Sunday was Palm Sunday, the beginning of Holy Week and the final week of Lent which ends in the Triduum – Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday.

The Rev. Karl Ganss, pastor of St. Mary’s Parish, 325 Pine St., described Good Friday, which marks the Crucifixion, as the most somber day on the Christian calendar.

“The liturgy is pretty much the same” between the Catholic, Episcopal and some Lutheran traditions, said the Rev. Addison Hart, a Catholic priest who was formerly an Episcopal priest.

Hart is the associate pastor of the Newman Catholic Student Center and aids the Rev. Steve Knox.

A lengthy section from the Gospel of Matthew is the Palm Sunday Gospel reading, Ganss said.

Ganss explained that the signs described in Matthew’s rendering of the Passion – tears in the Temple curtain and an earthquake – represent the breaking of the power of sin.

Palm branches are blessed and handed out to parishioners. The branches are burned on the last Sunday before Ash Wednesday, and they’re used to anoint the foreheads of Catholics and Episcopalians on Ash Wednesday.

Hart explained that palm branches were waved by the crowd that greeted Jesus in Jerusalem because this was a common form of greeting for royalty and other important people.

As DeKalb is part of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Rockford, Ganss, Knox and Hart will be joining the other priests in the diocese in attending the Chism Mass, performed by Bishop Thomas Doran at 11 a.m. on Holy Thursday at St. Peter’s Cathedral in Rockford.

The priests will renew their vows and receive holy oil blessed by Doran. The oil is used for such purposes as baptisms and anointing the sick.

After the Newman Center’s 7:30 p.m. Mass on Holy Thursday, the Eucharist will be exposed for adoration until midnight.

The alter will be stripped and everything will be removed from the church, the tabernacle doors will be opened and the lights will be extinguished.

The reserve Eucharist is set apart, exposed in the chapel and consumed on Good Friday in the chapel.

Hart said the Eucharist is kept out of the church and Masses are not performed on Good Friday and Holy Saturday to symbolize the two days Christ spent among the dead.

Catholics and Episcopalians aged 11 and older are expected to fast on Good Friday, though pregnant women and the sick are exempt.

At the Newman Center, Masses will be performed as usual in the morning, but Hart cautioned that the 9 p.m. Mass may be cancelled.

The Rev. Mark Geisler, the rector of St. Paul’s Episcopalian Church, 900 Normal Road, said two kinds of Mass will be performed on Easter Sunday.

The first will be a Holy Eucharist with traditional (Elizabethan) language at 8 a.m. and a Festival Eucharist of the Resurrection with contemporary language at 10:30 a.m.