My parish celebrates the Triduum as much as possible as "one day" -- gathering not only for the big liturgies of Holy Thursday, Good Friday and the Vigil, but for morning prayer each day and for Compline on Holy Thursday night. It's a powerful experience, at least for me, to sit together for all this time, in silence, in song, listening and speaking. It requires the concerted efforts of so many to bring it off, and to bring it off in a way that seems "unbusy" yet deeply and attentively plumbs the richness of the liturgical tradition.
It always leaves me with a sense we are a community that can sustain contemplation, and the contemplatives among us. Clearly I'm not alone in that, as Crash reflects here.
Oh, I like that phrase, "a community that can sustain contemplation." As a participant and leader in communities where words tend to predominate (to put it mildly), I feel a sermon coming on.... a sermon that might suggest and contain space for contemplation.
ReplyDeleteLike Robin, I found those same words to be very resonant.
ReplyDeleteIn our Church and in other areas of my life, I look for ways to nurture a community of contemplation .... within the larger world.
Sometimes in an Al-Anon meeting, we can have the most exquisite moments of silence .... so lush with presence of a Higher Power.
Today my friends are removing the machines from their daughter's bedside. And so they gather ... as a family ... also with this mixture of speaking, singing, and silence.
Thank you, my friend, for continuing to offer your wisdom and your journey.
Cindy, lush is a word that can describe these spaces. I hope that the space around your friends' daughter will be thick with the presences and Presence that are needed and desired.
ReplyDeleteRobin -- That is a sermon I want to hear (or perhaps not hear?)