Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est.
I stayed late at work so I could go to the Maundy Thursday Eucharist that starts Easter Triduum. I work during all the Good Friday services and I can't go to Easter Vigil Saturday night, so this was the only Holy Week service I could make this year.
I love the foot washing ritual of Maundy Thursday, but what choked me up the most tonight was the stripping and washing of the altar by our priests, who then silently draped it in a sheer black cloth, and the solemn, symbolic funerary aspect of that just slammed into me and tapped into an unexpected vein of grief coiled up deep down inside. It kind of took me by surprise, I'll admit. I've never had that strong of a reaction to a Holy Week service before and I'm not certain I can explain it. I just walked out after the service feeling quiet and reflective and a little sad and I haven't been able to shake those emotions since. I'm not entirely certain I want to. I think I might need that this Easter. It's been a long Lent.
Celebrating Easter in a liturgical church system is so very different from the way I was raised. Holy Week wasn't that important to fundamentalists. It was too papal, too ritualistic. Our focus was solely on Easter itself, and that always bothered me. The joy of the Resurrection seems so shallow without the understanding of the sorrow and grief of the days before it. But now I find the liturgy, the solemnity, the simple symbolic gestures like draping the altar in black cloth and extinguishing the paschal candle...they remind me exactly what I'm commemorating here. And that's a really powerful thing for me, I'm discovering. Right now, at this point in my life I need the ritual...but from the way it feels like I've come home, I'm starting to think I always have.
Anyway...
A peaceful Passover and Easter to everyone celebrating.
I love the foot washing ritual of Maundy Thursday, but what choked me up the most tonight was the stripping and washing of the altar by our priests, who then silently draped it in a sheer black cloth, and the solemn, symbolic funerary aspect of that just slammed into me and tapped into an unexpected vein of grief coiled up deep down inside. It kind of took me by surprise, I'll admit. I've never had that strong of a reaction to a Holy Week service before and I'm not certain I can explain it. I just walked out after the service feeling quiet and reflective and a little sad and I haven't been able to shake those emotions since. I'm not entirely certain I want to. I think I might need that this Easter. It's been a long Lent.
Celebrating Easter in a liturgical church system is so very different from the way I was raised. Holy Week wasn't that important to fundamentalists. It was too papal, too ritualistic. Our focus was solely on Easter itself, and that always bothered me. The joy of the Resurrection seems so shallow without the understanding of the sorrow and grief of the days before it. But now I find the liturgy, the solemnity, the simple symbolic gestures like draping the altar in black cloth and extinguishing the paschal candle...they remind me exactly what I'm commemorating here. And that's a really powerful thing for me, I'm discovering. Right now, at this point in my life I need the ritual...but from the way it feels like I've come home, I'm starting to think I always have.
Anyway...
A peaceful Passover and Easter to everyone celebrating.