Holy Week Word Search

This Holy Week word search follows the week from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday as churches keep it: Spy Wednesday, Maundy Thursday and the foot washing, Tenebrae, the three days of the Triduum, Good Friday and the Easter vigil on Saturday night.

The week starts with palms and a procession. Wednesday is called Spy Wednesday for Judas, who agreed that day to hand Jesus over. On Thursday morning the bishop blesses the year's holy oils at the chrism Mass, and in the evening the priest washes the feet of twelve people, as Jesus washed the feet of his disciples; afterward the altar is stripped bare and the bells fall silent until Easter. Tenebrae, Latin for darkness, is a service of psalms during which candles are put out one by one until a single flame is left and a loud noise is made in the dark.

The Triduum, the three days, runs from Thursday evening through Sunday evening and is counted as one long service. Good Friday has no Mass at all, only readings, veneration of the cross and the Stations, and in England it is the day for hot cross buns. Holy Saturday stays quiet until dark, when the Easter Vigil begins outside with a bonfire, lights the tall paschal candle from it and carries the flame into a dark church; it is the night when adults are baptized, the bells ring again and the first Alleluia since Lent began is sung.