Viernes Santo

All is quiet at Convento San Francisco. The pilgrims have gone home, or to work. They have visited seven churches. A few, or perhaps many of them, must have spent the night sleepless, waiting for the Way of the Cross procession through the city streets to begin at 4 a.m. They would process with the Cross around the city center until about 6 a.m., according to Padre Juan Carlos, with whom I shared a hasty meal last evening. 

Now everything is still. The drama of Jesus’ death has been done (to death?). At 3 o’clock this afternoon we will have the Passion service at Templo San Francisco, with the reading of the Gospel of John, veneration of the Cross, petitions for the world, and communion. And then nothing more will happen until the Great Vigil at 7 o’clock on Saturday evening. It strikes me how much of the three-day Easter observance passes in silence. That is good. For all the power of the rituals—Eucharist, foot washing, pilgrimage, procession, veneration, the fire of resurrection and the water of baptism—it is necessary also to have time and distance away from the signs and symbols, from the words and acts, and ponder the sequence of light into sorrow into glory. 

More and more I need to make the passage from Lent to Easter in silence, with time apart for contemplation. Holy Thursday is so soon taken away from us, and the liturgies of the Church and the customs of folk religion are themselves to blame. Maybe I’ll take revenge by passing over Good Friday already and lingering in the sad but sweet space of Holy Saturday, longing for the first tears of Mary of Magdala, who found the empty tomb and was then found by Jesus who came in a form unknown to her.

Ah, I guess that in reality I am all over the place. I am letting go but I am also holding on. These words of Jesus remain, his words in that beautiful garden on a dangerous night: “Not my will but yours be done” (Luke 22:42). Throughout my sleeplessness—thanks, brothers, for ringing the convent bell extra long and extra loud at 3:30 a.m., shattering my slumber for the rest of the night—these words held me through petty anger, anxiety, aloneness, and other impish feelings that assail you during the darkest hours before the dawn. Those next few hours passed slowly, dreamlessly for the most part, until I rose late, long after sunrise, and immediately I began to pray the Divine Office on my knees. I needed open the shutters of my bedside window only a crack for the sunlight to stream in with brightness and warmth. And I prayed with calmness and certainty, awake and aware despite restlessness. Over and under the Spanish prayers I recited slowly, I breathed in and out Jesus’ words of surrender, my words of surrender: “Not my will but yours be done.” 

This is where I find myself now, and here I will remain, keeping the fast, keeping the silence, remembering, waiting, expecting, holding on, letting go.