Waiting . . .

I had very little time, nor inclination if I'm honest, to blog yesterday or even switch on the computer.

After a beautiful Holy Thursday liturgy including an excellent homily, both of which I found incredibly moving, I eventually got home about 20 minutes after Midnight.

Leaving an empty church - empty in every sense of the word, is very strange. No Blessed Sacrament, naturally; no adornment of any kind; no candles; the altar stripped bare and the crucifixes and statues still veiled really left me feeling bereft.

Our Good Friday followed much the same pattern as it has for the past twenty years or so. We began in the morning by joining the ecumenical Walk of Witness through the High Street following a large wooden Cross and stopping at various 'Stations' along the way for a short meditation. Despite the weather forecast we escaped without a drop of rain and I think we had an even larger crowd this year than last.

Then home for a short break before going to church in the afternoon for the Veneration of the Cross.

Today is very much a day of waiting, I feel. In church we have the Office of Readings in the morning and then the church is invaded by florists and other helpers who begin preparing for the culmination of the Triduum this evening, the Easter Vigil.

So, I have found an odd hour this afternoon to try and put a few words down about the Triduum and how we have celebrated so far.

'If ye love me . . . '

No time for much blogging for obvious reasons but I hope you enjoy this beautiful rendition of Thomas Tallis' 'If ye love me, keep my commandments'. It's a lovely haunting background for meditation during this evening's vigil with Our Lord in the Garden of Gethsemane.

We began our preparation for the Great Feast of Easter in earnest last night when we attended the Chrism Mass at the cathedral. It's always a very moving experience to see so many of our diocesan clergy gathered together renewing the commitment that they made at Ordination before the Bishop and all those assembled from across the diocese.

The blessing of the oils including the Chrism also makes a great impact and adds an extra dimension to the liturgies in our own parish when the oils are used and we are reminded of this Mass where they were blessed by the Bishop before being distributed to the Deaneries and on to individual parishes.

Waiting ...

On a serious note, I'm beginning to feel the anticipation of Holy Week today. It's a strange feeling, it's not quite Holy Week but the tone of Lent seems to have changed. I have become more aware every day this week of the growing build up to Christ's Passion. I'm lucky that I'm able to get to Mass most days and for some reason I've felt this 'build-up' in the readings even more than usual this year.

Tomorrow we'll have our Palm Sunday procession around the church and then just a few more days until we celebrate the Triduum. I know our neighbours find it strange that we seem to practically 'live' at church in between Holy Thursday evening and Easter Sunday morning.

Ever since the children were quite small, we've managed to join in most of the Easter events in our parish, beginning with the Mass of the Last Supper on Holy Thursday with the Washing of Feet and watching at the altar of repose until midnight. In the early days, we'd take turns to 'watch' whilst the other stayed at home and babysat.

On Good Friday we join in a local ecumenical Walk of Witness along our High Street following a large cross and stopping at 'Stations' along the way. We've done this since the boys were tiny and we walked with the buggy alongside other families. Then home for a hot cross bun (that's lunch!) and back to church in the afternoon for Veneration of the Cross.

The Easter Vigil is of course the climax and we often have a little parish celebration afterwards with those newly received into the Church.