By Hugh Agnew and Ed Ing
The word 'tenebrae' is Latin for shadows. The rubrics or instructions for this worship service explain that Tenebrae is an extended meditation on Jesus’ life from the Last Supper to the Resurrection. This is in keeping with the liturgical theme of Holy Week. Worship on Passion or Palm Sunday opens with the prayer: “Assist us mercifully with your help, O Lord God of our salvation, that we may enter with joy upon the contemplation of those mighty acts, whereby you have given us life and immortality, through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
Tenebrae worship service dates from the first millennium of the Western Church. It originally referred to the daily monastic services of Matins and Lauds as conducted on the last three days of Holy Week. The service utilized the assigned psalms. It also incorporated passages from the prophet Jeremiah, the early theologian Augustine of Hippo, and the Apostle Paul.
In the schedule of monastic worship, the last office of night has come to be called Matins. Lauds follows at daybreak. Tenebrae followed these parts of monastic worship. During the middle ages, the service was moved to the preceding day in the early evening. This made Tenebrae available for all to attend.
In the Episcopal Church the three days of Tenebrae devotionals can be consolidated into a single service on Wednesday evening before Maundy Thursday. Alternatively, the devotionals can still be divided over three evenings before Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday. The preference is to have Tenebrae only on Holy Wednesday. This allows the focus to remain on the different liturgies for the following three days culminating in the Sunday of the Resurrection.
Most parishes, however, dispense with Tenebrae due to the liturgical requirements of the three following days. Other parishes still observe Tenebrae service. The Episcopal Church’s liturgy for this service may be found at http://www.liturgies.net/Lent/Tenebrae.htm.
Tenebrae utilizes a special rite of light and darkness. After each psalm and reading, one of 15 candles on the candelabrum is extinguished. The gradual and finally total darkness visualizes the apparent victory of death and evil in the crucifixion of God’s Son. At the end of the service, the last, central candle is returned to remind worshipers of Christ’s Resurrection and our redemption. To emphasize this, the concluding prayer of Tenebrae asks: “Almighty God, we pray you graciously to behold this your family, for whom our Lord Jesus Christ was willing to be betrayed, and given into the hands of sinners, and to suffer death upon the cross.” This supplication is repeated on the liturgy for Good Friday.
On February 2, 2013, prior to the start of Lent, St. Barnabas’ will present a recital of the musical setting of the Tenebrae responses by the 16th century composer Carlo Gesualdo. Gesualdo, an Italian nobleman, represents the culmination of the tradition of Renaissance Italian madrigal composition as it moves into Mannerism and approaches the Baroque. His unusual and highly personal musical language, with its striking chromatic shifts, stretched the limits of the musical taste of his time and sounds remarkably modern even today. Perhaps reflecting his own tortured personal life, Gesualdo’s style seems particularly suited for texts that contemplate anguish, loss, separation and suffering. These feelings are movingly expressed in his settings of the Tenebrae Responsories, chosen by the Countertop Ensemble for this musical recital.
The performance by the Countertop Ensemble is in memory of Fr. Lowell Harlan, former curate of the parish. After service in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam, Fr. Harlan took Holy Orders as a priest. He unstintingly served his Redeemer and the parish.
“Almighty God, we remember before you today your faithful servant Lowell; and we pray that, having opened to him the gates of larger life, you will receive him more and more into your joyful service, that, with all who have faithfully served you in the past, he may share in the eternal victory of Jesus Christ our Lord; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.”
