Virtual Refectory: A trip through Holy Week

What's occurring on each of the holiest of holy days...?

As it’s the beginning of Holy Week, let’s take a virtual trip through each stage of the Passiontide.

We begin with Palm Sunday, the beginning of the passion week and the events which led up to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ and his subsequent resurrection. Palm Sunday is celebrated seven days before Easter Sunday, or Easter, and commemorates Jesus’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem. There is a long tradition of the use of sculptures of Christ perched on an ass (known as a Palmesel) which commemorated the procession in many German-speaking regions until the Reformation in the 16th century. These processions re-enacted Christ’s entry into Jerusalem mounted on the donkey, and were accompanied by lively pageants in which hymns were sung, palms were strewn, and clothes were spread on the ground before the Palmesel. 

Christ on an ass, Statue, c.1480 (made), V&A.