Tenebrae

A couple of posts ago I was bewailing the fact that I didn't feel as if I was in Holy Week, as I hadn't had the opportunity to "prepare" myself for the spiritual onslaught.

Well, a friend had told me that Tenebrae was being celebrated at Corpus Christi church, Maiden Lane, London, and he suggested that I make the effort to attend. I have to confess that I wasn't really in the mood by the end of my working day. I was feeling washed out and headachy. However, after getting home, I thought about what Our Lord had suffered for us, and considered what sort of a sorry state I was in for the start of the Triduum...

...and so I got back in the car and drove in to central London. I arrived at Covent Garden with about five minutes to go before the service was due to start, and began praying to St. Joseph to find me a parking space. I dreaded getting lost in the one-way maze of backstreets, but suddenly turned a corner and found myself right next to Maiden Lane, and lo and behold, there was a parking space just in front of me. The parking restriction had finished half an hour previously, so I grabbed my mantilla and shot in to the church with a minute to spare!

And what a wonderful service it was. The church is quite small and intimate, but the acoustics are really good... the psalms and readings were chanted from the front, but some of the antiphons and responses were sung from a gallery at the back of the church: the music was spine-tinglingly good. I tried to record it on my phone, but without success.

It was certainly an experience I'd want to repeat: the mournful tones of the psalms, the role of Judas Iscariot in planning his betrayal, and the sense of impending doom really bring home the meaning of what is about to happen over the next few days...

I will try to put up a post about the morning's Chrism Mass tomorrow, but after that I shall be on private "retreat" for the Triduum.