Office of Tenebrae

Last night R. and I went to an office of Tenebrae service. I didn't even know there was such a thing until a few years ago and now it's become one of the services I look forward to every year during Holy Week. Here's a little section from the program:

The name Tenebrae (the Latin word for darkness or shadows) has for centuries been applied to the ancient monastic night and early morning services (Matins and Lauds) of the last three days of Holy Week, which in medieval times came to be celebrated on the preceding evenings. Apart from chanting of the Lamentations of Jeremiah, in which each verse is introduced by a letter of the Hebrew alphabet, the most conspicuous feature of the service is the gradual extinguishing of candles and other lights in the church to signify the gradual extinction of all human hopes. Toward the end of the service, when the Benedictus is sung, the lights of the candelabra are extinguished one by one, in commemoration of the darkness with overshadowed the earth during Christ's crucifixion.

I've been having a really bumpy couple of months. It's been awesome in so many ways AND I'm pretty tired and feeling worn. R and I went to see a movie with John and Sue a couple weekends ago and at the end of the movie Sue looked at me and said "you look really tired." You know how when someone says that to you it can feel like the shittiest thing in the word and you may want to say or do say "thanks a lot, that helps - not!" Well, Sue saying that had the opposite affect on me. I felt seen, really seen and cared for. If she would have hugged me I might have started crying.

I wrote her an e-mail the next day and included this David Whyte that I soaking up.

When your eyes are tired
the world is tired also.

When your vision has gone
no part of the world can find you.

Time to go into the dark
where the night has eyes
to recognize its own.

There you can be sure
you are not beyond love.

The dark will be your womb
tonight.

The night will give you a horizon
further than you can see.

You must learn one thing.
The world was made to be free in.

Give up all the other worlds
except the one to which you belong.

Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet
confinement of your aloneness
to learn

anything or anyone

that does not bring you alive
is too small for you.

Last night sitting in the dark - no candles, no lights except the ambient evening light coming through the oculus and the emergency exit lights, on my knees next to R, the whole packed cathedral dark, quiet, and still I felt exactly where I needed to be. I could have stayed there on my knees a lot longer.

Blessings to you wherever you are this week. Blessings on your Triduum if you're observing. Blessings on your Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday if you're not.