite saints will know that Teresa of Ávila, John of the Cross, and Thérèse of Lisieux all wrote extensively about Christ’s Passion, teaching us how to enter these sacred days with our whole selves.
It is important to remember that this isn’t “sad week.” It is a week where we encounter the true love. “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). Holy Week is the week we watch Love itself suffer and die for us; and then rise victorious.
A Day-by-Day Practice For Holy Week
Palm Sunday
Scripture: Luke 19:28-40 (The Triumphal Entry)
Practice: If you attend Palm Sunday liturgy, wave your palm branch and shout “Hosanna!” with a full voice and full heart. Then, when you get home, sit in complete silence for twenty minutes. Feel the contrast between the crowd’s enthusiasm and the silence that will come by Friday.
Reflection: When have I welcomed Jesus with loud praise, then quietly abandoned Him when following Him became costly?
Monday
Scripture: John 12:1-11 (Mary anoints Jesus at Bethany)
Practice: Pray Lectio Divina with this passage. Read it slowly four times. Let yourself be Mary, pouring out expensive perfume on Jesus’ feet — the abundance of love.
Reflection: What lavish love am I withholding from Jesus? What am I holding back because it seems too costly, too impractical, too much?
Tuesday
Scripture: John 13:21-38 (Jesus predicts betrayal and denial)
Practice: Sit with the two figures — Judas, who will betray Jesus, and Peter, who will deny Him three times. Do not judge them. Instead, ask honestly: “How have I betrayed Christ? How have I denied Him when it was inconvenient or uncomfortable to proclaim Him?”
Reflection: Write a brief, honest confession. Name your betrayals and denials specifically. Then receive Christ’s forgiveness; He already knows, and He already forgives.
Wednesday
Scripture: Luke 22:1-6 (The plot to kill Jesus)
Practice: Darkness is approaching. Spend your evening in a dark room without artificial light. Sit in silence. Let yourself feel the weight of what’s coming; that is, the arrest, the trial, the cross.
Reflection: What is dying in me right now so that new life can come? What old self is Christ crucifying so resurrection can happen?
Maundy Thursday
Scripture: John 13:1-17 (Jesus washes His disciples’ feet)
Practice: Wash someone’s feet — literally if you have an opportunity (family member, friend), or symbolically through an act of humble service. Clean someone’s kitchen. Run an errand for an elderly neighbour. Serve without needing recognition.
Reflection: Who am I called to serve this week with no expectation of return? Where is Jesus asking me to kneel and wash feet?
Good Friday
Scripture: John 19:1-37 (The Crucifixion)
Practice: TOTAL SILENCE. No phone. No talking. No music. No podcasts. No social media. If you live with others, explain ahead of time that you’re observing silence from dawn until evening. Just be at the foot of the cross. Stay there. Don’t run away. Don’t distract yourself.
Reflection: Don’t write. Don’t process. Just be. Let the silence and the cross work on you without needing to understand or explain.
Holy Saturday
Scripture: None. This is the day of silence, waiting, unknowing. Jesus is in the tomb. The disciples are in hiding, traumatised and grieving. No one knows yet that Sunday is coming.
Practice: Do nothing. Seriously. Do not be productive. Do not clean your house or catch up on work or run errands. Wait. Rest in unknowing. Sit in the space between death and resurrection where nothing makes sense yet.Reflection: What am I waiting for God to resurrect in my life? What dead thing am I trusting Him to bring back to life?