Ep. 9 - Easter Triduum

Hey everyone!

We're trying out a new format for this podcast with a more roundtable discussion, featuring returning guest Zak, as well as some other adults and teens from Michael's youth group discussing the Easter Triduum in its entirety!

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Keep your heart blazing!

@blazing.hearts.podcast

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:17

Hi everyone, welcome to Blazing Hearts. Today I am joined by some members and adult leaders of my youth group. We're gonna just kind of try a new group discussion and see how it turns out. So I'm Michael and I'm joined by I'm Zach. I'm Father Ryan.

SPEAKER_00 0:34

Grace.

SPEAKER_03 0:35

I'm Will Waters.

SPEAKER_02 0:37

And today we're gonna be talking about it's a little delayed, but about the Easter tritulum. And yeah.

SPEAKER_05 0:45

To be fair, we tried to record this real time on Holy Saturday at about midnight. We plugged in our audio equipment and fried my laptop. So this is take two on Michael's computer about what happened a week ago at Holy Saturday.

SPEAKER_02 1:00

So far, so good. We didn't fry a laptop, so we're doing good.

SPEAKER_05 1:06

So I don't know, where do we start? What was your experience of the tritom?

SPEAKER_02 1:10

I feel like this was one of the first years where I had a really good, like full experience of the tritom, because I think I went to everything. And I think everyone in this room did to. Oh yeah, the tritom. It's the one liturgy that extends from Holy Thursday, Mass of the Lord's Supper, to the Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday. And oh and Spanning Good Friday?

SPEAKER_05 1:32

No, it goes on the Easter Sunday.

SPEAKER_02 1:33

Oh, it goes on the Easter Sunday.

SPEAKER_05 1:34

The Trinity starts with the Mass of the Lord's Supper on Holy Thursday and finishes with Vespers on Easter Sunday evening. Okay. Which means that Easter Sunday is not part of the Easter season.

SPEAKER_04 1:44

Oh, oddly enough.

SPEAKER_06 1:47

Interesting.

SPEAKER_02 1:49

So yeah. And then I think it was really cool. So our youth group does a pilgrimage tour or prayer walk hike.

SPEAKER_05 1:58

Yeah, the holy night we piggyback on the holy night hike that the young adult group in the diocese does.

SPEAKER_02 2:04

So we visited seven churches, actually eight churches. Raphael's kind of one. And just kind of prayed with Jesus. And that was really cool.

SPEAKER_00 2:14

This year was my first year doing the Holy Night hike, and that was it was really cool to go to a lot of churches that I had never been to before, even though they're all here in my city, and just run around with a bunch of people to a bunch of little churches and race back to the parish for a night prayer, and it was awesome.

SPEAKER_03 2:35

I will say the one thing with the Trudeau is you gotta be prepared to stay up late. Like holy Thursday, we get back at what eleven thirty? Yeah. I didn't get home until 12 something. And then Good Friday's actually fine. You end at 4 30. But that is her vigil.

SPEAKER_02 2:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 3:00

Was ours 2 35? Yeah. I bet you I bet 2.15 and lost.

SPEAKER_00 3:05

Yeah, it was 2.35. We finished five minutes after the projected time. Which was pretty on point.

SPEAKER_03 3:10

Yeah, I mean, Michael and I were serving, so it's really cool from that perspective on the altar. But with the pilgrimage walk, like to all the churches, it's such an interesting experience because if we didn't do it, we'd never see those churches. You know, we go to our home parish, St. Raphael's for Sunday Masses, everything. And going to these parishes, it's so cool. They're all really old and there's so much neat architecture in there. And when you take a minute and think about it, you know, you have Jesus and the monstrance, all the architecture and the stained glass windows, and the just the designs of these churches, they draw you in, the beauty draws you in. And it points you to God in the way.

SPEAKER_01 3:56

I had a different experience because I wasn't on the tour with the group. I was standing guard during the after the Mass of the Lord's Supper. Luckily it was a really nice night, so I just kept walking laps in the parking lots because we did we didn't do our best job advertising where our Lord was gonna be in our post. No no signage. So it was in one of our like side rooms. Yeah. So I kind of I did laps in the parking lot, and you know there'd be occasional cars that would stop in because they were doing their pilgrimage also. So I I was in the front doors to our uh parish welcome center where locks and they were confused. Where is our Lord? Where have you taken him? Where have you hidden him? So I was I'd be on the lookout, and there would be a few people that were standing in the wrong place. So I point them, hey, go to those other doors, those are unlocked. And at first they actually were not unlocked, so I unlocked them. How many people did we actually end up getting here? I mean, we had at least 20 scattered throughout that evening that came from other places. But I mean, we had a good number of parishioners to stayed after the mass to uh take time for vigil.

SPEAKER_05 5:19

Yeah, Father Damien could correct me because I think they I think they said they got 120 on the night hike, which it may have been more, but that's the number I heard.

SPEAKER_00 5:26

So no the young adult group that was all together was over a hundred people.

SPEAKER_05 5:30

Yeah, right. That might have been the hundred and twenty that group. Father I have to ask you, because you had a different experience than all of us. Um what was it like baptizing people for the first well, not baptizing for the first time, baptizing at the Easter vigil for the first time.

SPEAKER_01 5:44

Very similar to the mindset I had for my first mass. Don't mess up, don't mess up. Don't mess up, don't mess up. Say the right words, say the right words. You did take your microphone off, so that was all feetless. So for friends from the podcast, so we have a full immersion font, so that means a lot of water, and electricity does not like water. So it was my first time also stepping into the font and realizing how much water gets displaced.

SPEAKER_02 6:14

To be fair, I think it was also very cold water. I saw multiple of the newly baptized uh neophytes shivering. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:25

Our maintenance people did their best job to warm up the fonts beforehands and then a little bit before, just before the visual, and then turn it off the fonts. No through next year.

SPEAKER_03 6:40

To be fair, the Jordan River wasn't warm, so I think Realistic Lake Erie in that font. Very true.

SPEAKER_02 6:51

It's a luxurious cold water immersion.

SPEAKER_00 6:55

I had the privilege a few years ago of walking with a friend who entered the church and was baptized. And so it's a cool experience being both in you know the congregation, just seeing people who you don't know be baptized, but then also being in the role of a godmother and watching your friend be baptized. Um, I do think the font was a little bit more heated that year though. I don't think it's such a beautiful thing to witness. I absolutely love the Easter Vigil.

SPEAKER_02 7:21

Yeah, I mean, we joke about how long it is, but and it can definitely feel that way, but it's definitely like a beautiful mass all the way through.

SPEAKER_03 7:29

And then if you have to go to the Easter Sunday Mass, like I did, because my little siblings didn't go Easter Vigil, that hour-long mass seems so short.

SPEAKER_04 7:40

Wait, it's over already? We're just left here. What are we doing? Everything liturgically exists already.

SPEAKER_05 7:47

I was explaining to somebody. We're gonna come back to that. I had to explain to somebody that for the priests on the servers, like if you've done Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, Easter Sunday morning is like a joy. Like it's an hour, it's fun, it's all glorious, and all of nothing is different and weird like it is on Holy Saturday. Like, like, oh my just amazing.

SPEAKER_03 8:12

Even the Friday 3 p.m. service when over an hour and a half.

SPEAKER_06 8:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 8:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:20

When you sing the entire passion narrative, which is beautiful, yeah, it takes like out about 20 minutes.

SPEAKER_01 8:24

26 minutes for it takes a lot of it, which is why we stick for that.

SPEAKER_05 8:32

Yeah. All right. So we're gonna talk about so we do the training for the altar servers and the OCIA people in the morning of Holy Saturday, 11 a.m. at noon. And one of the things that I explain to our servers is on Holy Saturday, the space, so the whole liturgical space, becomes like ritually present throughout. So when you begin, you begin in total darkness, and you actually begin outside. You can't see my hands. I'm making classes. But you begin in total darkness and you begin outside at a fire. And the first thing that gets blessed is the fire, and then the candle, you know, the paschal candle, which is representing Jesus, and then you have smoke. But like as the mass progresses, the various spaces within the church become like I say ritually present as if they don't exist ritually beforehand. Maybe the point the better way to say it is like we become ritually aware of their presence. And so the first place that the candle stops is inside the door, the doorway of the church is representative of baptism and entering in. And so, like, you ritually make the door present. And now, meanwhile, the you know, the deacon sings at three points the light of Christ, the light of Christ, the light of Christ. And then when he gets to the sanctuary after the third singing of the light of Christ and places the candle in the candlest hand, the lights to the church are supposed to go on. That's what the rubric says. And now the knave of the church where the people are ritually exists. You know, the people come with their lighted candles and the congregation exists. And then you do the old testament readings, the ambo begins to exist. And then you get after three, four, five, six, seven readings, depending how many your parish does, there's seven Old Testament readings. Then you light all of the candles in the sanctuary and the dedication candles, and now the sanctuary ritually exists. And then after the baptisms and the people bring the gifts up, when the gifts become you know get placed on the altar, the altar then is recognized in a ritual way. So, like there's this development of how much of the space we inhabit throughout the Easter Vigil. Like, we go into this darkened tomb where the last time we were there, you had a naked altar and a naked sanctuary, and it was completely undecorated, and now you have flowers and candles and lights. And because you can't physically place those things during the mass, you ritually recognize their presence. But I said that, and our music minister then quipped, Do I do I not ritually exist?

SPEAKER_06 11:03

Do I exist?

SPEAKER_05 11:06

So Bishop Wolf could fact check me on this. He will I will respect his correction, but I do think part of the cool thing of the Easter Vigil is that recognition of like all of us have a proper place, and that place gets recognized as we go through that service.

SPEAKER_02 11:22

Yeah, but we just took that as you get your candle lit, you're not even there.

SPEAKER_03 11:30

Just forget spiritually. Metaphysically.

SPEAKER_04 11:37

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 11:42

No one has anything to that. I don't know. I thought you explained it pretty well. Yeah, I think it was really cool though, and a little jarring at the all the lights of the church turning on, but it was kind of cool to like after kind of like learning that explained while also laughing about it, but to kind of recognize that through the entire service.

SPEAKER_03 12:04

I will say, I didn't get a candle, so I guess I never existed.

SPEAKER_02 12:09

Well, yeah, you're you're also you're also and seeing it, so you you weren't a person.

SPEAKER_03 12:13

Yeah, my role wasn't even a person. I was like the embodiment of the role.

SPEAKER_05 12:17

Yeah. You know what? The fact that you remember that means that I teach good. Well, I'll ask, I have lots of things because I taught a whole series on this, but like, is there anything from the trituum that you found odd or interesting, either that like stuck out to you because you noticed it for the first time or that like you had questions about?

SPEAKER_03 12:37

I want to point something out about the Easter visual first. The first time I served it, they kept the lights off until they lit the candles on the altar and the consecration candles around the outside of the sanctuary. And I thought that was really cool because then we had the readings in the darkness with the paschal candle right there by the ambo. But why does the rubric say to light them or to raise the lights earlier?

SPEAKER_05 13:08

So part of the reason that rubric exists is kind of what I said of like by the time when the candle gets placed, the the body of the church is recognized. And so like we're not a people in darkness that this light that led us into the church, which is symbolic of the light that led the Israelites to the through the desert, you know, the pillar of fire, the pillar of cloud, like like once we are once we're in the building, like we're in the promised land and now we're telling our story. So it makes sense to have the lights on. The other reason, and this is from Bill Toler, who's our music minister, is he asked somebody after the Easter vigil a couple of years ago because we liked the lights off because of like the drama of it, you know, to hear the Old Testament readings proclaimed in darkness and then have the bells and the lights all come out of the glory. And the person responded basically, like, oh, it makes sense to have the lights off because you know, the Israelites, you know, they the Old Testament, they were in darkness and you know, they didn't have the truth, and then Christ came and then we had the light. And Bill, especially, is really sensitive to like Catholic, you know, Jewish, Christian, Jewish issues. And it's like, like, yeah, that's not it's not like the Old Testament no Jesus, Jesus comes the light. Like, like Jesus is the light, but like the whole story of salvation history that we read in that Easter vigil is like a sharing of how the Christian people like were enlightened. It's our story of salvation from creation to Jesus. And so by turning the lights on, we recognize like that the whole scripture is our story and not just you know, Jesus comes New Testament lights on. So I will say I I think this is purely my interpretation, but I think that church when they say turn the lights on, but then the candles come later in the gloria. I don't think that rubric envisions modern American churches with as many lights as they have. Like, so I think you probably could make a prudential judgment and go like half-lights, or you know, the lights in the church, but not the sanctuary, something like that to make it a little bit less jarring. But the idea is it's not like Old Testament darkness, New Testament light. Like you don't want to draw that distinction. Like that would be that's just sort of bad theology.

SPEAKER_00 15:03

Would you say that the bells and the candles of the Phaloria are more indicative of just the celebration of the resurrection and less about the light of Christ being in the world of bringing us out of the darkness? Is that would you say that's accurate?

SPEAKER_05 15:18

Yeah, I think that's fair. Like the line with, I'm trying to think of the line with the candle right before the procession starts is may the light of Christ rising in glory dispel the darkness of our hearts and minds. So it's not, I think when we celebrate Christ as the light coming into the world, which is kind of more of a Christmas theme, to be honest, we're talking about like the dark, you know, dispelling the darkness of our sins and the private parts of our lives, not like the darkness of the world and the Christ candle. Like we're kind of conflating two ideas where this is more of a like a spiritual enlightenment because the baschal candles where we end up lighting our baptismal candles and we light our personal tapers and we ritually recognize our existence. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:56

Back to your earlier question about like what just kind of stood out. And I think what was really interesting was on Holy Thursday, kind of pulled out all the stops for the Eucharistic prayer incense, elevation, Eucharistic Prayer One, the really old and long one. And I think it was just interesting because I feel like mass can kind of get routine, and I think it was noticeable that kind of something was different to kind of bring the Passover, like what is different about this night. And it's like, well, we kind of bring in like kind of a more full recognition of the Eucharist in that Mass.

SPEAKER_05 16:37

Which then, and actually one of the things too is because the last time the bells are rung in the Trituum is at the Gloria on Holy Thursday, even though you pull out all the stops for the Eucharistic prayer, there's no bells. You actually don't ring the bells for the elevations. And so it is kind of like a heightening of our sense of like this is you know, why is this night different? You know, what is special about the Eucharist that we're we're doing all of these elevated things? And then there's actually almost like a presence by absence of when you would expect the bells to be rung, they're not there, and that signals something different, too, of like, even though we pulled out all the stops, we left that we actually added a stop there, and why did we do that?

SPEAKER_02 17:13

Yeah. I think it wasn't Father Ryan saying mass, but Father Ryan elevates the host for I think we've counted over 20 seconds.

SPEAKER_05 17:23

If Celia's at 37. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:27

But it's that it's jarring almost every time because it's like, oh, it's still going. And I think it just draws attention to that even more. And I think it's really cool about Holy Thursday.

SPEAKER_00 17:40

I think it helps break you out of the routine that you say we often feel. It's like, oh, okay, you know, this is the routine of mana, this is how this goes, this is how long this takes. It's kind of just you can get into just going through the motions. Whereas if something changes a little bit, just about like a length of time, it makes you kind of refocus and like remember what's actually happening. I really like it.

SPEAKER_05 17:58

This is my one aside. So I used to have like lengthy prayers that I would say during the elevations, which then depending who the the presider is, like that's and then I think it was one of my kids. And it might not even be it might have been another kid uh when I was at my previous parents before I had kids, just said like, hi Jesus. And so that became my like like when the priest elevates the Eucharist, I just like hi Jesus. It's kind of a good recognition, though. Like it's you know, there he is.

SPEAKER_04 18:29

What about what about what's up, bro? Hey, the one from us by your lady.

SPEAKER_05 18:43

Well, that's what it's just he's our friend, but I have a question about the vigil.

SPEAKER_00 18:52

So I I noticed a difference from when I was more of a participant when I was a godmother a few years ago. That that year during the litany of saints, the two people to be baptized were like processed around the church. And that's not something that happened this year. Is there like a specific difference? Is it a choice in the rubrics? I just wanted to ask about that.

SPEAKER_05 19:14

So this is a Bishop Wust point that I think is a gearside point. Is processions are supposed to go somewhere. And so I don't remember how I don't know how long ago you were uh three years ago, I think. So I I think this is something I felt like we stopped a while ago, but I have not been here every year. We tried to stop doing processions that were like we're gonna make a big lap around the church because they were kind of extraneous and super like our church is weird in that it's kind of like the semicircle, you know, fan shape. So in order to like process to the font, it's only like 15 seconds.

SPEAKER_01 19:51

Um direct line.

SPEAKER_05 19:53

Yeah. So then rather than rather than like making a big circle, we uh just let them stay in the sanctuary for the first part of the litany of space, and then we move to the invocations, the you know, beyond the you know, pray for us to the I can't even think what it's called, the petitions in it. Then we you know process that way it's going from A to B instead of just trying to make it lengthy.

SPEAKER_00 20:15

Makes sense. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 20:17

I don't know. One of my favorite, I don't know, favorite, I like rubrics, that's weird. Uh one of the things that I find more things are less than rubric. I think uh one of the more interesting things about the Trudom is Good Friday because you're well. So number one, you walk into a church that has that is completely undecorated. We actually just rolled up carpets and things, so like our church doesn't have a whole lot of decoration to begin with, so we try to like really simplify it.

SPEAKER_03 20:41

They could cover the stats.

SPEAKER_05 20:44

It's in the notes for decades.

SPEAKER_04 20:46

Go to Joanne Fabrics and like 40 square feet of you know, purple cloth.

SPEAKER_05 20:59

Donate the purple cloth and we'll anyway.

SPEAKER_04 21:02

Let me buy it with the parish cards.

SPEAKER_05 21:04

That's not a donation then. So one of the more interesting things about Good Friday, though, is that because of this you know, bear church, that like the driving image of Good Friday is the cross. And so one of the things that it even mentions is that at the end, where normally you would genuflect to the tabernacle, you actually genuflect to the cross. And then it takes on this like extra value in this absence of imagery. I think that's such a cool, like, and I'm sure most people probably don't recognize that's what's happening. Because everyone's just genuflecting the same way. Well, it struck me I was at the cathedral this year, and they left the cross in like the middle of the church, like at the cross aisle rather than like in the front of the sanctuary. So the the bishop and the concelebrants actually had to walk down half of the aisle and genuflect to the cross in the middle, so there wouldn't be no confusion of like, well, they're just genuflecting in the like vicinity of the altars. Like, well, no, they are like clear. You know, genuflecting to the cross because we had to make like a special trip there.

SPEAKER_03 22:04

At St. Rayfield's when everyone's venerated the cross, we lay it across the steps leading up into the sanctuary. Do you know why we do that? Like, why don't we think it was a standard choice?

SPEAKER_05 22:15

I think it was an aesthetic choice.

SPEAKER_03 22:17

We also lay it sideways.

SPEAKER_05 22:20

It's like at a 45-degree angle on the stairs.

SPEAKER_03 22:23

It also fit good. Because you try and lay it down and then it like slides and Deacon Larry's like, oh no.

SPEAKER_05 22:30

I think the idea is that it makes it, well, in years past, we wouldn't decorate the church until Holy Saturday morning. That changes here just because of who our sacristans and decorators and stuff are. But it made it such that people could come and venerate the cross outside of that service. You know, they could come all day. Um, one of the suggestions is from a document called Pascalis Lemnitatis, which is a letter about how to celebrate Holy Week well. I'll read this. It's from 1988. I have a copy. You can have it. But that was typed out. We did. Oh but anyway, one of the things it's it recommends is that if you know that's the situation where you like need the church to, you know, to decorate the church or whatever, you can actually place the cross in the place where you had the Eucharist on Holy Thursday night for adoration. So I'm going to suggest that next year that people can come to the community room, so come to this extra space and venerate the cross on their own time if they want to come outside the service or stay later. And that way we can kind of shut the church down and then decorate when as we need it, and people can still venerate the cross.

SPEAKER_03 23:35

Is that for the remainder of Good Friday or going into for the remainder of Good Friday?

SPEAKER_05 23:40

Holy Saturday, the rubric suggests that you so you don't have a cross, but you could have an image of Jesus in the tomb, I think is what it suggests.

SPEAKER_03 23:48

Holy Saturday is a weird day.

SPEAKER_05 23:50

Yeah, Holy Saturday is weird. I uh Holy Saturday has three rubrics, and one of them is like, nothing happens today, focus on Jesus' death. And you're like, thank you. Most rubrics are very practical. That one was at least theological. Like it's here's a spiritual rubric.

SPEAKER_02 24:06

Also, according to both Father Ryan and Zach, the best office of readings is that day.

SPEAKER_05 24:11

Yeah, Holy Saturday, Office of Readings. Jesus descends into hell.

SPEAKER_02 24:16

Garita. The ancient Christian homily. Ancient homily on Holy Saturday.

SPEAKER_05 24:21

We could go on and on. I'm gonna end from Michael because it's after 10 o'clock. And they have to go home. They have to go home from youth group.

SPEAKER_02 24:29

We all have school soon. Well, not all of us. Tomorrow. Two of us. So yeah, that's gonna be it for this episode. Thank you for listening and have a blessed day.