THE P
RTAL
Palm Sunday or Easter Day ?
April 2018 Page 6
Keeping Easter is explored by Fr Mark Woodruff
When this is published , a number of Eastern Catholic Churches , in common with the Orthodox , will have a week to go before Easter . Yet they are Catholics just the same . In 1982-83 , Myrna Nazzour , a Catholic married to an Orthodox in Soufanieh , near Damascus , received a vision of the Mother of God , with the message to pray for peace , and for Christians of East and West to love another and keep Easter together – a vital witness to Christ ’ s death and resurrection in the flesh , for Christians living amidst Muslim or Jewish majorities .
The Council of Nicaea settled how the solar calendar and the Hebrew lunar calendar should both be used to find each year the same eve of the Sabbath on which Our Lord was crucified in Jerusalem . But with better mathematical accuracy ( and a blunder like calculating the moon ’ s cycle from Rome , not Jerusalem ), the datings in West and East diverged . Sometimes it is the same day ; sometimes the East goes ahead to the following month ; usually they are a week later .
But it need not be Church-dividing . Many Eastern Catholics in Britain keep Easter with Roman Catholics , even while their fellow Church members in the East may keep it later . It is another aspect of the diversity of patrimony and practice that , as the Ordinariate knows , does not weaken the common life of the Body of Christ , but strengthens it by integrating the manyness for which Christ shed His Blood .
So , what will we be doing at the Ukrainian Cathedral in London , the nearest Catholic neighbour to the Ordinariate ’ s central Church , in your Easter week ? First , we will bless and process with palms ( we use pussy willow ), a rite borrowed by the West from the East . One of the chants realises that the Holy Spirit who taught the apostles to speak in tongues , first inspired the people to hail their King with hosannas . Sunday always being a feast of the resurrection , we wear bright vestments ; but for Great and Holy Week , we go to dark , usually red . We never give up “ Alleluia ”, so the Cross that looms shines in the light ahead from the Tomb . On Monday and Tuesday , we hasten with the Ten Virgins to meet the Bridegroom : “ Going to the Passion , do not number Me among the dead , for on the Third Day I shall rise again bringing joy !”
On Wednesday , we weep with the Magdalen and prepare the Master for burial ; our frankincense is charged with myrrh , as the opposite of a Wise Man prepares the gift of salvation itself : that kiss of death . Thursday ’ s Last Supper comes in the afternoon , or
morning ; “ Let me be a partaker of Your mystical Supper , for I will not betray You like Judas , but like the repentant thief confess You : Lord , remember me in Your Kingdom .” That evening , Good Friday ’ s Passion Matins has 12 Gospels , each one read in a vestment darker than the last . Bishop Hlib will set the whole scene from John 13 to 17 . Then we read from the Passions of John , Mark and Matthew . The Cross is set up for veneration : “ Today , the Lord who raised the dry land from the waters is raised upon the Cross . He clothed the sky with clouds and is today vested in purple . In the Jordan He freed Adam , now He is slapped in the face . We worship Your passion , O Christ : now let us behold Your resurrection .”
On Friday , a Procession bears the Shroud , bearing the image of the dead Christ to its resting place . Adorned with flowers , it is lovingly kissed by the faithful . The evening ’ s Jerusalem Mattins accompany Christ dwelling , waiting on Holy Saturday : “ Do not weep for me , Mother , seeing me lying in the Tomb : for I shall arise !” Near the end we hear Ezekiel ’ s story of the valley of the bones and throughout there is this sense that death is about to burst apart : “ Every generation comes to Your Tomb , O Christ , singing a hymn of praise .”
On Saturday , “ Today the Abyss cried out : I should never have received the One born of Mary . I received a dead man and could not hold Him . It is my power that is swallowed up .” In the evening , wearing bright vestments , we leave the Church – the Tomb is empty . We return , and Bishop Hlib beats on the door with the Cross three times , “ Let God arise , and let His enemies be scattered .” It bursts open : “ Christ is risen from the dead , trampling death by death , and to those in the tombs giving life .” The Liturgy is celebrated and for eight days the doors of the iconostasis that usually screen the altar remain open , like the Emptied Tomb , for all to see Christ ’ s light : “ Shine , New Jerusalem , for the glory of the Lord has shone upon you .”