Triduum and Easter

From the Pastor:    Triduum and Easter

       March 24-27, 2016. For some of you, it was a lifetime ago. For others, just a blink of the eye. For most, they are probably just a few forgotten days that simply blend in with all of the other days and years of your life. There really is nothing all too special about those particular dates, and I, too, had to go and look them up, for I had forgotten much about them. I wasn’t actually looking for particular dates but rather for a particular Holy Week, notably my first Triduum and Easter at Epiphany. Perhaps yours, too. There is much to be said for keeping a written account of the passing time, something that I do through writing a weekly bulletin article. Reading the short account of what it was like and comparing it to this year’s Triduum and Easter, there is much the same and yet so much different as well.
       I was celebrating the Traditional Triduum for the first time, since every previous year I celebrated it according to the New Order Missal (Novus Ordo Missale). I had very little knowledge of what to do and very little talent to be able to carry it out. I could barely chant, having only celebrated low Masses before this assignment, yet each of the Easter liturgies required much more chant than a regular Mass. The Easter Vigil and Mass, for instance, took 3 1/2 hours, and all of my parts had to be chanted. I think that if the schola hadn’t been so excited to be able to chant so much new material of their own, they would have each been bleeding through their ears listening to me hitting so many wrong notes, on the wrong key, and sometimes even with the wrong Latin words. And that year, we had no idea about the length of time the Vigil and Mass would take. I had guessed between 4 and 5 hours. There were several changes of vestments from one color to another, from priestly vestments to diaconal vestments and back again, and other “strange” things to consider. Fortunately, I am able to admit that I am completely incompetent at preparing for such things and following complicated rubrics, so others stepped in who managed to pull it off and keep me on track for the most part.
       We also had a “visiting” priest who stopped by for his first Traditional Easter, Fr. Vincent Capuano, who would become a big part of our Epiphany family in short order. The two of us blundered and bumbled our way through everything and somehow survived the blind leading the blind. This year, Fr. Alexander Agbata will be the “newbie” joining us for his first foray into a Traditional Easter. Like Fr. Vincent and yours truly back then, Fr. Alexander hasn’t even seen a TLM Easter Vigil, yet is jumping into it full of excitement. Fr. Mangiafico was going to train him to do the Deacon parts of a Solemn High Mass (which role Fr. M—God rest his soul—was no longer physically capable of performing), but he only had one session with him before passing away.
       That first year, we only had one Tenebrae service, on Good Friday, and I wrote that “It took 2 1/2 hours. Prayerful hours, though, and quite exquisite. I immediately had requests that the choir do all three Tenebrae services next Triduum!” Of course, the schola was eager to comply, so the following year they added the Holy Saturday tenebrae to the schedule to see if people would really show up. They did. The third year, the tenebrae of Holy Thursday, anticipated Wednesday evening, was also added, and we have had all three Tenebraes from that year onward. Those first years, I sat in the sanctuary as the prayers were chanted—not, God being merciful to all on Earth and in Heaven, by me—by members of the schola. In 2019, to accommodate the crowds of people desiring confession, I started hearing confessions during the chanting of Tenebrae. Because of the confessions, I no longer get a chance to bask in the beauty of the chants and candles, but filling the church with shiny halos as people are absolved more than makes up for my missing the rest.
       That First Holy Week at Epiphany was also the first time I did the Traditional Blessing of Easter Baskets using the Traditional Latin prayers. I had only blessed baskets in English and only for a few years up until that time, for I didn’t grow up with the custom and was only introduced to it by some wonderful Polish parishioners at my previous parish a few years before my transfer. Little did I know how many people would clamor for this blessing, whether it was new to them or a long-loved part of their family/parish Easter celebration.
       As I look back on my first Holy Week and other “firsts” that I was able to experience here, I am filled with joy for the gifts God and the Bishop gave me with this assignment. Many of you have been here with me for the entire time. Even more of you have come along for part of the journey, and all of us, I dare say, have benefited from returning to the roots of our Catholic Faith in the way we celebrate the Venerable and Ancient Rites. This year marks not only my last Holy Week at Epiphany parish, but yours as well. From now on, your Holy Week celebrations will be at Epiphany Shrine! The new pastor (or, rector, as I think will be his title) and you will have your own “firsts” to look back on fondly, too, one day. May they be as exciting, prayerful, and reverent as those I/we experienced back when the magnificent Shrine was but a simple parish!

With prayers for your holiness,
Rev. Fr. Edwin Palka