Not One in Seven

Fr. Tony’s Letter to the Trinitarians

March, 2016

Not One in Seven

Seven whole days, not one in seven,
I will praise thee;
in my heart, though not in heaven,
I can raise thee.
Small it is, in this poor sort
to enroll thee:
e’en eternity’s too short
to extol thee.
George Herbert, 1633

One of the things that first attracted me to the Episcopal Church was its celebration of the liturgical seasons and great feast days and fasts of the Church, and this in a theological and socially progressive setting.   The spiritual discipline of service coupled with regular daily religious practice and prayers, keeping holy not just one day in seven but seven whole days, marked for me a community dedicated to Jesus’s ideals of putting the Reign of God first by loving God and one’s neighbor above all else.    The great feast days like Christmas and Easter were known to me from my youth.  But here there were feasts and commemorations throughout the year previously unknown to me, both on Sundays and during the week:  Holy Name, Epiphany, Candlemas, Ash Wednesday, Pentecost, Ascension, Trinity, St. Mary the Virgin, and others.  And we had the seasons of Lent and Advent, twelve days of Christmas, as well as 50 days for Easter.   

The centerpiece of this rich treasury was Holy Week:  Palm and Passion Sunday followed by the great Three Day Liturgy (Triduum) lasting from the evening of Maundy Thursday, through Good Friday and Holy Saturday, on to Easter Sunday itself.

The first time I attended the Three Day Liturgy, I was astounded by its beauty, wholeness, and emotional depth.   Starting on Thursday with a quiet service of washing each other’s feet and celebrating Eucharist in honor of Christ’s new commandment (mandatum novum, where Maundy Thursday gets its name) to love each other, it proceeds with the solemn and emotionally devastating symbolic representation of Jesus’ betrayal and arrest:  stripping the altar. At the end of the service, there is no dismissal and we leave in darkness and silence:  this is but the first part of single service that lasts three days.   Good Friday is quiet and emotionally bleak: either a short simple service of the reading of the passion narrative and adoration of the Holy Cross or the longer meditative three hour preaching service: again, no dismissal.  Holy Saturday is quiet and also bereft, commemorating Christ’s descent into Hell.  But then after sunset. there comes the most beautiful and important of all the year’s liturgies: the Great Vigil of Easter.  A bonfire is kindled symbolizing new light and life, the paschal candle is blessed and lit from the new fire, and then we process into the Church to the increasingly higher pitched and louder chant, “The Light of Christ, Thanks be to God.”   An ancient chant follows, the Exulstet, one of the loveliest of all expressions of joy in Christ: “Rejoice now, heavenly hosts and choirs of angels.”  Then, several scriptural readings and psalms about salvation history, followed by baptisms and baptismal renewals, and then the lights come on with the acclamation “Alleluia, Christ is risen. The Lord is risen indeed, alleluia,” and Holy Eucharist, ending the liturgy with a joyous dismissal. The later Eucharists during the daylight of Easter Sunday are in some way simply echoes of the first, great Eucharist of our salvation, the Great Vigil.    

Because it is so gloriously beautiful and emotionally deep, I have always been somewhat sad to see that attendance at the whole Three Day Liturgy (Thursday evening, Friday Noon, and Holy Saturday evening) is low by normal Sunday standards, and substantially lower than Easter Morning.   Often, this is because people come only to one or two Holy Week services in addition their regular Sunday service; sometimes it is because people only come on Sunday.  But missing the continuity of the all three parts of the Triduum liturgy by missing any part of it diminishes the experience and impoverishes in some degree the Paschal celebration. 

With joy and love, I invite all of you to attend all three parts of the liturgy in addition to an Easter Sunday Eucharist, especially if it has been a while since you have been to the Great Vigil.  To try to make the Great Vigil a little less harsh to our elderly parishioners, this year we will begin the Great Vigil on Holy Saturday March 26 a little earlier than in the past, at 7 pm, with the lighting of the new fire in the Labyrinth.  I believe your spiritual life will be enriched by so doing. 

Grace and Peace

Fr. Tony+