One of my most vivid memories of church during my childhood is of Tenebrae on Good Friday, a very solemn service where candles are extinguished and readings are proclaimed. At the very end of the service comes the strepitus, when a book is slammed shut, invoking the earthquake that occurred at Jesus’ death (and, to my vivid, childish imagination, also recalling the slamming shut of the tomb). The sudden noise of the book, followed by complete silence all the way back to the car, sent chills up my spine. The rest of the year, my community’s worship was mostly words – spoken or sung, whispered or shouted, but still just words. This very physical Good Friday moment was something I treasured all year. I couldn’t wait for the time when I would hear that slamming sound in the darkness again.
I didn’t know it then, but Tenebrae is part of the Divine Office in the Western tradition. The music and texts of Matins and Lauds toward the end of Holy Week were so beautiful and captivating, the clergy moved the services on those days from midnight to earlier in the evening so lay people could participate. The texts are indeed beautiful, and services by candlelight are always inspiring. But what captivated me more than anything was the feeling that in that slamming book God was physically reaching out to touch the people gathered. It made the Incarnation ring true in a way words alone could not.
At St. Joseph’s, the Office is a very physical experience day in and day out, not only on special days. Many of us bow our heads at the name of Jesus and bend at the waist when invoking the Trinity. We kneel when confessing our sins to God and one another, and again when offering our petitions to God as a family. We hug and shake hands to offer one another the peace of God, passing it physically from one person to the next, not just wishing it at each other with our voices. And when one of us is absent from the church – as I am frequently these days – the Church teaches that our prayer is nevertheless joined together across space and time, so that we are part of the same praying Body no matter where or when we open our Prayer Books.
It is well and good that we talk about the Daily Office as part of the Church’s toolbox for “Christian formation” – but we must remember that that formation is not just metaphorical. Worship in community really does mold us in new ways, forcing us to take on a new form that is sometimes uncomfortable, even painful. Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, puts this beautifully in a passage from his book, Eucharistic Sacrifice:
“To be able to praise and adore God worthily is not something instantly and easily accessible: our praise is tied in with the sacrifice, the giving up, of our own sinful and self-protective definition of what we are – and so with the whole act of accepting Christ as the form of the new humanity.”
The Office works on us slowly, getting into our bones and changing our shape from within. Against our own selfish desires and ambitions, it twists our life into the shape of the Cross. Our prayer and praise, expressed in bodily gestures and the words of our lips, break down our bodies and rebuild them into the Body of Christ. Thanks be to God.
Fr. Chris Tessone
