Holy Week

The traditional names for the days of Holy Week

• Palm Sunday: Today's liturgists prefer to call it "Passion Sunday."
• Formerly known in some places as "Fig Monday" because the gospel for the day was the cursing of the fig tree. Sometimes, people ate dried figs on this day to commemorate the miracle. That gospel is no longer read on Monday of Holy Week.
• Spy Wednesday: The day on which Judas Iscariot met with the Jewish priests and made plans for the betrayal, hence the name "spy."
• Maundy Thursday: This one comes from the Latin Vulgate version of John 13:34 “A new commandment I give unto you: That you love one another, as I have loved you, that you also love one another.” In Latin, the verse begins with Mandatum novum do vobis. The word "maundy" is a corruption of "mandatum" meaning commandment.
• Good Friday: Here "good" hearkens back to Middle English in which the word denotes piety or holiness.
• Holy Saturday: A quiet day, the perfect Sabbath of Christ in which He descended into the limbo of Hell and delivered the saints of the Old Testament.