Click here to view Tenebrae film clips
Here is a link to some clips of last night’s Tenebrae service at the Fellowship of Saint Alban.
(The quality is not great as I took the wrong camera to the service. My apologies.)
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It was a beautiful service; new experience; glad I went.
Bernie – I think you did a good job with photography. Thanks for posting the photo and video clips. What was impressive in your film clips is when all 14 candles of the hearse are extinguished and all 6 altar candles are extinguished, and the remaining candle lit on the hearse is taken away by the altar server, and then there is total darkness. There is a beautiful chant while contemplating the darkness. There is the Strepitus, Latin for great noise, made by slamming a book against a pew symbolizing the earthquake after Christ’s death. Then the single lit candle is brought back and set on the hearse by the altar server, to light the darkness. (I can’t help but think of the prelude to the Gospel of John – The Last Gospel).
Tenebrae is Latin for darkness or shadows. Tenebrae is in the Roman Catholic rite and was universally done for Holy Week until liturgical reforms for Holy Week were made by Pope Pius XII in 1955. Tenebrae is also present in Protestantism and Western Church Orthodoxy.
I am glad that there are churches which are bringing the Tenebrae Service back, in addition to those who have always kept it, as I think it belongs in Holy Week and it is a profoundly, beautiful service which sets the tone for Holy Week.