Palm Sunday is a Christian moveable feast that falls on the Sunday before Easter. The feast commemorates Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem, an event mentioned in each of the four canonical Gospels. Palm Sunday marks the first day of Holy Week. For adherents of Nicene Christianity, it is the last week of the Christian solemn season of Lent that precedes the arrival of Eastertide.
In some traditions of Christianity, Holy Week is the most sacred week in the Church year. In Eastern Rite Churches, also known as Eastern Orthodox, Holy Week occurs the week after Lazarus Saturday and starts on the evening of Palm Sunday. In the rites of the Western/Latin/Roman Church it begins with Palm Sunday and concludes on Easter Sunday. For all Christian traditions it is a moveable observance. In Eastern Rite Churches, Holy Week starts after 40 days of Lent and two transitional days, namely Saturday of Lazarus and Palm Sunday. In Western Rite Churches, Holy Week falls on the last week of Lent or Sixth Lent Week.
The Paschal Triduum or Easter Triduum, Holy Triduum, or the Three Days, is the period of three days that begins with the liturgy on the evening of Maundy Thursday, reaches its high point in the Easter Vigil, and closes with evening prayer on Easter Sunday. It is a moveable observance recalling the Passion, Crucifixion, Death, burial, and Resurrection of Jesus, as portrayed in the canonical Gospels.
The Presentation of Jesus atthe Temple is an early episode in the life of Jesus, describing His presentation at the Temple in Jerusalem, to be redeemed by the parents' sacrifice from His birth-state of sanctity, i.e. and predestined by His firstborn status to serve as a priest. The feast is celebrated by many Christian Churches on the holiday of Candlemas. It is described in chapter 2 of the Gospel of Luke in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. Within the account, "Luke's narration of the Presentation in the Temple combines the purification rite with the Jewish ceremony of the redemption of the firstborn ."
Chipiona is a town and municipality located on the Atlantic coast in the province of Cádiz, Spain. According to the 2012 census, the city has a population of 18,849 inhabitants, but this amount increases greatly during the summer holiday period. The town covers an area of 33 km². Being in the lower valley of the River Guadalquivir it is very flat with a maximum terrestrial height of 4 metres. It is bordered on the north-west by Sanlúcar de Barrameda and on the south-east by the port of Rota.
Eastertide or Paschaltide is a festal season in the liturgical year of Christianity that focuses on celebrating the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. It begins on Easter Sunday, which initiates Easter Week in Western Christianity, and Bright Week in Eastern Christianity. There are several Eastertide customs across the Christian world, including sunrise services, exclaiming the Paschal greeting, clipping the church, and decorating Easter eggs, a symbol of the empty tomb. The Easter lily, a symbol of the resurrection, traditionally serve as the chancel flowers that decorate the chancel area of churches throughout Eastertide. Other Eastertide customs include egg hunting, eating special Easter foods and watching Easter parades.
Easter Vigil, also called the Paschal Vigil or the Great Vigil of Easter, is a liturgy held in traditional Christian churches as the first official celebration of the Resurrection of Jesus. Historically, it is during this liturgy that people are baptized and that adult catechumens are received into full communion with the Church. It is held in the hours of darkness between sunset on Holy Saturday and sunrise on Easter Day – most commonly in the evening of Holy Saturday or midnight – and is the first celebration of Easter, days traditionally being considered to begin at sunset.
A Holy Week procession is a public ritual march of clergy and penitents which takes place during Holy Week in Christian countries, especially those with a Catholic culture. Various images of the saints, especially the Virgin Mary, and most importantly the image of the crucified Christ are carried aloft by foot as a penance; acts of mortification are carried out; traditional Christian hymns and chants are sung. In many confraternities of penitents, the faces of the members are covered by elaborate hoods, such as the capirote, as a way of hiding one's identity in order to not ostentatiously draw attention to oneself while performing penance. Crosses, and biers holding Catholic holy images surrounded with flowers and offerings of candles, are carried usually from one parish church to another led by the clergy, monastic orders, or heads of the penitential orders.
A procession is an organized body of people walking in a formal or ceremonial manner.
Numerous religious traditions, most of them inherited from one generation to the next, are part of the Paschal celebrations in the Maltese Islands.
Holy Week in Zamora, Spain, is the annual commemoration of the Passion of Jesus Christ that takes place during the last week of Lent, the week immediately before Easter. Holy Week is the Christian week from Palm Sunday through Easter Sunday. It can take place in March or April. In Zamora, Holy Week is celebrated by 16 Catholic religious brotherhoods and fraternities that perform penance processions on the streets of the city.
Holy Week in Seville is known as Semana Santa de Sevilla. It is one of the city’s two biggest annual festivals, the other being the Feria de Abril, which follows two weeks later. It is celebrated in the week leading up to Easter, and features the procession of pasos, floats of lifelike wooden sculptures of individual scenes of sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary, or images of the grieving Virgin Mary.
Gorzkie żale (Polish pronunciation: [ˈɡɔʂkʲe ˈʐalɛ] Lenten is a Catholic devotion containing many hymns that developed out of Poland in the 18th century. The devotion is primarily a sung reflection and meditation on the Passion of Christ and the sorrows of His Blessed Mother. The devotion consists of a three-part cycle, subdivided into five unique parts. One part of the cycle is held on each Sunday in the period of Lent, including Palm Sunday, and the entire ceremony is held on Good Friday. The devotion originated in Holy Cross Church in Warsaw and from there it spread to whole of Poland.
Lent is a solemn religious observance in the Christian liturgical calendar commemorating the 40 days Jesus spent fasting in the desert, according to the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, before beginning his public ministry, during which he endured temptation by Satan. This season is observed in the Anglican, Eastern Orthodox, Lutheran, Methodist, Moravian, Oriental Orthodox, Reformed, United Protestant and Roman Catholic Churches. Some Anabaptist, Baptist and nondenominational Christian churches also observe Lent.
Holy Week in Spain is the annual tribute of the Passion of Jesus Christ celebrated by Catholic religious brotherhoods and fraternities that perform penance processions on the streets of almost every Spanish city and town during the last week of Lent, the week immediately before Easter.
Holy Week in the Philippines is a significant religious observance for the country's Catholic majority, the Iglesia Filipina Independiente or the Philippine Independent Church and most Protestant groups. One of the few majority Christian countries in Asia, Catholics make up 80 percent of the population, and the Church is one of the country's dominant sociopolitical forces.
Holy Week in Mexico is an important religious observance as well as important vacation period. It is preceded by several observances such as Lent and Carnival, as well as an observance of a day dedicated to the Virgin of the Sorrows, as well as a Mass marking the abandonment of Jesus by the disciples. Holy Week proper begins on Palm Sunday, with the palms used on this day often woven into intricate designs. In many places processions, Masses and other observances can happen all week, but are most common on , Good Friday, Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday, with just about every community marking the crucifixion of Jesus in some way on Good Friday. Holy Saturday is marked by the Burning of Judas, especially in the center and south of the country, with Easter Sunday usually marked by a Mass as well as the ringing of church bells. Mexico's Holy Week traditions are mostly based on those from Spain, brought over with the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, but observances have developed variations in different parts of the country due to the evangelization process in the colonial period and indigenous influences. Several locations have notable observances related to Holy Week including Iztapalapa in Mexico City, Taxco, San Miguel de Allende and San Luis Potosí.
The Holy Week in Valladolid is one of the main tourist attractions, and cultural and religious events of Valladolid and the surrounding province during Holy Week in Spain. It boasts of renowned polychrome sculptures, created mainly by sculptors such as Juan de Juni and Gregorio Fernández, who were active when the city served as the imperial court. The city's National Sculpture Museum has a total of 42 images for the processions. The Holy Week in Valladolid is known to depict the Passion with great fidelity, rigor and detail.
In Taxco, the processions and ceremonies of Holy Week are elaborate and have gained international fame. Between Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday, there are ten major processions, six during the evening and four during the day. Most processions are about two and a half kilometers long and take about two hours to complete. These commemorations date back to at least 1622 when they were begun in the atrium of the Church of the Ex monastery of San Bernardino de Siena. Now these processions and ceremonies center of the Santa Prisca Church.
Holy Week in Málaga, is the annual commemoration of the Passion of Jesus in Málaga, Spain. It takes place during the last week of Lent, the week immediately before Easter. It is one of the city's main cultural and religious events.
