Day Forty – Palms, Passion, and Predictability (not!)

Question: The Rule notes that the passage of time itself is redeemed by the liturgical cycle of worship that the Brothers offer in their practice of the Daily Office and the Eucharist (16, 17, 18).  As the Brothers anticipate re-entering the Monastery Chapel, do you have particular hopes for this year, this week, this time?

Br. Kevin Hackett: I certainly do. Our observance of Holy Week is never completely the same from one year to another, but this year, with our own “triumphal entry” to the Chapel on Palm Sunday, I’m both looking forward to and a little frightened of seeing and hearing and doing things in necessarily different ways.  It’s not that we have “tamed” the drama of Holy Week over the years, but we have come to rely on some predictable patterns and practices and resources, and this year, so many things will necessarily be different—we won’t have access to the high altar, for instance.  We don’t have access to our usual full wardrobe of vestments and properties. We’ll be working from a makeshift sacristy, with no running water. But that’s all for the good, I think, because we’ll have to look and listen more deeply, perhaps, than we have before. I count the unpredictability to be nothing less than the Spirit moving, blowing, roaring among us.