Luminous Mystery
Fr. Tony’s Mid-week Message
April 9, 2014
This Sunday, we enter into the most sacred week of the
Christian Calendar. Starting with the
Liturgy of the Palms and the Passion Gospel, we begin what is to time what the
Holy of Holies of the Temple in Jerusalem was to space: Holy Week. We retell stories about Jesus’ last week,
his last supper with his disciples, his sufferings, death, and burial, with the
despair this brought the disciples. Most
importantly, we retell the stories of his bodily reappearance to them a day and
a half later, and his joyful victory over death, despair, sin, fear, and
meaninglessness.
The liturgies we observe for the whole week are ancient, and
engage us in a special way. They do not
talk at us, nor try to convince. They
simply retell the story, pray the prayers, sing the songs, and frame this all
in a setting of awe and beauty in special vestments, once-a-year rites and
chants, and clouds of incense representing our prayers and mystery-filled
presence of God. The rites range from
intimately personal washing each others’ feet, to ostentatiously public and
joyful processions, to despairing darkness at the end of the Tenebrae service
and the silent stripping of the altar at the close of Maundy Thursday, to the
bitterly sorrowful adoration of the Holy Cross on Good Friday, on through the
luminous and joyful Great Vigil of Easter and Easter Morning Eucharists.
It is best simply to let these rites of luminous mystery
carry us along in their current. A
willing suspension of disbelief is necessary to let them work their magic in
our hearts and wills: no struggle to
make them more rational or doctrinally sound, no back-benching artistic
critique as to how we would have them done, no partisan tribal identification
of this practice or that.
The worship and ceremonies of Holy Week and the Three-day
Liturgy (the Triduum) are great spiritual practices when celebrated and
observed in the proper spirit, bringing focus and intensity of feeling to our
faith.
Let us
pray:
Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he
suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified: Mercifully
grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find it none other than the
way of life and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen. (Book of Common Prayer)
Grace and Peace,
Fr. Tony+
No comments:
Post a Comment