Triduum in the Pandemic

Triduum is different this year.

We may not have always been able to go to the beautiful Holy Thursday Chrism Mass: the oils being presented; the bells at the Gloria, the darkness overtaking the church as dusk grew. But we had worked all day; the kids needed to be fed; it was cold out; it was raining – when something is always available, it’s easy to pass it up.

The Good Friday afternoon service, the only day of the year that Mass is not celebrated, with its own special liturgy: the long Gospel of the Passion; the reverencing of the cross; the silence and solemnity. But we couldn’t take the day off work; or its right in the middle of the day; or it’s time to start preparing dinner; or it’s so hard to keep track of time– when something is always available, it’s easy to pass it up.

Holy Saturday’s liturgy, starting with the fire, the plunging of the Pascal Candle into the Holy Water, the dark church becoming dimly lit as the candlelight is shared with all present; the quietness of those first readings in near darkness. Then the Gloria begins; the bells, silent since Holy Thursday’s Gloria now ring out as we begin to celebrate the risen Christ. But it starts so late, and it takes so long, and all those Baptisms and Confirmations and Communions make it take even longer, and who wants to go to church for three hours – when something is always available, it’s easy to pass it up.

So, yes, in the past, we may have not gone to church each day. Life, responsibilities, even disinclination, may have taken precedence. But this year, the unthinkable happened, and it was all taken away from us. Is it really just a month ago when I said that “we’re Catholic; we don’t cancel Mass?” I guess we still don’t, not really: Mass is still said, but at empty churches; we watch it on television, or on line. This pandemic has led to changes we couldn’t have imagined a few short weeks ago. Even while my niece in Italy wrote of being unable to go outside, I never imagined that would happen here.

This year, we come into the Triduum with a new understanding of the Christians before us who had to meet in secret. Instead of Catacombs, we are locked in our own homes. Church is not underground as it was – and still is – in some countries, but we are unable to be there. We are cut off not from the Word, but from Eucharist. And when this is over, we won’t ever again take for granted our ability to fully participate in that full Communion.