Bishop Larry Silva leads the 8 a.m. Good Friday morning prayer in the Cathedral Basilica of Our Lady of Peace April 15. (HCH photo | Anna Weaver)
It’s a lot of work organizing all the services and liturgies on the Triduum days and more leading up to Easter
By Anna Weaver
Hawaii Catholic Herald
By the Easter Vigil, April 16, Bishop Larry Silva’s voice had begun to crack after more than a week of singing, preaching, praying and greeting. He had been presiding at Chrism Masses and Holy Week services at a brisk, daily pace with the four-hour Easter Vigil liturgy as the culmination.
And yet he was energized.
“The liturgies of Holy Week are themselves so inspiring that they give me a boost of energy, since I really enjoy celebrating them,” Bishop Silva told the Hawaii Catholic Herald in an email sent a few days into the Easter season this year.
Holy Week, from Palm Sunday to the Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday, is packed full of detailed rites and services. For those who attend one or more of the events leading up to Easter, the opportunity for spiritual enrichment abounds.
The same can be said for the clergy, lay ministers and parish staff who make these services happen. But the burden of executing all the details of this rich week can take its toll by the time the sun sets on Easter Sunday.
For Bishop Silva, there isn’t much downtime after Easter either as he has a full schedule of Confirmation Masses and other commitments soon after. Plus this year, the Jubilarian Mass, which celebrates clergy and religious order members marking milestone years of service to the church, happens the Saturday after Easter.
Beyond presiding at services, the bishop spends time in the week before Holy Week praying over the Scripture readings, reflecting on them and what is going on in the world today, and writing a new homily for almost every day of the week: Chrism Masses, Palm Sunday, Evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper, Liturgy of the Lord’s Passion on Good Friday, the Easter Vigil and Easter Sunday Mass.
A 10-minute homily equals an hour of writing for the bishop, he says. Homilies for morning prayer on Good Friday and Holy Saturday are done spontaneously.
How does he keep up with the extra busy time?
“God always takes care of us!” he said. “I have my regular prayer routine, including a regular holy hour and the Liturgy of the Hours, rosaries, etc. I do try to get good sleep, and take naps, usually after lunch.”
For him it comes down to the Nike catchphrase: “Just do it!”
“I see myself as the father of a family, and there is very little ‘downtime’ from that,” Bishop Silva said. “But I do enjoy celebrating the liturgies and meeting the people, so in many ways, the commitments are energizing rather than draining.”
He is also quick to point out that while he’s busy, parish priests are often much busier.
While he usually has one liturgy a day, parish priests can have several, especially if they don’t have any other priests or deacons assisting at their parish.
“I have to prepare the homily and review the liturgy, as they do, but I do not have to make sure that all the other ministries are in order, be concerned about the liturgical environment, or unpack the many objects that are used only once a year (e.g., foot washing bowl and pitcher, stylus for preparation of the Easter candle),” he pointed out. “The parish priests have to do all this and more!”
“When I was a parish priest, I was so busy during the Triduum that I wished Jesus had waited three weeks to rise from the dead instead of three days!” he joked.
Seminarian Francis Pham (at left) helps out with floral arrangements ahead of Holy Week 2022 at Sacred Heart Church in the Manoa-Punahou area of Honolulu. (Photo courtesy Father EJ Resinto)
About those priests
On the Thursday of the first week of the Easter season, the Herald checked in by phone with two of those priests to see how their Holy Week and Easter went.
Father EJ Resinto is the pastor of Sacred Heart Parish in Honolulu and Maryknoll School. Father Alfred Omar Guerrero is the pastor of the Newman Center/Holy Spirit Parish at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, as well as the Diocese of Honolulu’s director of the Office of Worship.
He said that compared to Christmas, Holy Week and the Easter Triduum are “just a little bit more exhausting mentally” because there are more services and more homilies to prepare.
“It’s really five different liturgies filled with little details, and then five different homilies that you have to give,” Father Resinto said. “So for priests, I think that’s probably what is the most rewarding, but also the most challenging thing.”
Last year he added a Sunday evening Mass into the Easter weekend liturgies to help space out Mass-goers during COVID-19. This year he kept the 5 p.m. Sunday liturgy to see if it would still be popular, and it was.
That meant one more service to handle during a busy week. But Father Resinto said he’s lucky to have diocesan seminarian Francis Pham assigned for his pastoral year at Sacred Hearts. Pham served as master of ceremonies at various liturgies.
And Father Resinto also “borrowed” the Holy Week liturgical planner he had when he was assigned to Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Ewa Beach and consults the folder and its many guidelines now that he’s at Sacred Heart. The planner has “the little details of everything, when the servers move, when the candles are lit, when the decorations go up.”
A month before Ash Wednesday, Father Resinto sits down with his parish staff to go over the details of Holy Week, things like ordering and cutting palms and what music will be played.
“I’m blessed at my parish with a very good staff, and awesome volunteers who just know what to do and when to do it,” he said.
The parish secretary, Annie Llamedo Ragus, is also the liturgical coordinator and music director, which Father Resinto says makes it easier to figure out things for Holy Week when you’re working with one primary person. His other staff is business manager, Noel Simbajon, and he has several “arts and environment” volunteers that have been doing the flowers and other altar decorations and preparations for more than 30 years.
“It’s always such a wonderful time of the year,” he said.
Over at the Newman Center, Father Guerrero juggles a few more things with his two part-time and one full-time staffers. The parish has fewer volunteers — college students don’t have as much free time as retirees after all — plus his Office of Worship responsibilities.
As head of the Office of Worship, he coordinates with the staff at the Cathedral Basilica of Our Lady of Peace and the Co-Cathedral of St. Theresa along with other churches where Bishop Silva presides at Chrism and Holy Week services. They make sure everything is ready, from the number of altar servers to details on how the Paschal Candle will be marked, blessed and lit at the Easter Vigil.
Father Alfred Omar Guerrero baptizes Runa Yonamine at the Easter Vigil at Holy Spirit Parish/Newman Center at the University of Hawaii-Manoa on April 16. (Photo courtesy Dann Ebina)
Cooking and ironing
Father Guerrero calculated that he presided at 15 services during Holy Week including a Taize prayer service, a Holy Wednesday Tenebrae service, a funeral on Holy Thursday, and Stations of the Cross. He also assisted with decorations for the church, had to rehearse the different services with his altar servers, and practice the long, sung Easter “Exsultet,” among other Holy Week responsibilities.
He was also the master of ceremonies at Holy Saturday morning prayer with Bishop Silva at the Co-Cathedral of St. Theresa and flew to the Big Island for the Chrism Mass there with Bishop Silva.
“It is exhausting but it’s also fulfilling for me,” Father Guerrero said. “Because every day is a different liturgy and you preach a different homily every day.”
Seven students received sacraments of initiation at the Easter Vigil this year, which was also gratifying for him to witness.
On Easter Sunday, he had his Masses to preside at and two Easter egg hunts to enjoy — one for the kids of the parish in the morning and one for the college students in the evening.
Among the more atypical Easter responsibilities for parish priests that Father Guerrero handled were ironing a new altar linen for Easter weekend and cooking a ham dinner for about 35 students on Easter Sunday evening as part of the Newman Center’s regular Sunday night meals. (He’s also been known to chip in as the parish’s handyman and gardener.)
Father Guerrero’s coping techniques for such busy times include “locking myself in my room to pray the Liturgy of the Hours,” putting Netflix on in the background while doing other things, making sure he gets seven hours of sleep a night, and browsing social media.
Despite the busyness of the time leading up to Easter, Father Guerrero said it’s worth it.
“I like Holy Week because of the different liturgies that are involved that I get preside at and help others experience,” he said. “Although it’s so hectic and crazy [getting ready for the week], I think people … are moved by the liturgies.”
