Saturday, April 11, 2009

A Look Back at Tenebræ

I have blogged a little on my own experience of praying Tenebræ from the Breviary; one thing I hadn't consciously grasped was the great length of the first two days' Matins: Holy Thursday Matins' psalms have 189 verses, and Good Friday's, 176 - in both cases, the length of the psalmody is over 50% longer than usual, and even longer than the noticeably lengthy Christmas Matins.  However, on Holy Saturday, the psalms of Matins have only 111 verses, which is very close to the post-Pius X average length of Matins psalmody (115 verses).

I had best now tackle Tenebræ for Holy Saturday, and commemorate Christ's harrowing of hell...



(As I suspected, it took but half an hour.  The tone of the Office is noticeably lighter and suffused with quiet hope and faith in the resurrection.)

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