In Holy Week the ceremonies draw us into the events of the passion and resurrection of Our Lord. Holy Week observances began in Jerusalem in the earliest days of the Church, when devout people travelled to Jerusalem at Easter time.

In the 4th century a wealthy Italian lady called Egeria kept a diary of her pilgrimage to Jerusalem. She described how on Palm Sunday afternoon, the crowds would retrace the path of Jesus into the city, waving palm fronds as they made a procession from the Mount of Olives into the city. This vivid way of putting oneself into the events of Our Lord’s last days was taken back to Europe by these pilgrims. By the seventh century, this way of celebrating Holy Week had spread to France, England and Spain. It was only in the twelfth century that it came to Rome.