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What is Tenebrae?
This is an example of a 15 candle tenebrae hearse.
Tenebrae is a series of prayer services from a very old monastic practice which is done during the Triduum, or the three days preceding Easter. It is practiced at the time of morning prayer, and if you happen to be part of a Dominican parish, the friars are likely to make this a part of the parish’s prayer experience on these very holy days. Psalms are chanted (Gregorian chant), and there are a series of three lessons from the Lamentations of Jeremiah that are also chanted.
A candelabra (the tenebrae “hearse”) of 15 candles is lit prior to the beginning of the service, and as the psalms and lessons are chanted, the candles are gradually extinguished, leaving the church in semi-darkness at the end. Tenebrae is Latin for “shadows” or darkness”.
The solemness of this service always moves me, and I look forward to participating in Tenebrae at St. Dominic’s Church in San Francisco each year. This year I’ll be singing Lesson II from Lamenations 1:4-6. The psalm tones are particularly poignant and assist these passages to invite us to share in the sufferings of all those who are in anguish and to hold them in our hearts as we enter into these days of remembering the suffering of Christ. We remember that Christ’s suffering still continues among so many on our planet.
Daleth.
The roads to Zion mourn, for none come to the appointed feasts;
all her gates are desolate, her priests groan;
her maidens have been dragged away, and she herself suffers bitterly.
Heh.
Her foes have become the head,
her enemies prosper because the Lord has made her suffer for the multitude of her transgressions;
her children have gone away, captives before the foe.
Vau.
From the daughter of Zion
has departed all her majesty.
Her princes have become like harts that find no pasture:
they fled without strength before the pursuer.
Jerusalem, Jerusalem,
return to the Lord your God.
For more information about Tenebrae, please go to this link provided by St. Dominic’s Church in Benicia.
Teach Me Your Paths
Today’s Responsorial Psalm is Psalm 25
Your ways, O Lord, are love and truth to those who keep your covenant.
Your ways, O LORD, make known to me; teach me your paths,
Guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my savior.
Remember that your compassion, O LORD, and your love are from of old.
In your kindness remember me, because of your goodness, O LORD
Good and upright is the LORD, thus he shows sinners the way.
He guides the humble to justice, and he teaches the humble his way.
Your ways, O Lord, are love and truth to those who keep your covenant.
- O Lord, make known to me your paths.
Finding the Cure in a Pumpkin Patch
Pumpkin patch in garden at Presentation Center, Los Gatos
The only cure is love, by Helen Caldicot
I just walked around my garden. It is a sunny, fall day and white fleecy clouds are scudding across a clear, blue sky.
The air is fresh and clear with no taint of chemical smells, and the mountains in the distance are ringed by shining silver clouds.
Earlier I picked a pan full of ripe cherry guavas to make jam, and the house is filling with the delicate aroma of simmering guavas.
Figs are ripening on the trees and developing that gorgeous deep, red glow at the apex of the fruit.
Huge, orange-colored lemons hang from the citrus trees, and lettuce, beet-roots, and cabbage are growing in the vegetable garden….
It is clear to me that unless we connect directly with the Earth, we will not have the faintest clue why we should save it.
Source: If You Love This Planet
Being at Peace
We are not at peace with others because we are not at peace with ourselves, and we are not at peace with ourselves because we are not at peace with God.
-Thomas Merton
Daisy . . . being at peace.
