Church: “Living by giving oneself” is the human way of being proposed in Holy Week celebrations (with video)

Father Alexandre Palma remembers «millions of little hidden foot washings every day», says that the silence of death is «an excess of sound» and states that the celebration of Easter is «profoundly realistic»

Lisbon, March 25, 2024 (Ecclesia) – Father Alexandre Palma, professor at the Faculty of Theology of the Portuguese Catholic University (UCP), considers that “Holy Week is a human way of being, fully reconciled with the Father, with God”.

“And this human way of being is to live by giving oneself. And Jesus translates this in multiple ways throughout Holy Week, from the entry into Jerusalem, the washing of feet, the cross and even later in the appearances of the resurrected one”, said the teacher, in an interview.

The priest is today’s guest on the ECCLESIA Program, broadcast on RTP2, where he took a tour of the Holy Week celebrations, trying to explain the meaning they have in the lives of believers in these days.

Father Alexandre Palma argues that the washing of feet is a gesture of “enormous symbolic strength” and that it interprets “very well the identity, the being of Jesus, the attitude of Jesus towards the Father and towards history”.

“But also in this wake of two thousand years of Christianity, but also what Christian culture has permeated our culture in a broader sense, what we are also challenged, even by the spirit of God, to be creative, that is, to reinterpret the gesture of washing feet, of translating the gesture of washing feet into many other forms of service”, he highlighted.

For the priest, “there are expressions, testimonies that actually happened during the washing of the feet”, which “do not need to be propagandized”.

“I would venture to say, life as such would not exist if there were not thousands, millions of little foot washers every day hidden and without that name, but they are”, he stressed.

Regarding Good Friday, the day on which the Church commemorates the death of Jesus, Father Alexandre Palma says that the silence on this day “is not the silence of death and, therefore, the silence of emptiness, but it is, in some way, the silence of the fullness of sound itself.”

“It’s like white light, in some way, it is the synthesis of all colors and, therefore, of the entire chromatic palette. Also, the silence of Good Friday is not an absence of sound, it is an excess of sound,” she pointed out.

Regarding the celebration of Easter, Father Alexandre Palma understands it as “profoundly realistic”.

“There is no narrative here that whitewashes the difficulties of life. Jesus did not pretend he died. Jesus really died. And, therefore, making some analogy here, the difficulties of life, starting with war, situations of poverty, loneliness, etc., are real, just as the death of Jesus was real”, he maintained.

“There is no obstacle that is invincible. It’s not easy, it involves struggle, it involves suffering, yes, but there is no obstacle that is invincible. And what other foundation can hope have, if not this, which is ultimately definitive, only God himself and the love that God gives us. This is, I would say, the fixed point that raises the entire edifice of hope,” he added.

Asked about the Easter calendar not always coinciding with the calendar of each person’s life, Father Alexandre Palma indicates that it is something that can happen, but that Easter is celebrated “every day”.

“It is evident that this Holy Week is a week, from a symbolic point of view, of the liturgical calendar, it densifies this celebration, but every Sunday we celebrate Jesus’ Easter”, he mentioned.

Regarding the fact that Holy Week is associated with the feeling of sadness, the professor says that since this is an “element that is part of life”, it would be “strange” if it were also absent on these days.

“The question is: Is it just sadness? And just as life is not just sadness, although it also has that element, there is also a celebration of joy and Holy Week is marked by this, by this relationship, by this game between sadness, but also by the great joy that is somehow way at the point of arrival this week, in the celebration of Easter”, he stated.

The Catholic Church celebrates between the afternoon of Maundy Thursday and the Easter Vigil the most important moments in its liturgical calendar, which mark the moments of Jesus’ death and resurrection, culminating in Easter.

LS/LJ/PR