As Tenebrae begins
Holy Week @ St’Cs
At the beginning of Holy Week the beautiful and poignant words of Tenebrae – Vespers in Holy Week, were sung on Monday evening at St Chrysostom’s.
The candle light and the haunting melodies of the Lamentations of Jeremiah and the psalms, so well sung by our cantors (ably guided by Dr Preston), helped create a holy time and space at this special time of our Christian year. One by one the candles on the Tenebrae hearse were extinguished during the worship until, at the end, one alone remained burning.
Tenebrae is Latin for shadows, or darkness, and the darkness of church, the solemnity and the stillness allowed us to hold before God the pains and desolations of our world which confront us so often in newspapers in the media, and in our personal lives. This infrequently found act of worship could easily be adapted to different settings and styles of church life. (You can find a comment from a previous year too, click here)
A prayer said at Tenebrae:
Infinite God, before whom darkness is light and night shines like the day, show to us, in the night of abandonment, the light of your faithfulness and love, and in the depths of despair come, seek us out and lead us into hope. We ask this through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
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