It's Holy Thursday. After Mass tonight will be a time of adoration. The Blessed Sacrament is moved to the side altar as the main altar has been stripped at the end of Mass. We are asked to come back and sit in adoration. The way I understand it, this is the time that we are the disciples who sit with Jesus as he prays in the Garden of Gethsemane.
Since becoming Catholic, for me, this has been a poignant time in the Church year.
You go back to the church in the dark. There are only a handful of people there.
The church is dim except for the lights on the side altar.
It's so quiet. So quiet that every movement on the pew makes a noise that sounds amplified. If you cough or clear your throat, you are sure it echoes out into the street.
It makes you aware of yourself. Not in a vainglory kind of way. And not in a self conscious oh everyone is looking at me kind of way. Just an awareness of yourself.
And --- in your role as a disciple of Jesus.
Tonight we sit with Him.
It makes me relive the times I've waited.
During this wait I get tired, as it's bedtime. It's quiet and dark around me, it's bedtime, and I get tired. Sometimes I've dozed off just a bit.
Just like the disciples who couldn't stay awake while He was praying in the garden. just. like. them.
When my time is done there, I get up and drive home in the dark finding that my time waiting with Him has deepened, just a little, a place of stillness in my heart allowing me to just be.
Since becoming Catholic, for me, this has been a poignant time in the Church year.
You go back to the church in the dark. There are only a handful of people there.
The church is dim except for the lights on the side altar.
It's so quiet. So quiet that every movement on the pew makes a noise that sounds amplified. If you cough or clear your throat, you are sure it echoes out into the street.
It makes you aware of yourself. Not in a vainglory kind of way. And not in a self conscious oh everyone is looking at me kind of way. Just an awareness of yourself.
And --- in your role as a disciple of Jesus.
Tonight we sit with Him.
It makes me relive the times I've waited.
During this wait I get tired, as it's bedtime. It's quiet and dark around me, it's bedtime, and I get tired. Sometimes I've dozed off just a bit.
Just like the disciples who couldn't stay awake while He was praying in the garden. just. like. them.
When my time is done there, I get up and drive home in the dark finding that my time waiting with Him has deepened, just a little, a place of stillness in my heart allowing me to just be.
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Sitting in the dark with yourself is an enlightening time, although often uncomfortable too.
ReplyDeleteI am a returning Catholic this year. I wanted to do the Triduum Masses this year but I just couldn't get enough time to get there. You make it sound so wonderful I'm sorry I missed it at my church. I am going to do it next year for sure.
ReplyDeleteI am of the Protestant faith, and think that we have lost much in not observing, to a fuller extent, the practices of the Church calendar. Quiet contemplation as you've written about, would make one ponder and think. Thank you for sharing.
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