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| never ceases to speak to me |
Sorry that I have fallen behind a
bit here on the blog. Holy Week got the
better of me—I climbed down from my ivory tower and got somewhat over-involved
in things in the parish this year—I am not sure how, I was just sort of swept
away in the current of what was a magnificent experience of incarnating the
profundity of Christian spirituality in the rites and ceremonies of the
Christian Pasch. It really was an
opportunity to enter deeply into the mystery of Christ’s suffering, death, and
Resurrection
Palm Sunday took on a particularly
rich significance as in addition to the already dramatic rites of the Blessing
of Palms and Procession followed by the reading of the Passion, the Mass I
attended was a “bon-voyage Mass” for sixteen special needs teens and young
adults and their eighty-five strong entourage of doctors, nurses, caregivers,
choristers, priests and brothers who were leaving to spend Easter at
Lourdes. The enthusiasm which they
brought to the procession and their obvious imaging of the sufferings of Christ in the Passion lifted the veil between
the realms of liturgical symbolism and tangible reality in a dramatic way. No, there was no solemn reserve in the
Liturgy. Yes, the Mass was noisy,
raucous even, with all the idiosyncrasies of those on the autism spectrum but
then the streets of Jerusalem echoed with the Hosanna’s of Palm Sunday and the
screams to crucify on Good Friday. To
see in the faces of these young people the attention and devotion to what was
happening, not regarding their own hardships, was a very moving
experience.
The remainder of Holy Week took on
a more solemn note. We do Taizé prayer
here weekly and it is both especially solemn and profoundly tranquil in Holy
Week. The focus of the prayer throughout Lent is the Cross—“prayer around the
cross”—and it is a haunting mixture of silence and scripture and repetitive
music that can transport the worshipper to the foot of the Cross. The
liturgies of the Triduum were magnificent.
All were done reverently but with no show or pomp. Yes, women were among those having their feet
washed on Holy Thursday. And yes, one of
the altar servers for the Triduum rites was a young lady—along with her two
brothers. Everything was very Novus
Ordo. There were three adult baptisms
and confirmations at the Easter Vigil. There were Eucharistic Ministers and Lectors
(both men and women). Communion was
given in both kinds—as it always is in our parish—except, of course, on Good
Friday when the Eucharist is given from the reserved Sacrament. The Music ranged from Mozart (Ave Verum Corpus) and Curtis Stephan
(Bread of Angles) to John Rutter’s Ubi
Caritas. The schola for the Good Friday Liturgy sang the reproaches as well as
old spirituals and it was all done a
capella. Good Friday afternoon the parochial
vicar preached the Seven Last Words along with a string quartet from our local
Opera Company doing Hayden’s Oratorio on the Seven Last Words. Easter saw trumpets and Handel’s Hallelujah
Chorus to packed churches for six Masses.
Indeed, the Church was full for all the services. At the Vigil there were three adult baptisms
and one woman received into the Church. One could clearly see the Sacrament of
Baptism as a being buried together with Christ so as to be raised with Christ
to newness of Life.
All this is, of course, the icing
on the cake: the music, the flowers, even the solemn dignity of the rites. What matters (and what mattered) is just how
deeply moved—and hopefully changed—were the
hearts of the worshippers. People just
stayed in the church for hours, deep in prayer, especially after the Good
Friday service. There was a genuine
sense, not so much of ritual well done, but of entering into the Mystery of the
Lord’s Passion and Death.
I have seen the “photo-posts” on
some of the neo-trad blogs with their versus
absidem altars draped in purple and a superabundance of copes and dalmatics
and references to Byrd and Palestrina.
And I am sure they were lovely. I
always found that final scene in the first act of Tosca lovely too—the one
where they carry a cardboard host in an antique monstrance. But it in the end it is not about ritual and
rubrics, it is about prayer. And in the
end it is not about tickling the ear with music or eye-candy vestments, but
about taking away our hearts of stone and giving us hearts of flesh.
I am not saying that the old rites
can’t do this, but I am observing that the commentaries I read on their wacko
sites indicates that they have traded their birthright of conversion for the
pottage of ceremonial. Beautiful yes,
but the opera is beautiful. The question
is: does it change our hearts? Our worship
adds nothing to the Glory of God—our transformation into the Love that fills
the heart of Christ is what gives God the glory.
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