Niko at the Tenebrae Service

 

Today I worked from home, and I thought it would be quiet because everyone's on spring break, but there are other non-faculty people like me who are working, and they all had questions. The good news is that I got a lot of stuff straightened out. During the day Rich sent an email to Jilly Moose, the Dairyman's Daughter, and me, asking if we wanted to meet before the Tenebrae service for dinner, and we all agreed that sounded like a good idea.

After work I grabbed my phone, my wallet, and my Niko, and I drove to St. Patrick's and found a parking spot on the street, although there were plenty in the parking lot. The others soon arrived as well, and we walked up to the Square and went to the first place we saw, the Argus Bar. It claims to be a "bar and grill," but inside there was no sign of food. However, when I asked the bartender for a food menu, his eyes kind of lit up, and he handed them to us. It was pub fair, burgers and chicken sandwiches, but the bartender said they could doctor up my fries with parmesan and garlic, and man were those good! I was the only one who chose the fancy option; the others had plain fries, and Rich had pub chips. 

We walked back to St. Patrick's and sat in a pew together, and my OTHER choir director sat behind us and asked if he could have a program because they had run out. As he pointed out, that was a good sign. The crucifix and all the statues were covered with purple cloth, which added to the somber tone, and there was an all-male (seminarians, I guess) chant choir that really made it feel sacred. The bishop was supposed to lead the Tenebrae service, but something came up, and the priest who told us hinted that it was serious but didn't give any details, so hopefully everything's okay with him. Tenebrae is basically Night Prayer with a candelabra on which they keep extinguishing candles until you are in complete darkness (except at St. Patrick's, where the light from the hallway bleeds in). Fortunately, since we do Night Prayer every night, I knew some of the words by heart by the time it got too dark to read our programs. (Why they bothered to write the stuff after the dark part is beyond me.) When there is one candle left, they take it into the sacristy, and then we all get to whack the pews with our hymnals to make a loud racket, until they bring the single candle out of the sacristy again and everyone falls silent. Not gonna lie, I got a bit verklempt at that point. I would highly recommend the Tenebrae service - it feels very Lenten, and very mystical.

As the four of us headed back to our cars, we still felt a lingering sense of mysticism... until Rich, who was walking in front of me, loudly farted at me. I complained and said he should walk in back if he's going to do that, and he said that's Kathbert's line, since she's the one he's usually farting on. So much for maintaining the solemnity of Tenebrae...

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