Disclaimer: This post is about religion, the Jehovah’s Witnesses to be precise. If you don’t want to read it or have a problem with it feel free to skip the post but please don’t post any hate comments, this is plain informative I’m not trying to change your religion or to say that your religion is wrong. This is written from my point of view and in no way should be treated as a fact. If you want to know more about Jehovah’s Witnesses and their beliefs go here.
A few days ago, Alekz asked me what did Jehovah’s Witnesses did for the Holy Week. Since I couldn’t come up with a suitable answer I decided to make a post about the ceremony since I had it just today.
Before I delve into the ceremony you need to know a bit of JW (Jehovah’s Witnesses) lingo.
- Kingdom Hall: Place where the JW hold their weekly meetings
- Elder: Person in the JW organization who is in charge with the congregation
- Memorial: Ceremony in which we commemorate Christ’s death
Now, the Ceremony is called the Memorial of Christ’s Death. It is the most important ceremony of the year for the JW’s. At least in my congregation it is a full day of getting ready and getting your best outfit on. After all, it is a very important date for us n_n.
The Memorial (as I’ll be calling it for the rest of this post) is a very small ceremony, it is shorter than a regular meeting at a Kingdom Hall. The place chosen for it can be a Kingdom Hall, a regular auditorium, even a hotel if the congreation(s) is big enough. Every one can attend and it’s free.
The ceremony goes like this:
Everyone is set to arrive at the designated place for the ceremony before sunset. Since for this special day we count days as in the Jewish Calendar, as soon as the sun sets we start.
- Song of Worship
To start, we sing one of the songs of worship designated for the Memorial, the lyrics have a motive about the Last Supper.
- Opening Prayer
It is a prayer to give thanks and ask for a blessing for the ceremony. JW’s don’t have any designated prayers, they just come as the one saying it desires. They always have to start with “Loving and blessed Father Jehovah” and end with “In the name of your beloved son, our Lord Christ” or something like that.
- Speech
In this speech the Elder giving it talks about the last supper, how Christ started the tradition, what it means for us today and why we only celebrate it once a year. During this speech, we also analyze the significance of the wine and the bread. We are also reminded that only those who belong to the 144,000 chosen ones to rule in heaven with Jesus after Armageddon can drink and eat from them.
- Passing of the bread
After a reminder of why the bread is a symbol for Christ’s body and a prayer, we pass along the bread.
- Passing of the wine
Same thing as with the bread, just pass it along, no drinking unless you’re part of the 144,000
- Last reflection
A little reflection given by the same elder who made the speech about what we had just done
- JW advertising
Ok, it’s not really advertising but if you aren’t a JW, they invite you to ask anyone in the audience if you want to start Studying the Bible with us and so on. It is like advertising in my book.
- Song of Worship
Same as above, with the Memorial theme in the lyrics.
- Final Prayer
To give thanks and bless everyone present.
All of this takes place within an hour. Well, it depends on who gives the speech and how many people are attending. There are designated ushers to make things faster but it can take sometime. My favourite part of these JW things are the songs because I know them all (in Spanish) backwards and forwards.
So that’s it, a little look at my JW world. If you want to know more, you can drop me a question here and I’ll try to answer to the best of my abilities. I’m not trying to change anyone’s religion, I’m just answering a question a friend asked.
Kisses,
Julie.
.