The Sepulchre on Good Friday
At the end of the Good Friday solemn liturgy the sacramental Body of Christ was taken to the Anson Chapel, to the sepulchre.
The tabernacle was covered in a black veil of beautiful cloth given to church by a mother who this year has herself been mourning greatly.
In the evening we gathered at the Sepulchre for our traditional Good Friday evening devotion Mater Dolorosa – the grieving mother. We reflected on the events of this dreadful day from the perspective of Our Lord’s mother, with the help of some of the stations of the cross.
We heard the medieval poems Stabat Mater, rubens rosa and Planctus Mariae and prayed the 21st century Prayer to Mary of Nicola Slee.
At the end of our worship we prayed the simple prayer from the psalms said by the Lord from the Cross and which Jewish mothers teach their children to pray before sleep, and which Mary may well have taught Our Lord:
Into your hands O Lord I commend my spirit.
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