The Holy Thursday seven churches devotion

CNA Staff, Apr 1, 2021 / 01:10 am

The Visitation to Seven Churches is a Holy Thursday devotion primarily  practiced in Latin America, Italy, Poland and the Philippines.

It involves traveling to seven local churches after the Mass of the Lord’s Supper on the evening of Holy Thursday. These visits recall the final seven places Jesus went from his arrest on Holy Thursday to his death on Good Friday.

In each church, the pilgrim kneels before the Altar of Repose, meditates on the appropriate Scripture, and offers prayers and adoration. In this way, pilgrims seek to spiritually accompany Christ as he enters his Passion.

The first church recalls Jesus going from the Cenacle, where he celebrated the Last Supper with his disciples, to the Garden of Gethsemane, where he earnestly prayed and sweat blood in his agony over what was about to take place.

In the second church, the pilgrim meditates on Jesus being taken from the Garden of Gethsemane by the armed crowd to the house of Annas, the father-in-law of Caiaphas the high priest, where he was interrogated and slapped in the face.

In the third church, the prayer focuses on Jesus being brought to the house of Caiaphas, where he was beaten, spat upon, insulted and endured a painful night in captivity.

The focus of the reflection for the fourth church is the first time Jesus was brought before Pilate, the Roman governor of the region. There Jesus was accused by the Jewish religious authorities of being a rival king to Caesar.

In the fifth church, the pilgrim follows the Lord as he is taken to King Herod, who along with his guards mock him.

The sixth church recalls Jesus being taken from Herod and brought before Pilate for the second time and then scourged, crowned with thorns, mocked and condemned to death.

The last church commemorates Christ carrying the cross on his shoulders from the Praetorium, where Pilate yielded to the crowd’s demand for his crucifixion, to Mount Calvary where he suffered excruciating pain, died and was laid to rest in a nearby tomb until his resurrection from the dead on Easter Sunday.