I had such a good response through emails and personal comments to last week’s post, I thought I’d continue the historical theme, but this time jump ahead to the medieval Church, especially in England, to which have much in common as Anglicans.
Holy Week was the heart of the Church year since Jesus’ passion and death was the heart of late medieval Christianity. From Wednesday on, the services were very elaborate with each day having special ritual observances. In the earlier medieval period the rituals were even more involved and powerful, but some of that vigor had waned. For example, the Vigil of Easter had been moved to Saturday morning rather than beginning at sunset Saturday night.
Palm Sunday’s procession was perhaps the most elaborate and eloquent of the processions of the Sarum rites. [Note: the cathedral at Salisbury, often called Sarum, had developed the liturgy that was largely in use across England. It was the revision of this rite that was the backbone of the Prayer Book liturgy developed during the English Reformation. Our present liturgy still has much in common with Sarum.] The rite began with blessings, sprinkling of holy water on the assembled people, reading the story of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem and the crowd’s reaction based on John’s gospel account.
Flowers and green branches were then blessed, distributed to everyone, and then all began the procession out of the church, led by a crucifix. The procession wandered through the village or city, finally making its way back to the church. There were a variety of other elaborate ritual actions including during the liturgy. Back inside the church the Passion story from Matthew was sung by three clergy and while this was being sung, worshippers, using sticks brought for the purpose made crosses for themselves. These crosses were kept in their homes until the next year and were thought to have special powers for warding off evil. Remind you of the palm crosses still used in many parishes on Palm Sunday?
Maundy Thursday was a very solemn liturgy. The kiss of peace is omitted because Judas betrayed Jesus with a kiss. Three hosts were consecrated: one for communion that day, one for Good Friday communion, and the third to be used in a ceremony at the end of the Good Friday service. When the liturgy was over, the altar or altars were stripped of everything on them. Water and wine were poured on them and they were washed with a broom of sharp twigs. All of this was to allegorize the stripping of Jesus, scourging him and crowning him with thorns, and the water and blood that flowed from the spear wound.
People attended Tenebrae services on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. These were services in which candles were snuffed out one by one to symbolize the abandonment of Jesus by his disciples. But the Good Friday service was the most significant one of the week. In medieval Christianity, the passion and death of Jesus was the center of their theology, and indeed, the idea of literally sacrificing Jesus again at each Eucharist was central to worship.
Good Friday was a day of deep mourning. There was no Eucharist. The Passion story was read from John’s gospel. A veiled crucifix was brought into the church while a series of reproaches were sung. The cross was unveiled in three stages. At each stage the priest would intone, “Behold the wood of the cross, on which hung the savior of the world. Come let us worship.” After the final unveiling, the clergy and the people would begin “creeping to the cross,” as it was known. They crept barefoot and on their knees down the main aisle of the church to kiss the foot of the cross. After this adoration, the third host from the Maundy Thursday Eucharist was brought from the niche and after all said the Lord’s Prayer, the priest, and the priest alone, communicated.
This practice of creeping to the cross was one of the most frequent targets of Protestant reformers from 1530 on. It was very hard to extinguish the practice because it was so much a part of the lay piety. Well after Elizabeth’s reforms were implemented, people still wanted to creep to the cross and did, in spite of an official condemnation of the practice.
But perhaps the most imaginative ceremony of Good Friday was at the end when Jesus was symbolically buried in a niche in the north wall called the Easter sepulcher. The priest, unvested and barefoot, brought out the third host from Maundy Thursday in a small container called a pyx. The pyx and the crucifix that had been venerated, were wrapped in linen and taken to the niche. A watch was kept at the niche until Easter morning that included the presence of many candles. The pyx and crucifix were removed on Easter and used in the Easter liturgy.
As you compare these rituals to our modern actions, you can see both the continuity and the alterations. For example, like them, we take the bread and wine of Maundy Thursday to a special place, but we do it on Maundy Thursday rather than Good Friday. Today we have no Easter sepulcher; we have an Altar of Repose to receive the elements. Many parishes have watches during the night on Thursday until noon Friday. And often there are candles and flowers. Our symbolism is not Jesus in the tomb, but Jesus in the garden in prayer and we are watching with him. This bread and wine are consumed on Good Friday and there is no consecrated bread or wine kept in the tabernacle because, as we understand it, Jesus is dead.
For our forebearers, the sepulcher was the central part of the liturgy of Holy Week, designed to inculcate and give expression to orthodox teaching, not merely on the saving power of the cross, but on the Eucharist too. With its many lights and night watches, it constituted an especially solemn form of public worship of the consecrated bread or host. It was a popular focus for lay piety and devotion. But it was also the principal vehicle for the Easter proclamation of the Resurrection.
Yes, the services of our modern Holy Week can be long and sometimes tedious in our busy lifestyles. Still, without this visual reminders of Jesus’ final days and hours, can we really appreciate the wonder of his resurrection in its fulness? Earlier generations of Christians didn’t think so.
Peace
Jerry
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