Triduum 2011 - Hope all goes well!

[JW]

God be with everyone over the next few days. No doubt we will have one or two howlers but overall I'm hoping/praying that people will be spiritually refreshed and renewed yet again by this incredible liturgy.

Our main musical innovations this year will be 'The Glory of the Cross' opening the Triduum, the full version of Paul Inwood's 'This is the Wood of the Cross' at the Good Friday procession, intonation of the Solemn Alleluia (Celtic) by the PP at the Vigil and 'Christ The Lord is Risen Today' as the Sequence for Easter Sunday - we haven't done sequences of any form for 12 years or so.

[musicus]

We have just discovered All you who pass this way in Music from Taizé volume 2 - a wonderful piece for the Good Friday liturgy. Mind you, it's in F sharp minor (no problem) and one of its verses is in D sharp minor. First time I've seen double sharps in liturgical music, I think.

Tonight - Holy Thursday - went well, but it was an effort to play the original Coventry Gloria after spending a few weeks up close and personal with the revised version.

[presbyter]

Good Friday Walks of Witness - just wondering if anyone invites people from other Christian communities to the 3.00 pm Passion Liturgy - after a morning Walk of Witness.

I find here that many of the "non-CofE" folk don't do any other form of worship apart from the ecumenical Walk of Witness on Good Friday. A few people always take up my invitation - and they know they can't receive Holy Communion.

[lesley wright]

Am I odd in wondering why anyone receives Holy Communion on Good Friday? It always feels wrong.
BTW talking about howlers, at our Holy Thursday evening Mass the strongest voice in my choir sang a Memorial Acclamation from a different Eucharistic setting to the one I was playing (I was playing the one that went with the Holy Holy we'd already sung) with the result that no one else sang! Since Palm Sunday began with the radio microphones not working well enough to let me know how far the procession had processed, I'm now dreading the rest of the Triduum - what will the next disaster be?

[oopsorganist]

I know I should know but somehow wondering how to sort out the psalms for Saturday bearing in mind we have also a Baptism of an adult. (Can't remember doing this before .
I have the mass sheet in front of me, the third reading must never be omitted. I am unlikely to get PPs attention and notice of what he plans before I arrive on Saturday - except that of course we are doing the whole thing in daylight. But which reading and Psalms will happen is a bit of a mystery.

The sheet says that if there is a Baptism the following Pslam and Prayer are said instead of "the above" which is the one about wells and water. (With joy you will draw water) and the Psalm can then be Like a dear that yearns etc (which will have to be the panty song for reasons of something or other). But if we were going to miss that reading and Psalm anyway - which might happen, then do we sing the Psalm about the deer? Then we have the Liturgy of Baptism, the Blessing of water, and the Rite of Baptism. Then just before the Prayer of the Faithful we sing the first hymn?

I am wilting already just thinking about all these prayers. I am missing anything out ?

[Southern Comfort]

Am I odd in wondering why anyone receives Holy Communion on Good Friday? It always feels wrong.

Yes, it does, and it only dates back to the revisions to the Holy Week rites in 1955. Before that, for centuries, the only person who received on Good Friday was the presiding priest. It emphasised the fact that this day was different from all others, and the starkness of the day. I know a number of parishes where they never receive on Good Friday, having taken a conscious decision as a community many years ago to have a "eucharistic fast". I must say I empathise with that.

I don't know why it was re-introduced, but possibly a change of mentality following Pius X's relaxation of the age at which Communion could be received, together with a gradual change for adults from only receiving once a year to receiving more often than that, was responsible.

[Southern Comfort]

I am celebrating the Triduum and Easter Sunday morning in four different parishes this year: Maundy Thursday as a congregation member, Good Friday as a "stiffening" choir member, Easter Vigil as a stand-in cantor, Easter Sunday as a stand-in organist.

Last night, at the Evening Mass of the Lord's Supper, the opening hymn was "All God's people, come together" (Watcyn-Jones text to the tune of "All through the night"). Line 7 of each verse runs "Come, rejoice, sing hallelujah" which no one seemed to have a problem with. With stunning consistency, the "A" word cropped up again shortly afterwards in the Peruvian Gloria...... We clearly have a long way to go.

[alan29]

Good Friday Walks of Witness - just wondering if anyone invites people from other Christian communities to the 3.00 pm Passion Liturgy - after a morning Walk of Witness.

I find here that many of the "non-CofE" folk don't do any other form of worship apart from the ecumenical Walk of Witness on Good Friday. A few people always take up my invitation - and they know they can't receive Holy Communion.

Our local Churches Together come to us on Palm Sunday evening for the Stations of the Cross. It was started years ago as a one-off experiment. The visitors demanded that it should be repeated annually. Now all the ministers have a role. It is incredibly well attended, and the singing is marvellous. People stay in their seats, move round the church, stand, sit or kneel as they wish. It is always deeply moving and prayerful.

[keitha]

There must be something about Stations of the Cross that I have been missing all of these years because our Stations tonight will be ecumenical in that, for the last few years, we have been joined by fellow Christians from our local churches on Good Friday evening, with their ministers all taking part and this was all at their request. It goes well and is very prayerful.

[HallamPhil]

Am I odd in wondering why anyone receives Holy Communion on Good Friday? It always feels wrong.

SC's observation is the very reason that for years I've provided music in that celebration only as far as the end of the veneration. It makes the communion rite feel different .. but then it is .. it has had to be adapted textually. This also gives greater prominence to the veneration procession.

[Mithras]

A number of interesting points here - there is a double sharp in the alto line of "O Come and Mourn" (at least in the setting I use, in E).

More to the point, if it is questionable whether Communion should be distributed at the Good Friday Liturgy ( a most perceptive point which I had not hitherto considered) it is surely equally questionable that Stations should be prayed on Good Friday evening (as we have just done) as, having experienced the Passion during the gospel in the afternoon it seems to make little sense to repeat it again in the evening; it seems to contradict the idea of the "silent" church looking forward to the resurrection. This also had not occured to me until I was discussing it last night with a friend who is a PP (in another diocese). Bythe same token should the sacrament of reconciliation be routinely celebrated during the triduum (which does not of course mean it can't be administered in grave circumstances such as immediate danger of death)?

SC is of course spot on with his observances about the "A word" but more importantly still why is the Peruvian Gloria (essentially a paraprased Gloria Patri) being used in place of a Gloria in excelsis deo?

Tomorrow's vigil Mass (or at least what we are doing for it) meets the casde nicely, I think, Readings 1,3,5 and 7 with apponted psalms, Gospel ditto, de Angelis Gloria (with introductory fanfare), an Easter Sanctus and Agnus written by your most humble 2 years ago, Chris Walker's Veni Sancte Spiritus (loved by all) during the procession of candidates for confirmation. The final hymn is Jesus Christ is Risen (with an interlude twixt verses 2 and 3 and the final voluntary David Johnson's Trumpet Tune in C, the first three notes (C-E-G) of which are of course the first three of the hymn.

On receptions, I had understood that the bishops had vetoed these for ordinariate candidates being done on Maundy Thursday. Thoughts, anyone?

Anyway, thanks for the good wishes, JW, and a happy, holy and trouble free Easter to all.

Proleptically, Resurrexit sicut dixit!

M

[Nick Baty]

...should the sacrament of reconciliation be routinely celebrated during the triduum

Fairly certain it can't be – apart from the example you give.

[mcb]

Yes, it does, and it only dates back to the revisions to the Holy Week rites in 1955. Before that, for centuries, the only person who received on Good Friday was the presiding priest.

So what then was the significance of the priest receiving? In any case I think this is a spurious argument, since, in the middle ages, at any Mass during the year it was an anomaly for lay people to receive communion. In the Missal of Pius V the communion of the faithful was imported wholesale from the rite of the sick, since it was hitherto something extraneous to the celebration of the Mass.

It seems like I'm alone in thinking so, but I don't find the distribution of communion at the Good Friday liturgy at all out of place. To me it's simple: Christ's body broken for us then and now.

[HallamPhil]

On receptions, I had understood that the bishops had vetoed these for ordinariate candidates on Maundy Thursday. Thoughts, anyone?

Well our Bishop did it on Holy Thursday between Penitential Rite and Gloria. Personally I can't see why it might not have been possible along with the other 26 adults we are receiving tomorrow at the Easter Vigil but this is not my decision. However it did allow one additional person to be received who has to travel today to be with a sick relative.

I'm not sure that we should linger too long on this. I can't see it ever happening again as the ordinariate will have its(her?) own priests capable of doing these receptions.

[HallamPhil]

mcb wrote "It seems like I'm alone in thinking so, but I don't find the distribution of communion at the Good Friday liturgy at all out of place. To me it's simple: Christ's body broken for us then and now."

Except that the body was liturgically broken the previous evening. There is no breaking of bread on Good Friday.