Tenebræ Debrief

Last night’s Tenebræ service was incredibly powerful. There were probably a hundred people in attendance, and we had half a dozen servers and the full choir. Fr. Wichert led¹.

And the choir! Oh, they were fantastic! The last anthem, sung in absolute darkness, was absolutely heavenly.

On a personal note, this is one of my favourite (para)liturgies that we celebrate at Holy Rosary. And it has grown each year. Last year, we had a larger crowd than expected, and people were forced to share books. This year, we doubled the number of books… and people were still forced to share in twos or threes.

Lesson learned. More books!

On a positive note, the larger versions that we ordered this year were very popular, and I think that given the darkness it will become the standard version.

We’ll also need to order some more for the choir!

A couple of other notes for next time:

• The servers and I need to practice our exit and recessional. Can’t give hand signals in the dark!
• We need to assign somebody to make sure the sacristy lights are out before we begin.
• More booklights need to be available for the congregation.

But these are only logistical issues. Tenebræ stands on its own as a moving and powerful service.

1. The darkness thankfully obscured our parish’s incredibly ugly violet(ish) cope. We really do need to get one that doesn’t look like it was made of fabric remnants in 1974.