I haven't mentioned, I think, that this is our Spring Break - or that it is Holy Week. They don't usually coincide, but Easter is earlier this year than it's been for most of a century. And since I'm not leaving town, I have the option of really doing Holy Week this time. I wasn't going to. I mean, I wasn't going to overdo it, but now it seems I'm well on my way. In fact, at this rate I'll have been in churches of some description nine times the week before Easter rolls around!
Palm Sunday doesn't really count, but I'll count it. Monday I volunteered at the Holy Apostles Soup Kitchen with my friend C - not a religious event, but it takes place in Holy Apostles. Yesterday was "Son of Man" at Middle Collegiate Church. Today, I went with my friend F to Tenebrae at Holy Apostles. Tomorrow I thought I had the perfect excuse for missing Maundy Thursday - tickets to the opera! - but then happened to see that there's an earlier service at St. Thomas Fifth Avenue (with Duruflé and Poulenc); so there goes Thursday. Then comes Good Friday: I'm ushering at the long service which starts at noon. This leaves an evening which I have a sneaking suspicion may get filled by a setting of the passion according to Saint Mark by Reinhard Keiser, a contemporary of Bach's, at Grace Church. Saturday is the Easter Vigil; I'm a lector. That should do it, but I might - like last year in Melbourne - find myself doing something rash on Easter Sunday, seeking refuge somewhere new and decidedly low church.
This was my first Tenebrae, a somber "service of darkness" - essentially the matins and lauds for these days. Over the course of the service of psalms sung in plainchant by the choir, readings and choral responses,
the lights in the church are extinguished one by one, until only one remains - and then it, too, is taken away for a time.
Tenebrae has been celebrated at Holy Apostles for over twenty years.
This ancient service speaks poignantly to the pain and alienation experienced by so many in our world today. Tenebrae was initiated at Holy Apostles in 1985 by our late Director of Music, Frank Santo. For Frank, who himself died of AIDS, the slow extinguishing of the light and the austerity of the music which characterize this service symbolized the intense loneliness and loss that many people who are homeless and especially those with HIV have experienced. In this time of war and terrorism, the significance of his service is all the greater.
Over the years, Tenebrae has evoked many different faces of human suffering: disease, violence, death, poverty, isolation, oppression, abandonment, war, terrorism. As we hear the psalms of lament and meditate on the passion of Christ, our attention is drawn to God's presence with all who are in need, and we are invited to reflect on our responses to suffering wherever it touches our lives.
Framed this way, the service is terribly moving. As one feels the light dying, one imagines those stricken with HIV and dying before their time (our collection was for a clinic in Southern Africa), and I felt in a new way what it means that Jesus should have suffered as human beings do. This is some profound stuff, stuff unimagined by folks who only come to hear "Jesus Christ is ris'n today!" in the bright light and lilies of Easter Day.
Palm Sunday doesn't really count, but I'll count it. Monday I volunteered at the Holy Apostles Soup Kitchen with my friend C - not a religious event, but it takes place in Holy Apostles. Yesterday was "Son of Man" at Middle Collegiate Church. Today, I went with my friend F to Tenebrae at Holy Apostles. Tomorrow I thought I had the perfect excuse for missing Maundy Thursday - tickets to the opera! - but then happened to see that there's an earlier service at St. Thomas Fifth Avenue (with Duruflé and Poulenc); so there goes Thursday. Then comes Good Friday: I'm ushering at the long service which starts at noon. This leaves an evening which I have a sneaking suspicion may get filled by a setting of the passion according to Saint Mark by Reinhard Keiser, a contemporary of Bach's, at Grace Church. Saturday is the Easter Vigil; I'm a lector. That should do it, but I might - like last year in Melbourne - find myself doing something rash on Easter Sunday, seeking refuge somewhere new and decidedly low church.
This was my first Tenebrae, a somber "service of darkness" - essentially the matins and lauds for these days. Over the course of the service of psalms sung in plainchant by the choir, readings and choral responses,
the lights in the church are extinguished one by one, until only one remains - and then it, too, is taken away for a time.Tenebrae has been celebrated at Holy Apostles for over twenty years.
This ancient service speaks poignantly to the pain and alienation experienced by so many in our world today. Tenebrae was initiated at Holy Apostles in 1985 by our late Director of Music, Frank Santo. For Frank, who himself died of AIDS, the slow extinguishing of the light and the austerity of the music which characterize this service symbolized the intense loneliness and loss that many people who are homeless and especially those with HIV have experienced. In this time of war and terrorism, the significance of his service is all the greater.
Over the years, Tenebrae has evoked many different faces of human suffering: disease, violence, death, poverty, isolation, oppression, abandonment, war, terrorism. As we hear the psalms of lament and meditate on the passion of Christ, our attention is drawn to God's presence with all who are in need, and we are invited to reflect on our responses to suffering wherever it touches our lives.
Framed this way, the service is terribly moving. As one feels the light dying, one imagines those stricken with HIV and dying before their time (our collection was for a clinic in Southern Africa), and I felt in a new way what it means that Jesus should have suffered as human beings do. This is some profound stuff, stuff unimagined by folks who only come to hear "Jesus Christ is ris'n today!" in the bright light and lilies of Easter Day.
