Status

Last night I updated my facebook status to say “Tenebrae.” Three minutes later, a friend of my mom’s commented: “Could you please define the word for me? We are attending such a service but don't know what the word means.” This is my answer:

Tenebrae is about fear.

At 6:30 yesterday evening, I opened a new tab in Google Chrome and clicked on the picture of my inbox. Gmail popped open—all 5,000 unarchived messages worth. I put one word for the search box: “tenebrae.” Five thousand became one, a forward from my friend: “You should join us for Tenebrae at the Dominican House of Studies on Wednesday!” I got the address and double checked the time. I had just under an hour to get there.

In the elevator, I saw Fiona. “Heading home?” I asked. “To the gym first,” she said. “How about you?”

“I’m going to a church service,” I said, “called Tenebrae—it’s a traditional Dominican service for the night before Holy Thursday,” I added, seeing her eyebrows lift.

“Are you Dominican?” she asked. It took me a moment, then I understood the subtext. Fiona has very dark skin; I am every bit as pale as she is pigmented. Plus, my name is Christian Huebner.

“Oh, I mean the order of Catholic monks,” I said.

***

I asked the security guard on the campus of Catholic University where the House of Studies was, but I probably didn’t need to. There were enough students, Hill, and K Street types in blazers and sun dresses winding their way through campus to follow the trail.

The brothers and friars were prepared to meet us inside. Most of them were young, in their twenties and early thirties, all wearing the familiar white cassocks with long wooden Rosaries tied around their waist as a cincture. For this evening, they’d also donned their black outer cloaks. I asked where the bathroom was, and a brother pointed me through some double doors and down a hallway. It was a one staller, so I had to wait my turn. When the first guy came out, I saw that he had curly hair and was wearing a corduroy sport jacket and tie. What is it with the conservo-Catholic uniform?, I thought as we nodded at each other. On the way out of the bathroom, I adjusted the collar of my new Jos. A Bank dress shirt and straightened my khaki blazer.

The chapel was packed; I spotted a row with some empty seats—and, by sheer coincidence, some rather pretty young women who all shook their heads at me to say that those places were being saved. I looked around and spotted a cluster of my friends waving to me on the other side of the aisle.

We settled in, and Tenebrae began.

As far as what you do at Tenebrae, that’s pretty straightforward. It’s not a mass—you’re sitting most of the time, in my case in a hard wooden chair brought into the vestibule for overflow behind the screen. We opened with a hymn, “Ah, Holy Jesus,” which is nothing if not lovely and melancholy. For me, kind Jesus, was thine Incarnation / Thy mortal sorrow, and thy life’s oblation / Thy death of anguish and thy bitter Passion, for my salvation. Most of the service then was Psalm singing, antiphonally, about the sufferings of Christ. Spent and utterly crushed, I cry aloud in anguish of heart . . . My wanton enemies are numberless, and my lying foes are many ... That sort of thing. Again, really quite beautiful. The Domincans interspersed this with readings from Scripture and from St. Augustine, and with short motets from a small choir. The reading was sound in diction; the choir was mostly solid and tuned, if a little wobbly on the polyphonic passages. After each segment of the service passed—a psalm, a reading, a song—one of the brothers would extinguish one of the fifteen candles lit at the front of the chapel, starting with the outside and working in, back and forth, like a scythe, until only the single, central candle remained.

My mind wandered during most of this. What a pretty chapel this was—-shape the words as I sing them—-would I want to be a Dominican? probably not-—maybe some other kind of priest?—-bow during the Glory Be—-wow, she’s beautiful—-don’t I recognize that brother? I do! It’s George!—-wow, yep, really beautiful—-I’ll have to try to catch him afterward—-think about the words, think about the words . . .

At the end of the service, the lights went out. Night had stolen upon us, and only the one candle remained, the Christ candle. Then brothers escorted it out, too, through a side door, which they left open. From beyond the door, a light glowed into the darkened chapel, and the brothers started singing, Christus factus est pro nobis obediens usque ad mortem—Christ became for us obedient even unto death—and when the music ended a friar who had remained in the chapel exhorted us to pray. I don’t remember the words, but I got the gist: Lord, forgive us for crucifying your Son. The prayer ended. There were no lights. Silence.

Then a terrible, horrifying crash! Something was happening! No one could see, and noise—a screeching, piercing racket—sheer noise filled the chapel. Someone, some group of someones, was battering sheets of metal or pipes or lighting firecrackers with reckless ferocity, and it was dark and no one could see what was going on.

It stopped after a minute. Even before then, my mind caught up to what was happening: the brothers were banging on pots and pans and who knows what else from outside the chapel door, hacking away at these objects to create pandemonium over the congregation. That sounds innocuous enough, but the brutality of the shift—-from tender harmony in soft light to dark cacophony—-was jarring. Shaking, even. Behind me, I heard one of my friends sniffle. Fear, even just a quick moment of fear, does that to a person; it leaves you trembling even after it has passed.

Amid the scraps of twittering nerves, we understood the point. Extinguishing candles slowly to plainsong looks beautiful, but it commemorates something appalling. We left him alone in the outer dark, where it was cold, and where the only thing around was the hungry beast Chaos, fighting for a place at the foundation of the universe. Not some beautiful agony set to an orchestral soundtrack, but sheer chaos, sharp things gleefully cutting around him, into him; cold, ugly, violent fear—-that was what love took on for us. It went into shadows, which, incidentally, is what “tenebrae” means.

We processed out of the chapel, into the echoing foyer. Somberness lifted and chatter sprung up. We went for drinks across the road. After an hour passed, I couldn’t feel the fear any more. I could remember feeling that way, but the sensation was gone.