Holy Week is a Christian holiday that takes place on the last week of lent, and one week before Easter.
The holiday starts off with Palm Sunday (April 13), and includes Holy Thursday (April 17), Good Friday (April 18), and Holy Saturday (April 19).
Easter Sunday is on April 20, 2014.
The Christian celebration of lent takes place 40 days before Easter, not including Sundays, and this year began on March 5, 2014 and will end on Thursday, April 17, 2014.
Specific rituals and traditions, as well as set dates for observing lent, vary across denominations, as the Eastern Orthodox churches begins on a Monday and does not celebrate Ash Wednesday.
Just like during lent, during Holy Week, Christians typically abstain from meat and dairy, alcohol, and follow a stricter moral code.
Yesterday, April 13, is the Palm Sunday. A Christian moveable feast that falls on the Sunday before Easter. The feast commemorates Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem, an event mentioned in all four canonical Gospels.
In many Christian churches, Palm Sunday includes a procession of the assembled worshipers carrying palms, representing the palm branches the crowd scattered in front of Jesus as he rode into Jerusalem.
Here's the Gospel for today Holy Monday:
"Six days before the Passover, Jesus went to Bethany, where Lazarus was, whom he had raised from the dead. They gave a dinner for him there; Martha waited on them and Lazarus was among those at table. Mary brought in a pound of very costly ointment, pure nard, and with it anointed the feet of Jesus, wiping them with her hair; the house was filled with the scent of the ointment.
Then Judas Iscariot -- one of his disciples, the man who was to betray him-said, 'Why was this ointment not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?'
He said this, not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he was in charge of the common fund and used to help himself to the contents.
So Jesus said, 'Leave her alone; let her keep it for the day of my burial. You have the poor with you always, you will not always have me.'
Meanwhile a large number of Jews heard that he was there and came not only on account of Jesus but also to see Lazarus whom he had raised from the dead. Then the chief priests decided to kill Lazarus as well, since it was on his account that many of the Jews were leaving them and believing in Jesus."
- - - John 12:1-11
