Our First Triduum and Easter

A great success – this year, the Hobart Latin Mass Community celebrated the Triduum and Easter for the first time since the liturgical changes in the nineteen-sixties.

Fr Mannes, a Dominican currently based in Sydney, very kindly came down to Hobart to officiate – he is an excellent singer, and rendered the Exultet extremely well. The choir also performed admirably (no mean effort, singing all the chant, plus motets, at the liturgies for four days in a row), as did the servers; the only real mishap resulted from yours truly, as M.C., managing to step on and break the incense boat, while manoeuvring the umbella into place at the start of the procession to the altar of repose on Holy Thursday evening (I had driven down from Launceston after work, so arguably I was a little distracted). Several appreciative comments about every other aspect of the liturgies were received: I still can't believe we did it! (The incense boat will be repaired in due course…)

In order to be ready for the special rites, we practiced from 6:30 pm onwards on Holy Thursday, and on Good Friday from after Stations till the afternoon Liturgy, with a break for a penitential lunch, while on Holy Saturday we practised from about 6 pm onwards. On Easter Monday it took us till nearly 11 am to get everything packed up. The Archdiocese very kindly lent us several old vestments and a chalice for the liturgies, as the sacristy at St Canice wasn't fully equipped for the many ceremonies carried out.

Our timetable was as follows:

• 7:30 pm Holy Thursday: Evening Mass of the Lord's Supper, sung and with incense as usual (no footwashing this year), followed by the procession to the altar of repose, then the stripping of the altars and Compline (90 minutes all told); adoration at the altar of repose continued till midnight;
• 10:30 am Good Friday: Stations of the Cross (half an hour);
• 3:00 pm Good Friday: Solemn Afternoon Liturgy (only 75 minutes - the Passion was read, not sung, and there were less than our usual Sunday numbers present);
• 7:30 pm Holy Saturday: Easter Vigil (2 and a quarter hours - the church has no font so all that part of the service was omitted);
• 10:30 am Easter Sunday: Missa cantata, with Vidi aquam beforehand (70 minutes);
• 9:00 am Easter Monday: Low Mass, with the Ordinary sung (40 minutes).

On Good Friday evening at 8 pm, I went with a friend and Fr Mannes to attend the Greeks' service of Matins, with procession of the epitaphion; it was good to see, and I met up with several whom I know, but I found it a very long three hours, so I decided to turn down the invitation to come back the next evening after our own Vigil! Having stayed in Hobart for four nights, I've now returned home on a cold, wet autumn afternoon.

Next year, who knows? With a sufficiently augmented choir, we could even attempt Tenebræ… it would be shorter than the equivalent Byzantine Rite service that I attended.

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter to all! I'm safely back home (and had dinner, and the first Easter chocolates), after our Easter Vigil at St Francis, Riverside. We did start rather early (at 6:00 pm), but some of our parishioners had to drive in from Beaconsfield, 40 km away; and our esteemed parish priest is 79 (though hale and hearty, thanks be). The Vigil – at which yours truly was thurifer (and, rather unexpectedly, extraordinary minister of the chalice! at least I was vested) – took just on an hour and forty minutes.

The Triduum has been beautiful, and promptly carried out: Holy Thursday Evening Mass took an hour and ten, and the Solemn Commemoration of the Passion on Good Friday an hour and a quarter. Neither seemed rushed, nor did the Vigil, and at all three liturgies there was plenty of good music; Fr Allan used the Roman Canon at the two Masses, so there was no skimping on the Eucharistic Prayer either: evidently, being a wise and experienced priest, he simply knows how to celebrate the sacred mysteries with devotion, but without tardiness.

I feel spiritually recharged, and look forward to celebrating Easter – all fifty days of it. Surrexit Dominus vere, alleluja.

Little Hours of the Triduum

Having just read None, I pause to reflect...

During these sacred Three Days, the Office is reduced to the simplest, and the Little Hours most of all.

There is no opening versicle Deus in adjutorium, nor Gloria Patri (neither Laus tibi, Domine) here or anywhere else in any Hour; nor is there any hymn.  (Compline has but the usual Confiteor, Misereatur and Indulgentiam at its beginning.)  

Threfore, the Little Hours begin starkly with the psalmody, unadorned even by an antiphon - and they are to be recited candelis extinctis et sine cantu (with candles unlit and without song or note).  The psalms are those appointed for use every day according to the ancient Roman cursus, which is still retained for feasts: at Prime, Psalm 53 is followed at once by Psalm 118, portions i and ii (that is, verses 1-32); at Terce, Psalm 118 iii-v (i.e., vv. 33-80); at Sext, Psalm 118 vi-viii (i.e. vv. 81-128); at None, Psalm 118 ix-xi (i.e., vv. 129-176); while at Compline, the traditional psalms (still used at Sundays and on feasts) are read  - Psalms 4, 90, and 133, immediately followed by the Nunc dimittis.

The psalmody concluded, at once all kneel, and recite Christus factus est pro nobis obediens usque ad mortem - adding on Good Friday, Mortem autem crucis; and further adding on Holy Saturday, Propter quod et Deus exaltavit illum, et donavit illi nomen, quod est super omne nomen  (Philippians ii, 8-9).  The Lord's Prayer is said in complete silence; then the hebdomadary (without Oremus) reads the Collect Respice quæsumus, but again reads its doxology Qui tecum vivit in silence.  (At Compline, its proper prayer Visita quæsumus is read instead - a late innovation.) All then arise and leave in silence.  (At Prime, the Chapter Office is omitted; though not according to the Dominican Rite.)

Holy Week and Easter Schedule at St John's Pro-Cathedral

(NB Private Low Masses for Holy Wednesday: before and after 5pm, at the Pro.)

Maundy Thursday

8pm: Solemn High Mass and Adoration - at St Brigid's Church, Northbridge.

Good Friday

10am: Stations of the Cross - at St John's Pro-Cathedral, Perth.

1:30pm: Stations of the Cross - at St John's Pro-Cathedral, Perth.

3pm: Solemn Liturgy of the Passion and Death of Our Lord - in the hall at the Cathedral Parish Centre, Perth (just round the corner from the Pro., which will be too small to host the mass of the faithful; owing to all other parishes having their services at the same time, we were unable to obtain a church to make use of, and so will celebrate today's liturgy in very stark, albeit air-conditioned, surroundings, as had to be done for Christmas Midnight Mass).

7:30pm: Tenebrae - at St Brigid's Church, Northbridge. (His Grace the Archbishop will preside.)

Holy Saturday

7:30pm: Vigil of the Twelve Prophecies - at St John's Pro-Cathedral, Perth (these are being done as a standalone devotion, so as to have the pre-Pian lessons and still adhere to the 1962 Missal, as is proper).

9:30pm: Vigil of Holy Saturday and Solemn High Mass of Easter - at St Brigid's Church, Northbridge.

Easter Sunday

7:30am (sung), 9:15am (Solemn High), and 11:15am (Low): Masses - at St John's Pro-Cathedral, Perth.

2pm: Sung Mass - at Good Shepherd Church, Kelmscott.

6pm: Sung Mass - at St Thomas' Church, Carey Park (in Bunbury).

Easter Monday

9am: Low Mass - at St Thomas' Church, Carey Park (in Bunbury).

5.30pm: Low Mass - at St John's Pro-Cathedral, Perth.

It goes without saying that the liturgies of the Sacred Triduum will be solemnized with chant and polyphony, as is most just.

After attending the ceremonies of the Thursday and Friday, culminating with Saturday's Vigil (both of them!), and hopefully my usual 9.15am Sunday Mass at the Pro., I will be driving out to and singing at the Kelmscott Easter Sunday Mass, and then travelling down to Bunbury with priests, servers, and friends, for the sung Mass(es) there in the evening and next morning, and returning on Monday to Perth for - more Masses. Hopefully we will have sung Mass every day of the Octave, as we did last year. Stay tuned for my reports!