Tenebrae
It was Holy Week and darkness had fallen upon the monastery perched atop Graymoor Mountain in the Catskills. The only light came from the windows of its chapel where the friars were chanting back and forth across the aisle the psalms of the ancient rite of Tenebrae. The Latin word means darkness and the rite, repeated on the three nights prior to Good Friday, laments the imminent death of Christ.
In the chapel sanctuary stood a large triangular candelabrum with seven candles ascending its right and seven its left arm, converging upon a fifteenth candle at its apex. As the friars completed each of the rite’s prescribed fourteen psalms or lamentations, an acolyte extinguished one of the candles until only the fifteenth at the top (symbolic of Christ) dimly lit the chapel. A closing prayer was recited and then the acolyte lifted the lone candle from its holder and carried it solemnly out of sight behind the high altar. The chamber was now absolutely dark; silence prevailed. And then (to the surprise of any guests present) all the friars pounded the oaken choir stalls with their heavy hymnals, creating a sound equivalent to thunder itself - to symbolize the cataclysmic nature of what we had done to the Son of God. Only when the echoes had died away was the hidden candle returned from behind the altar and replaced at the top of the candelabrum - to forecast the good news that the light of life and love can never be fully extinguished, that Christ will rise again and again and again!
As often as I participated in the Tenebrae rite as a young man, I was deeply moved by it. What moved me most was that slow, one by one extinguishing of the fourteen candles and the loneliness of that final candle until it too was withdrawn. It seemed to illustrate so poignantly what happens to Jesus in the Passion story: Judas and Peter, Caiaphas and Annas, Pilate and Herod, the mob and soldiers converging on Jesus one by one to quench the radiance of his presence.
And who (I thought) was this cast of characters but me and you! For we play out the Passion story not only during Holy Week but every week of our lives. I mean, the presence of Christ within me struggles with a Judas within me who pretends to love him but really is engaged in arresting his development, handcuffing my Christic potential. The presence of Christ within me looks with sadness upon a Peter within me who’s ready to deny him at the drop of a hat if it means sticking my neck out. The presence of Christ within me has to face up to an interminable trial before my Annas and Caiaphas dimensions who insist that he prove beyond a doubt the validity of his Gospel of Love before I make any commitment to him. And then there’s Pilate, the ambivalent me, who would just as soon wash his hands of the whole affair - and Herod, the voyeur, who likes the promise of miracles but not the hard stuff about turning the other cheek, forgiving one’s enemies, caring with all one’s heart and mind and strength. And then there’s the mob within me, quick to opt for some current fad or TV guru as more compatible to my modern tastes than that depressing figure in crown and purple displayed on Pilate’s balcony.
Yes, for as long as I can remember, Christ’s Passion has been billed as “Now Playing” within the theatre of my mind; the luminous Christ often reduced to a hardly perceptible taper within the sanctuary of my heart. But thank God for Christ’s survival skills! Because the play never quite ends with him simply dead and buried; the acolyte always returns with that solitary candle - this time to start within me (at long last) a conflagration of pentecostal magnitude?
