耶稣受难日/ Good Friday
This year we decided to attend both the Stations of the Cross and the Good Friday service all at our same parish. In previous years we have made special mini-pilgrimages to other parishes for their Stations of the Cross, once at St. Anthony in Shenzhen and once at Beitang in Beijing.
We followed the path they took up the aisle on our knees. Yes, young and old alike, we travelled from our pew crawling on our knees to adore the cross.
The choir and congregation continued our hymn even after the cross was mounted back into its stand. From the hallway to the side of the church I could hear a growing racket. The noise grew closer and louder, until it was in the church and drowning out our singing. One of the priests was re-entering the church with the Holy Eucharist. His entrance was announced by a seminarian turning a clacker, a wooden noisemaker. It was such an incredible Good Friday moment for me that I am still trying to find words to describe it. I had heard of the use of these non-bells in the Triduum, so I know that in some places they are common. I had just never experienced it before. It was startling, to say the least.
At three o'clock this afternoon we went outside the church for Stations of the Cross. All around the seminary campus seminarians stood holding an image of each of the fourteen stations.
Following our return into the church, Good Friday service began, of course, with our priests lying prostrate at the altar.
At the rear of the church a large crucifix was draped in purple, later to be unveiled for our veneration.
When the time came, they moved the cross slowly up the aisle, gradually uncovering the corpus, chanting (in Chinese, of course) the invitation to behold the wood of the cross on which hung our Savior.
The choir and congregation continued our hymn even after the cross was mounted back into its stand. From the hallway to the side of the church I could hear a growing racket. The noise grew closer and louder, until it was in the church and drowning out our singing. One of the priests was re-entering the church with the Holy Eucharist. His entrance was announced by a seminarian turning a clacker, a wooden noisemaker. It was such an incredible Good Friday moment for me that I am still trying to find words to describe it. I had heard of the use of these non-bells in the Triduum, so I know that in some places they are common. I had just never experienced it before. It was startling, to say the least.
Comments
Susan Peterson
(Shadows.) It was originally a Catholic service...with the psalms chanted in Gregorian Chant, but I think now it is difficult to fit it in with the Triduum, and mostly only Episcopalians do it now. I went to one on Wednesday at my husband's Anglican church; the psalms and readings were all just read.
The Eastern Church doesn't do so well for Holy Thursday, but its Good Friday service is remarkable. The acolytes head the procession with the cross and (those decorated metal discs on poles which are held over the priest as he chants the gospel-don't know what they are called) and a deacon or subdeacon with the gold and jewel encrusted book of the gospels, and one with the clapper, and then all the children of the parish, dressed in black pants or skirts, white shirts, and special black capes lined with red, and carrying some sign of the passion, a board with huge nails, or dice, or a ladder (used to take down Jesus' body -this also figures in Spanish pictures of the passion), crown of thorns, Veronica's veil, and so on. After the children comes the priest. The vestments for this service are black embroidered with silver; my parish only has them for the priest although we have full sets of all the other vestments. The priest carries over his head the "shroud" which is more like a thin mat, about 2' by 5' with a picture of Jesus's body on one side of it. There is a hymn which is sung over and over again during this procession, which goes up one side of the church, down the center, up the other side and down the center again, and then the priest kneels and places the shroud in a replica of the tomb. It is like a cave opening (on hidden wheels) covered with flowers. At the end of the service everyone goes up, kneels and kisses the shroud. People are supposed to sign up to watch the tomb all evening and night long until tonight's service...but there are blanks in the schedule, which the priest always laments. I have done it once.
For tonight's service there will be a resurrected Christ figure surmounting the "tomb."
Susan Peterson