Godzdogz

As well as its three liturgical high points - the Mass of the Lord's Supper, the Liturgy of the Passion, and the Easter Vigil - these three days of the Triduum building up to Easter also see the continuation of the regular round of daily prayers which we call the Divine Office (or Liturgy of the Hours). The public celebration of the Office punctuates the days of monastic and religious communities such as Blackfriars, and during the Triduum it takes a special form - stark, austere, capturing something of the horror of Christ's suffering, and our response to it. During these days, the morning offices of Matins and Lauds are celebrated together and called Tenebrae (which means 'darkness' in Latin): no lights are used other than the altar candles and a special candlestick, on which the candles are gradually extinguished as the office progresses (though for the sake of those who wish to join us for its celebration, it's not as dark outside as it could be!). Read more

On the afternoon of Good Friday, recalling the time of day when, so the Scriptures tell us, Jesus died on the Cross, the Church gathers to commemorate that climactic moment in the history of our salvation. As we heard in the homily this afternoon at Blackfriars (a recording of which you can hear below) we are confronted with the shocking truth that God has died for us. We venerate the Cross as a sign that we recognise, in this instrument of humiliating suffering, Jesus' triumph - quite literally, his exaltation, as he had hinted several times in the course of his ministry (cf. John 8:28, 12:32). Read more

 Read more

Tonight, in the Mass of the Lord’s Supper, we commemorated the very institution of the Mass itself, when Jesus gave to his disciples under the appearance of bread and wine his very body and blood: that body which was to hang the next day upon the cross, that blood which poured from his side for the redemption of the human race. Read more

Readings: Is 49:1-6; Ps 71(70):1-2.3-4a.5-6b.15.17; St John 13:21-33.36-38

We are approaching the times of the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ and the readings are telling us more about the mood of the times that preceded Jesus’ trial. The ‘plot is slowly thickening’ and a clear outcome is taking shape: Jesus is living his last moments on earth. During the last days, we heard the reasons why the Pharisees and the chief priests wanted Jesus dead: “it was better that one man died instead of many (in a case he would have started a revolution against the Romans who would then have taken away the land) … and also he had called himself the son of God.” But it was not only the chief priests and the Pharisees that would played a role in his arrest.Worse than that, his closest friends are going to betray him and hand him over to the chief priests.
 Read more