Holy Week meditations

I think of Holy Week as being in M.C. Escher's drawing “Relativity.”  Every event is linked by a mystical stairway/path that wouldn't be entirely sensible to the modern way of thinking.  This past Sunday, Sr. Carol Bernice gave a sermon in which she described the Entrance into Jerusalem in a way that recalls dream experiences we've all had of being in one place and then suddenly in another.  

The somber, subdued nature of the week goes with the black and gray imagery of “Relativity.”  The figures in the drawing seem to be going about their daily lives much as we do.  It involves journeys that take us in directions that we may have not thought possible and seeing things we couldn't imagine beforehand.   All the characters seem caught up in the present, and if we observe Holy Week in a thoughtful and meditative manner, we, too, will be more aware of the present moment. 

Singing Tenebrae requires an alert attention to details, yet also, a listening to and meditation on the words themselves.  This year the lessons in the 1^st Nocturn of every night are taken from Jeremiah's Lamentations, and at family meals on Tuesday and Wednesday, we will be listening to music based on Lamentations performed by Nordic Voices.  On Maundy Thursday there will be the celebration of the Eucharist with foot washing in our refectory with a festive meal followed by silence and vigil in the great room at the Altar of Repose.  Our Good Friday liturgy will include a prayerful listening to and reading of Bach's St. Matthew Passion.  Bach was so far ahead of his time theologically and musically that it seems he should have been born in our age.  All of these “timely” observances of Holy Week will culminate in the great Vigil of Easter, which will have gained dimension and depth from our keeping of the week before.