Today is Maundy Wednesday of Passion Week, an important day of fasting and prayer. The church officiates special services and services, and the faithful strictly respect certain traditions. During Holy Week or Passion Week, each day has a special meaning.
Traditions and customs
On Maundy Wednesday, women do not spin or sew. The days on which they do not wash, during Holy Week, are Holy Wednesday and Good Friday.
On Maundy Wednesday it is advisable to make peace with the people you quarreled with and say prayers for reconciliation. It is forbidden to get angry, because you will anger God. It is also not advisable to put impure thoughts on your face. It is said that a pure heart, a kind word and the affection shown to our loved ones make us have a much better and more blessed year.
In some areas of the country, children used to go around the village with carols and wish the householders to spend the Easter holidays with joy and health. And now there is this custom where, on Maundy Wednesday, children go caroling at sunset, receiving eggs to fry at the end.
On Maundy Wednesday, the sinful woman is commemorated in the church, who anointed the Lord with oil. Within the same den, we also learn the meanings of Holy and Great Wednesday through the reading of the Synaxar: “When Jesus went up to Jerusalem to the house of Simon the leper, a sinful woman approached Him. And he poured on His head that precious myrrh, worth about three hundred dinars.
The disciples, but especially Judas, scolded her. Christ, however, defended her so as not to remove her good thought. Then Christ mentions His burial to turn Judas away from the sale. And to entitle the woman to the great honor of preaching everywhere, in the whole world, her good deed.
This woman is not one and the same in all evangelists. As St. John Chrysostom says, the first three evangelists are talking about one and the same woman, especially called the sinful woman. In John the Evangelist, however, it is not about this woman, but about another woman, who has a pure life. Mary, the sister of Lazarus, who, six days before the Passover, while the Lord was sitting at table in her house in Bethany, used myrrh. And she poured it on His beautiful feet and wiped them with the hair of her head.
Showing unto Christ an unspeakable respect, offering Him the ointment as to God. She knew well that oil was brought to God at the sacrifices, the priests sanctified themselves with myrrh. And Jacob once anointed the raised pillar of God with oil.
She brought him this myrrh and gave it to the Teacher as to God, because he raised her brother from the dead. For this reason, the Lord does not promise him any reward.
The other woman, that is, the sinful one, as narrated by the Holy Evangelists Matthew and Mark, poured that precious ointment on Jesus’ head two days before Easter. While Jesus was still in Jerusalem and while he was sitting at the table, but in the house of Simon the leper. The disciples were also angry with this sinful woman, because they thought well of Christ’s desire to give alms.
Moreover, this sinful woman was also given the reward of spreading the news of her good deed throughout the world.”
