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By Root 823 0

maybe these people can enjoy Easter because they also observe Lent well enough to be happy to see it go. I have such a good time that I spend the rest of the night dreaming it all over again. This time there’s a monk at the party I’ve never seen before, and when I introduce myself, I’m surprised to see that he’s wearing gold vestments. He seems amused to meet me, amused also at my confusion. “Oh, I’m here all the time,” he says, waving his right hand as if this is of no consequence. “You just don’t see me.”

I wake refreshed, truly glad for the first time in months. At a late breakfast, the monks grumble over a full-page spread on the monastery in the local paper. “They make it look like we’re spiritual all the time,” one says. “Next time they come, we should make them take a picture of our pool table.” “I could always have them help me check the pregnant cows,” says the farm manager.

There is much teasing of one monk who’s been misquoted, so that he seems to be denying the Resurrection; the theologians of the monastery busy themselves with determining exactly which heresy is implicit in his remark. The reporter has also garbled the monastery schedule, so that it sounds as if the monks sleep all day and go to church all night. “Whatever,” says the liturgy director, glancing at his watch.

TRIDUUM:

THE THREE

DAYS

In a monastery, the Easter Triduum—which literally means “the three days,” Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday—is a total surrender to worship. Time feels suspended, allowing for focus on the events commemorated: Jesus gathering with friends the night before his death, to share a last meal; Jesus’ arrest and execution; and his resurrection. If you’ve become acclimated to the normal rhythms of the monastery, the daily round of prayer, meals, and work, the liturgies of the Triduum are guaranteed to throw you off.

One year at St. John’s, I was invited to join a group of women who would be singing at all the Triduum liturgies as part of the monastery schola (or choir). When a friend wrote to me to ask what Easter in a monastery had been like, this is what I sent her:

MAUNDY THURSDAY

7 A.M.—Morning Prayer

10:30 A.M.—Schola rehearsal

Noon—Midday Prayer

NAP!!!

5:45 P.M.—Reception & Festal meal, Monastic refectory

7:30 P.M.—Schola rehearsal

8-9:30 P.M.—Mass of the Lord’s Supper

9:30-11:45 P.M.—Vigil of Adoration (Silent meditation in the church)

11:45-Midnight—Prayer of Closing Adoration (Sacrament is removed from church)

GOOD FRIDAY

7 A.M.—Morning Prayer

Noon—Midday Prayer

2 P.M.—Schola rehearsal

3-4:30 P.M.—Liturgy of the Lord’s Passion

NAP!!!—Also, baking bread for Sunday’s Potluck

9:30 P.M.—Compline

HOLY SATURDAY

7 A.M.—Morning Prayer

10 A.M.—Rehearse for reading at Vigil

10:45 A.M.—Schola rehearsal

Noon—Midday Prayer

NAP!!!

5:30 P.M.—Vespers

9:45 P.M.—Schola rehearsal

10:45 P.M.-1:45 A.M.—Easter Vigil

1:45-2:15 A.M.—Reception, Great Hall

EASTER SUNDAY

9:30 A.M.—Morning Prayer

Coffee & informal hymn sing with theology students in graduate dorm

Noon—Midday Prayer

12:30-2:30 P.M.—Potluck at Ecumenical Institute

NAP!!!

5:30 P.M.—Vespers

EASTER MONDAY

Back to normal monastery schedule

TRIDUUM NOTES

If we are agnostics most of the time, we can believe at least during

the liturgy.

—Gail Ramshaw

THURSDAY

The Triduum begins with the singing of the “Ubi Caritas” in the monastic refectory; the words of the great medieval poem—“Where charity and love are found, there is God”—set the tone for our meal and the liturgy that follows. I know Benedictines who could transform a meal at McDonald’s into a love feast, but this is ridiculous. “Love one another,” the abbot reads from the Gospel of John. At this moment, at this table, it seems possible.

After the feast, I stand with the rest of the schola in the chilly cloister walk. As we’ll lead the procession into church, we wait there for the community to line up behind us. This is the night Jesus spends in the garden of Gethsemane, praying by the vigil light of the stars. Near midnight,