Thursday, April 9, 2009

Tantum Ergo

Today, we wear white vestments; today, we sing the Gloria; today, we celebrate the institution of the Lord’s Supper. Such a great gift in the midst of such a terrible time. I do not comprehend it.

Before the Mass, there’s the ceremony of the washing of the feet. I remember as a child following the priest as he knelt on the floor, moving in a semi-circle. I remember how our bowl of water leaked, so one of our jobs was to have lots of paper towels to dry the floor with. I loved this service: serving the server. We are all of us servants of the Lord. What I need to remember is that service, too, is sacrifice, sacrament. The most lowly service is also the highest; he who chooses the most excellent place is also the most humbled. What I need to remember is that our Lord first served.

I went to the Maundy Thursday service at a church I’d never been to for Mass but to which practically everyone had been telling me to go. It felt like…an adventure to a familiar but unknown longed for place. I love incense; the ritual is beautiful; the music is soaring. I learnt that I had become used to leaning on the front of pews for balance while standing in church.

It’s actually refreshing that I don’t know what’s going on sometimes: what are they bowing to, what is he doing up there, why is he ‘bowing’ like that, why are the images already covered, what’s the point of a choir screen that doesn’t block your view while kneeling? I was surprised that the Gospel was chanted. I was also surprised that the Tantum Ergo wasn’t sung in Latin. But I get ahead of myself. I like that this is something of a mystery to me. If you haven’t noticed, I quite like reflecting on liturgy, on gesture. This is something that I can turn over in my mind, seek and ask into, discover something new about worship, about myself. It’s a little scary in a way, not knowing after so much knowing, but it’s exciting and intriguing, too.

The celebration of the Mass takes on a new poignancy on Holy Thursday. Jesus, so careful to make sure we get to this place and this moment, at table with his betrayer gave to the world the Sacrament of His Body and Blood. Take and eat; do this for the remembrance of me. We partake in his Sacrifice to the end of the world.

I was prepared enough today to be able to receive Eucharist (though I’m still confused about specific fasting requirements). I admit that reading the Mass booklet freaked me out, though; I mean, it says you have to be in communion with your church and, well, since I have no church, I’m clearly not. I am always afraid someone will notice that I don’t know what I’m doing and call me on it. Or that, you know, God will strike me down: ouch.

I love the Blessed Sacrament, I love it so much! This is a part of me. Sometimes I feel like I’m on fire for it, full of light. It can be so sweet, like honey maybe, filling my mouth. I love how I can feel the Consecration, the Spirit, feel it like a wonderful shiver running through my skin. A bit like how I feel when I hear great church music.

Obviously, I stayed behind for a while at the altar of repose. I was grateful that I managed to somehow carve out a space for praying where there was no one behind me who could see what I was doing: God was with me. I can be a little intense in my adoration, especially when it’s combined with vigil. I don’t know that people would be understanding of the things that I do.

What does it mean to adore the Blessed Sacrament and to keep vigil? To give thanks for a marvelous gift and keep painful watch with Jesus in his agony in the garden? If it would remove one instant of his torment, I would give God my life and let Him take it. What I feel, this small part of being with, so difficult and searing, what is that compared to the suffering of our Savior? For one less tear of sorrow shed by him, I would gladly die.

It is a powerful and unnamable thing to keep watch and to give thanks at the same time. In a way, Good Friday is so much simpler. I cannot faithfully describe it, caught between joy and torment, sorrow and thanksgiving. There are no words that could even hold it in my heart, and it fills me up. I am too small for it: it overcomes me.

Maundy Thursday: the word, I learned, means ‘mandate.’ Jesus’ commandment that we love one another as he has loved us…for whatever reason, that has never been the focus of the day for me. I have not focused on the command, nor meditated on it during my Holy Thursday devotions. I have always reflected, rather, on the gift of the Eucharist – the gift, and not the demand. At first I thought centering my thought on the command was strange, but the more I think about it, the more it becomes clearer, deeper. What is it to love Christ but to understand that Eucharist is never only for us as individuals? I mean, of course it’s for us: the Blood is shed for the whole world as a communion of persons, and not as some abstract philosophical gestalt reality. But we are not meant to keep it to ourselves. Eucharist spills over and out of us, turning us outward toward each other; we go to the altar so that the altar can send us forth into the world embodying the message of the Cross, the Gospel of unmerited gift. Of course it is all about the new commandment. I am thankful that a chance question gave me the opportunity to reflect on this, and to express and honor more deeply the organic connection between the two.

Sweet Jesus, I lay myself before you as nothing, offering only longing to take away or make reparation for your pain. Live in me in all your sorrow and anguish, and transform my life into that for which I am made.

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