There are many traditions and rituals that surround Good Friday. Beginning with Holy Thursday services last night, Good Friday, including the Holy Saturday vigil observed by some, through to the arrival of the celebration of Easter with the sunrise of Sunday morning,is known as the Triduum of Easter, the ‘three days’.Today people will worship at services that use the service of Tennebrae, a ritual of light that moves into the darkness, reading the scriptures that tell of the crucifixion and death of Jesus. I will participate in all of this but what has become a part of my Good Friday observance will begin at noon today with…..enchiladas.
On the west side of Saint Paul at Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church, the community serves meatless enchilada dinners on Fridays throughout Lent. For the last few years I have attended this meal with friends and family. I can honestly say that this is not something I would ever have associated with the observance of Good Friday. But today, even as the snow falls valiantly outside my window, I plan to bundle up and head over to the social hall of this beautiful church whose congregation is made up mostly of Mexican and Hispanic immigrants and their American born families. The food is good, the pride and service impeccable and the experience joyful and welcoming.
After lunch I will walk through the sanctuary of the church. Groups of people will be covering the statues of saints with black cloth preparing for the darkness of today’s readings. Outside the sanctuary,Our Lady of Guadalupe, the namesake of the church, will be decorated with beautiful flowers for what I assume is a part of an Easter procession. The dark,beautiful face of Our Lady inspires and strengthens this community to remember who they are in this land of Anglos and to proclaim the faith of their experience.
It is a powerful visual image that allows me to see the embodiment of both the darkness of Good Friday and the beauty and light of Easter. And isn’t that what we are present to each day if we really allow ourselves to see? This world in which we are privileged to live holds both the darkness of death and the light of resurrection each and every day. "Finally, the word of the cross is not uttered in the past tense. Every time we abuse the poor, every time we pollute our God-given planet, indeed every time we act selfishly, God dies naked on the cross of our ego." writes Huston Smith in The Soul of Christianity. As those who profess the Christian faith, it seems as if our work is to bring more light to the world and contribute less to what brings death. That is the call of each Easter morning, isn’t it?
So as we move into these ‘three days’, may we all be held in the Spirit that invites us to the land of living. May we recognize fully those places that are shrouded in black cloth and work to uncover them. May we also contribute to planting the seeds that bring beauty, color, wholeness and hope. Blessed Easter!
"In the bulb there is a flower, in the seed, an apple tree, in cocoons a hidden promise:butterflies will soon be free. In the cold and snow of winter there’s a spring that waits to be, unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see. In our end is our beginning, in our time, infinity, in our doubt there is believing, in our life, eternity. In our death, a resurrection; at the last, a victory, unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see." Hymn of Promise, Natalie Sleeth