Night had Fallen

I am not an emotional person. Yet, as I see our Blessed Lord being carried away from an altar in the arms of a priest, with a choir singing a poignantly foreboding hymn, I am moved to tears. Each Maundy Thursday, we process around church at the end of Solemn Mass and the sense of tragedy in peoples' faces is evident 2000 years after the bloodiest, most painful  love story was ever fulfilled. Christ's people share in the grief that He expressed in the garden of Gethsemane, as he was left alone and crying.

After an hour of watching the Blessed Sacrament was taken away from the altar of repose and locked behind the heavy iron door of a safe, in a harsh, unfurnished tabernacle; a small flame on the outside being the only reminder of what greatness is stored within.

As we commemorate the night when Jesus was betrayed and thrown into prison, the Blessed Sacrament has the heavy iron door of a safe slammed to close it in, in complete darkness.

Even the sanctuary had been stripped completely, as is custom on Holy Thursday. Nothing remained. The icy black of an empty church surrounded the altar, from which the layers of sacred linen were removed to reveal a naked slab of marble. The fading smell of incense was the only reminder of the celebration that had taken place before hand.  

  The deserted table from which Jesus had left after supper shines out in the darkness of the empty upper room       

Everything seems to pale into insignificance when you walk past an empty tabernacle to go and get changed. As the lights go out on an empty and saddened church, one begins to think about the horrors which will come tomorrow as the King of Kings dies a criminal's death as we watch in prayerful silence, and then, with nothing left to say or give, we walk away.

I sat in the Temple day after day and you never laid hands on me...

Then all the disciples deserted him and ran away

(Mat 26: 55-56)