Good Friday

The Altars were stripped and two Masses of the Presanctified loomed large on the horizon; light shone above the empty tabernacle. Face East, and while you're at it, lose that nasty faux teak, Vatican II coffee table. Perhaps you have already, well done.

Deformation of the liturgy aside, what are you going to say after John's Passion. Face it, not an easy act to follow. There He is, the Son of God, fallen into the hands of sinful men, not least ourselves and wickedness looms large and strong. But why is it strong? Because Christ submits to it and He does so out of love.

I find this helpful, via Lectionary Central.

Human wickedness will raise itself in pride and claim to be "as God," but that is devilish delusion. God is not touched unless he will it so to be. 

We bear in mind today the weight of human wickedness, that reckless pride which rises up against the holiness of God and the order of his universe. But that is not what is first and most important in the mystery of the love of God, who freely wills our woes to touch his heart, who freely gives himself against our sins, in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. That is the mystery of this day, and that is why we call this Friday "Good." We celebrate the mystery of the love of God: that "God so loved the world, that he gave his only Begotten Son." (John 3.16) That is love unthinkable, utterly unmerited, beyond all possible expectation.

The preacher continues:

Our task today is nothing other than the contemplation of that mystery of love. It is to fix our minds and hearts upon the passion and the dying of the Son of God. That is, in a way, the whole task of our discipleship. Christians often ask for detailed recipes for Christian life, solutions to all sorts of problems, great and small, and ways for dealing with our sins. All that is understandable. But in the end, there is only one answer to all of this: we must gaze upon the charity of God in Christ. The charity of God must be our food and drink. That is now our duty: to look upon the crucified, and that must become also our delight. We must be transformed by that renewal of our mind, so charity becomes the very substance of our souls.

You can read the whole thing here and needless to say, charity or love wins the day beyond our wildest dreams. With that, have a blessed Holy Saturday.

Your Old Pal,

LSP

Holy Saturday

The Altars are stripped and the Tabernacles empty, Christ lies in the Tomb.

GRANT, O Lord, that as we are baptized into the death of thy blessed Son, our Saviour Jesus Christ, so by continual mortifying our corrupt affections we may be buried with him; and that through the grave, and gate of death, we may pass to our joyful resurrection; for his merits, who died, and was buried, and rose again for us, the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

God bless,

LSP

Consumatum Est

The Altars are stripped, Christ lays in the tomb, and death, apparently, has won. Now is the judgement of this world, and its redemption.

Consumatum Est.

LSP

Holy Saturday, Horus

The Body of Jesus is Laid in the Tomb

Christ lays in the tomb and though the churches are decorated for Easter, the Tabernacles are empty. So we wait in expectation of the Resurrection and the restoration of the Divine Presence. Part of that, for me, means reflecting on the Egyptian God, Horus.

Horus with Ani

Horus, we're told, was "born of a virgin" (he wasn't), "walked on water" (he was thrown in the Nile) and "died and rose again" (after being stung by a scorpion). Because of these striking similarities to Jesus, it's claimed that Christianity is just a reworking of ancient Egyptian mythology. But there's a problem with this. What did Horus look like? I'll tell you, he had a falcon head.

Make of that what you will.

LSP

Holy Saturday

The Body of Jesus is laid in the Tomb and the Tabernacles are empty of the Presence, even in some of the Anglican variants of the Mystical Body of Christ, militant here on earth.

Bishop Guest, the 16th century author of Article XXVIII on the Lord's Supper, had this to say about the sacrament of the Altar. The communicant does "take Christ's Body in his hand, receive it in his mouth, and that corporally, naturally, really, substantially and carnally..." but does not "see it, feel it, smell it or taste it." As Dom Gregory Dix reminds us, "It would be hard for anyone to be more explicit than that in asserting the Catholic doctrine of the Sacrament." (The Question of Anglican Orders)

Despite this, more than a few Anglicans sit light to sacramental reality, taking their cue from the late medieval skeptics of the Reformation. For them, the Eucharist is at best a reality because we think it so and at worst an empty symbol of self-referencing belief.

smash it up

Perhaps it's no accident that the Northern European write-off of sacramental givenness was followed by a near total subjectivization of all spiritual value.

Lord, forgive us for the many blasphemies committed against your holy Sacrament.

LSP