Anna Moyle is guesting on the blog today. She is from the Evangelical tradition and wanted to find out what it was like to attend a traditional Tenebrae Service. This is what she found:

Tenebrae service at St Paul’s Covent Garden

Holy Week is a period in the church calendar rich with history and tradition, and yet many evangelical churches (one of which I am a part) do not typically observe the various ceremonies as part of the tradition. So as one determined to experience what this week had to offer in London I set off to St Paul’s Covent Garden (otherwise known as The Actors’ Church) on Wednesday evening.

I was expecting to attend a very traditional Tenebrae service. However I was not prepared for a full-on Gregorian call and response ceremony which required a great deal of concentration on my part to stay engaged. A long day at work and a hard pew made it a struggle, but I settled into my seat, focused my mind and let the Gregorian chants wash over me.

Tenebrae is the ancient office of the church for Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday. In the past it was sung in the middle of the night but now it is more common to be sung the night before, so that the Matins and Lauds for Maundy Thursday are sung on Wednesday evening. The Matins consists of three groups of three psalms (with their antiphons) and three lessons (with their Responds). Each of these groups is called ‘Nocturn’. The Lauds consists of five psalms with their antiphons and the Canticle of Zacharias, commonly called ‘Benedictus’. After this has been sung and the Our Father said silently by all present an antiphon is sung by the choir, the psalm ‘Miserere’ is sung and the Celebrant says the collect.

The choir took us through each antiphon, psalm, lesson and respond with dignity and clarity, and gradually the sanctuary got darker as the lights dimmed and one by one the lit candles were extinguished at the end of each psalm. The Wednesday evening Tenebrae focuses on the betrayal of Jesus by Judas Iscariot. One of the beauties of hearing Scripture sung is that you don’t just hear the words – you feel them. I truly felt the impact of what Judas did through these sung words: “It had been better for that man/if he had not been born.”

As the sanctuary arrived at near darkness, the choir processed out on the Benedictus and gathered in the foyer behind us, and we knelt as the room became entirely black. The singers rewarded our two hours of concentration on the chants with the gorgeous chords and soaring soprano of the Miserere Mei, a sorrowful song in anticipation of Jesus’ death. The ensuing silence was broken with a startling bang from the front, symbolising the earthquake that tore the temple curtain in two as Jesus died. A final candle was lit to anticipate Jesus’ resurrection. Then as is tradition, we all departed the church in silence.

The service helped me to concentrate fully on what this week is about, and the gradual darkening of the room enhanced the sense of mystery that accompanies the story of the incarnate son of God dying on a cross. My only complaint was that the psalms were not written out in the programme, and I did not have a Bible with me. However, this only forced me to concentrate harder on what was being sung, which throughout history would have been the norm. Most importantly, my search for the traditional, liturgical Tenebrae service was rewarded richly by the choir of St Paul’s who had obviously worked very hard to make the ceremony as meaningful and beautiful as possible.

Anna Moyle