I went to the Tenebrae service at St. Peter in Chains Cathedral last night. This has become my personal tradition for entering into the Triduum. I first experienced it back in the late 1980s at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart at Notre Dame, where it was sung after the Mass on the Lord’s Supper on Holy Thursday.
The centerpiece of the service is the chanting of the Lamentations of Jeremiah, in this case in English, but each verse introduced by its proper Hebrew letter. These three sections were interspersed by congregational psalms (Pss 80, 69, 22, 4) classical motets (Poulenc, Victoria, Casals, Bruckner), the Bach passion chorale and scripture readings from Hebrews, Romans, the Gospels of Mark and John. The other piece I wait for each year is an exquisite performance of Allegri’s Miserere, complete with traditional countertenor.
What struck me this year is that this is a very theological reflection on the upcoming passion. Rooted in the prophets, in the world’s need for salvation, it offer some of the finest scriptural reflections on the fulfillment of the messianic promise. Even the reading from Mark is the gathering at Caesarea Philipi, when Jesus asks that question we each must answer: “Who do you say that I am?” The commemoration of Jesus’ last hours lies ahead; this service reminds me why that commemoration is important.
On a much more primal level, it’s an incredibly stirring ritual. Quiet, solemn, stripped to basics in many ways: a simple procession, music, scripture, candlelight. As the fifteen candles are quietly extinguished one at a time after each psalm or reading, the focus deepens. With the single candle burning in a completely dark cathedral, I find myself aware at a very deep level of the most basic struggle between the darkness of chaos and the light of Christ. The moment of being plunged into complete darkness (for the space of an Our Father) makes me realize like nothing else I’ve ever experienced what the darkness would be like without the Light that came into the world for our salvation.
Masterful ritual, indeed. This is not overheated, even maudlin emotional reflecting on a tragic death. This is the very core of our faith experience. As John puts it so well, “The light came into the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.”
