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.

Way Of The Cross

Oh my Jesus,

My beloved, to hear the voice condemning you, after so much pain and humiliation has already been inflicted, I cannot bear it. Oh my heart! How can I walk beside you to the end? And yet to leave you would be more than I can bear. With that terrible crown upon your head, you come toward a terrible victory. I can feel its sharpness pressing into my head as if it were my own. And I will follow you, weeping.

To see you walking in such pain, with arms bound tight to the cross you carried on your shoulders; with all the dust sticking to your legs, mingling with the drying blood that flowed down upon them. Oh my love! How I wish that I could carry it for you!

I feel you falling to the ground, arms all helpless to stop yourself as you land heavily on your chest. Oh my beloved! How I wish I could pick you up in my arms and carry you, cradle you!

Oh child! There is no pain like this! How does a mother understand the pain of her child without feeling it? How does she not feel it? How do I, who is joined to you, not embrace you as you pass by?

Oh my heart! Please, let me carry it for you, if only for a little while, but for a little while. For, through your promise, we two are one; to make it lighter for you is a delightful weight.

I see the sweat and blood flowing down your face, mingling with your tears and stinging your eyes. Do you see me, beloved, as I see you? Oh, to cradle your face in my hands, wiping you gently with a soft cloth, kissing you softly as in a dream! Oh my beloved! The image of you is burned into my soul.

I hear resounding the searing crack as you fall again, slicing your knees open on the hard ground, exhausted. If I could but kiss your broken skin, try to heal the wounds as you have healed me!

Oh my Lord! How do I cry out in agony at seeing you! Your body broken for me, your blood spilling upon the ground. It is torment to look upon you, and yet I cannot turn away. I cry for you loudly, beloved: do you hear me?

Again, you fall, your chest landing heavily, your heart beginning to break. Oh my beloved! How does it go on beating? How do you get back up?

Oh sweet Jesus! Your naked skin, vulnerable and torn, exposed to unforgiving sun and jeers as the soldiers tear your clothes. Oh my Lord! If I could but cover you with my body, hold you close in your fragility, as you have held be. How I wish to caress you gently, my hands soothing on your broken skin.

Oh my hands! How do I feel it so vividly as they pierce through your skin and bone and muscle? Oh child Jesus! The blood coating your hands and feet when you were born was brighter somehow.

I cannot breathe as you cannot breathe; struggling against torn skin to pull yourself upward, to take in air through the pain. Oh my soul, we are dying together!

How I wish that I could sing you to sleep! Your arms outstretched upon the Cross, embracing all our pain and brokenness in the agony of your suffering. You do not sleep, and I cannot soothe you. I can only look upwards in mute horror as the smell of your broken body surrounds me.

Oh my beloved! You have pierced my soul with a spear covered in precious stones, and the pain of it has given me life. Oh my beloved! You have bound me to you in a promise made secretly in the night, as I took you into my arms. Oh my love, how you have held me in my pain! How do I wish that I could hold you so soothingly, become one with you so completely. Today I can only hold you in your death, my beloved.

Your body now held in my arms, still warm and soft, as still as a calm sea. Oh my heart! How can I bear it? To hold you for much longer is more than I can bear, yet I cannot open my arms to release you. Oh how I long to hold you forever in my embrace!

Dark and cold, fragrant with spices, your body carefully wrapped in new linen cloth. You are yourself but not yourself; you are my beloved, here with my, held in my longing gaze, and yet you are already gone. Oh my Jesus! What has been done to you?

Open The Gates Before Him; Lift Up Your Voices!

Wow: Palm Sunday. Holy Week has now begun. I have to admit, I’m a bit shell-shocked, unprepared. Can this really all be happening so quickly? I wish this wasn’t all happening at the same time the school semester is ending. I find myself wondering whether or not my scholastic endeavors can ever really be harmonized with my Christian life – eventually, something’s gotta give. What’s most important to me should be obvious from the fact that I find reflecting on my experiences through this blog more pressing than proofreading the assignment that’s due tomorrow, or for that matter researching term papers. School, I have found, is not at all understanding of the fact that I value my spiritual life – my liturgical confession of faith – as much as I value breathing and much more than I value knowledge. I guess that settles it: I need to find some sort of church job. Anyone in need of a secretary?

Because liturgy is my oxygen, I take it rather seriously. Perhaps too much. But it’s the only way I can know my faith, live it and breathe it in and move and have my being in it. It’s the water at the root of things that gives me the strength to live my faith, or at least to try.

So: Palm Sunday. It began with the congregation in the hall rather than the church proper, which I thought was pretty cool, mostly because of what followed. So the priest blessed the palms. I found this part a little strange, because he didn’t use aspersion with holy water, rather just touching them with his hand. I didn’t realize you could bless anything without holy water. Except of course holy water itself…hmmm…never thought of that. And I guess rosaries don’t get blessed with holy water. I suppose it makes sense.

What was super awesome was that the whole congregation (at least in theory) went in procession around the church. I’d never seen that: the church I used to go to had the children processing from the sacristy while the adults remained in the pews. I wonder who we are in the story: are we the disciples? Are we people from the crowd who decide to join in? If we’re all following Jesus, who’s strewing the palm leaves on the ground and praising him? Maybe we aren’t limited to only one of these roles: maybe we’re the crowd and the disciples; maybe we both follow and greet; maybe we are Judas, and all those who turn against him. Are we not all these things at some point in our lives? I don’t know. All I know is that we sang Hosanna, and all participated in the procession and liturgy, and it was wonderful.

I knew that the priest wouldn’t be using a cape. He did, however, put on a Jewish prayer shawl during part of the service, and I thought that was lovely.

I was shocked when I realized that the Passion wasn’t going to be read: I didn’t know you could even have a Palm Sunday service without it. I’m actually pretty devastated. It made me sad; it made me panic a bit; it made me wonder what on earth it was that I’d done. Has this been the right decision? Am I ready to leave behind the rituals that I have so deeply loved, that have shaped my life? It made me realize how completely unknown the Anglican church is to me: how foreign, how formless it is in my mind and my heart. How deep these waters whose bottom I cannot see, whose greatness and vastness of life I cannot fathom.

Of course, I was also sad that they didn’t celebrate Eucharist. But, then again, I already knew that they don’t do it every Sunday – itself a foreign concept to me. I admit that I also miss singing songs that are familiar to me.

Luckily, I have a subscription to Novalis’ daily missal, Living With Christ, so I have the entire text of the Passion as it was supposed to be read today. I’m going to read it instead of evening prayer. It isn’t at all the same, and I am melancholy about that, but at least I will be able to experience the Word. Though I must admit, it’s not at all right to be experiencing it all alone.

But at least I have that option.

I can’t do anything about Eucharist, though.