The Easter Triduum I have just spent at Turvey Abbey is beginning to settle into my consciousness as a series of portrait sequences, preserved in my memory and understanding.
Maundy Thursday
I drive to Turvey on the first really glorious spring day. Turn off the main road to avoid a queue of caravans and drive slowly through a rural village and open countryside, smelling the freshness of the air, listening to birdsong, my eyes taking in the gauzy bright colour spread over woods and fields.
At evening Eucharist, the two Superiors wash the feet of twelve community and guests, in memory of Christ. The words of Peter remind us of his rigidity over what he thinks is wrong, followed by his total, extravagant, surrender:
‘You, Lord, washing my feet?…I will never let you wash my feet.’ ‘If I do not wash you,’ Jesus replied, ‘you have no part with me.’ ‘Then, Lord,’ said Simon Peter, ‘not my feet only; wash my hands and head as well!’ (Jn. 13 6:9)
Good Friday
Down into the silence brings great waves of sleepiness. The bone-deep exhaustion kept at bay during everyday life surfaces and it seems that there can never be enough sleep. I fall asleep during Lectio Divina, again and again. He asked the disciples to watch with Him at Gethsemene. They fell asleep three times.
Later, during the Celebration of Christ’s Passion, we venerate the cross. The chapel is bare, empty, the large wooden cross taken from the wall. The priest stands in front of the altar, the cross held in front of him, as tall as he is. Our broken congregation approaches, one by one. We are to make “whatever reverent gesture is appropriate”. I’m not sure about this, smacks of the old, superstitious Catholicism. I approach and am disarmed. I am in the presence of Christ. I feel the deep roughness of the wood as I rest my hands and forehead against the cross.
That evening at Compline we mark Christ’s death with a tableau, borrowing from Eastern Orthodox tradition. A small group of us have wanted to take part in this. An icon of Christ stands in front of the altar. It shows him taken down from the cross, held in his mother’s arms. One by one, very slowly, we approach and each take up the position of a painted figure from the icon. Haunting music is played: the strings of a zither, struck with small bronze hammers. Finally, the last of us approaches and places the shroud in the centre. We stand around the broken body of Christ. The music stops and slowly we return to our places.
Holy Saturday
For the second morning at Readings, we hear the lamentations of Jeremiah, sung in unaccompanied harmonic parts by female voices that swoop and rise in waves of desolate sound:
The elders have deserted the gateway
the young men have given up their music.
Joy has vanished from our hearts;
Our dancing has been turned to mourning.
The garland has vanished from our heads.
Alas for us, for we have sinned.
Easter Sunday
We gather in the darkness around the new fire of a bonfire in the grounds at 04:30. The new paschal candle is brought from the chapel and lighted. We each light our own small candles from the larger light and return to the chapel.
The great Easter Mass begins in a chapel newly decorated with huge banks of flowers and a tapestry of the risen Christ, all lit by candles in wall holders. No electric light today, it is too special. We hear readings, we pray. We prepare to hear the Gospel. The Prioress takes her place at the lectern and begins to sing the Gospel in plainchant. There is not a whisper of a sound to be heard apart from her voice. She sings of Mary of Magdala and her unbelievable discovery. And then as dawn breaks, the priest’s consecration of the new bread and wine and the Eucharist, and our congregation is truly in communion, in joy.
And I realise at last: I don’t need to believe with my mind, I understand in my heart.
Jesus said ‘Mary!’ She turned and said to him, ‘Rabbuni!’
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