Here are three sets of templates for Holy Week. They are not intended as just “coloring” pages (unless that’s how you want to use them) but as a format for corralling your thoughts, prayers, and reflections about the days of Holy Week. The first set is individual, circular templates for each of the days from Holy Wednesday to Easter Sunday. The second is a single, circular calendar-page from Palm Sunday through Holy Saturday. The third is a template is for the Stations of the Cross.
For the Holy Week templates, you can incorporate them with your intercessory prayers or with your current Lenten discipline. Another idea is to place your griefs, sorrows, questions, queries, beliefs, unbeliefs, petitions, wails, wows, gratitudes, grudges, pains, pleasures, satisfactions, sufferings—anything that comes up for you—on the templates. Use words, doodles, strokes of the pen, dots, dashes, color….
I like to read the daily readings for Holy Week and choose a word or phrase to hold onto for the day. My post on lectio divina might be helpful. Click here for a link to the 2021 Holy Week lectionary readings.
Examples of the way I used these large circular templates last year are in a collage below.
Holy Week Templates
The idea for the templates arose from an ancient Christian hymn called All in the Morning. Here is a summary of the lines:
It was on Holy Wednesday and all in the morning that Judas betrayed our dear Heavenly King….
It was on Holy Thursday and all in the morning, they plaited a crown of thorns for our Heavenly King….
It was on Good Friday and all in the morning, they crucified our Savior and our Heavenly King….
There are two options for Thursday and Friday. To download the templates, click on the name below the template. Download first, then print.These templates are also on the Handouts Page.
Holy Wednesday.pdf
Holy or Maundy Thursday Thorns.pdf
Holy or Maundy Thursday Cup.pdf
Good Friday 1.pdf Good Friday 2.pdf
Holy Saturday.pdf
Easter Day Template .pdf Easter Day Template. jpg
The template for Saturday is blank. You can do whatever you want with the circle. For me Holy Saturday feels like the end of the line, so last year I just colored it black and wrote this poem:
Holy Saturday
The blackest day
The emptiest day
The sorriest day
The silent-as-a-grave day
The hold-your-breath day
The candles-barely-shed-a ray day
The waiting day
The no-word-from-God day
The hope-slides-into-hopeless day
The call-it-quits day
The please, Lord, give-us-a-glimmer-of-light day
Holy Week on One Page
Holy Week Template .pdf or .jpg
Stations of the Cross Template
When people as early as the 4th century began to make pilgrimages to the Holy Land from Europe and Asia, they wanted to walk the route Jesus took from the place of his death sentence by Pilate to the place of his crucifixion and burial. This walk became known as the Via Dolorosa or Way of Sorrows. At each stop along the way, pilgrims sang hymns, read Scripture, and said prayers.
Stations of the Cross are a way people can experience this journey of tears without traveling to Jerusalem. Many churches have paintings or sculptures of these events or stations on their walls. Over the centuries the number of stations depicting Jesus’s journey to the cross and death has changed.. Fourteen is the common number for many churches now. Each station offers an opportunity to enter into the story, to contemplate, and to pray. Holy Week and especially Good Friday are typical times for praying the Stations of the Cross.
If you are unfamiliar with this practice, you can explore websites with the history of Stations of the Cross. There are hundreds of examples of Stations of the Cross liturgies with prayers and readings. Click here for one example.
Below is a template for you to make your own Stations of the Cross journey with Jesus on paper. Each of the fourteen cloud shapes has a sentence for the station and an empty space with a cross. As you imagine yourself in Jerusalem on this sorrowful walk to the cross, add your own images, doodles, or words. Read. Sing. Think. Pray. Be there.
