Thursday, March 20, 2008

Easter Triduum

Maundy Thursday, March 20th, 2008

Easter Triduum begins: the terrible and the joyful melds in perfect union. This Easter I will be able to attend worship through the entire season.

From Wikipedia:

The week before Easter is very special in the Christian tradition. The Sunday before Easter is Palm Sunday and the last three days before Easter are Maundy Thursday or Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday (sometimes referred to as Silent Saturday). Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday and Good Friday respectively commemorate Jesus' entry in Jerusalem, the Last Supper and the Crucifixion. Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday are sometimes referred to as the Easter Triduum (Latin for "Three Days").

And

In the Christian liturgical calendar, Maundy Thursday or Holy Thursday is the feast or holy day falling on the Thursday before Easter that commemorates the Last Supper of Jesus Christ with the Apostles. It is the fifth day of Holy Week, and is preceded by Holy Wednesday and followed by Good Friday.
On this day four events are commemorated: the washing of the Disciples' feet by Jesus Christ, the institution of the Mystery of the Holy Eucharist at the Last Supper, the agony of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, the betrayal of Christ by Judas Iscariot.
The morning celebration of these events marks the beginning of what is called the Easter Triduum or Sacred Triduum. The Latin word triduum means a three-day period, and the triduum in question is that of the three days from the death to the resurrection of Jesus.

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

writer block

Tuesday, March 11th, 2008

It is the curse of wanabe writers like me. But I am still happy to have finished phase I of my cleaning/organizing. Spring cleaning? Lent cleaning? While cleaning I was listening to John McCutcheon, Tom Waits, Bruce Cockburn, Jars of Clay, Sara Groves, and Chanticleer. Jars of Clay and Sara Groves are new to me.

World Youth Day 2008, Sidney, Australia, and John Henry Cardinal Newman from The Times.


KU-USF football game moved to Sept. 12 for ESPN: I love the Fall and college football season.

Monday, March 10, 2008

morning

Monday, March 10th, 2008

Lent is drawing to a close. Has it made a difference? Wednesday is my parish penitential service, confession is looming. Am I ready? 5 days till the Ides of March. How is this year going to go? Next Sunday is Palm Sunday. 10 days to Spring (I recently read that Lent comes from a Roman word meaning Spring), 11 days till Good Friday (J. S. Bach’s BD), 13 days until Easter. Enough of this.

Subtlety is the curse of man, it is not found in the Deity. I came across this quote by Flannery O’ Conner somewhere this past weekend. I like it.

Good news. Southern Baptists Back a Shift on Climate Change is the headline to this article in the New York Times.

Slum Visits: Tourism or Voyeurism? An important issue for Christians, and others, who care about justice to think about, and not because I think it slum tourism is wrong or evil.

Altruism: Why are humans altruistic? Jim Holt writes about it in The Way We Live Now: Good Instincts.

Thursday, March 06, 2008

Thursday, March 6th, 2008: Part two

Check out this article by the infamous Richard Owen in The Times (not the New York Times) Pope is warned of a green Antichrist. Kind of interesting. Vladimir Solovyov is interesting too. Never heard of him. Here he is on Wiki.

Thursday, March 6th, 2008

From March 6th’s concluding prayer at Lauds.

Lord, we are your servants and we pray for your clemency.
Set right by penitence and trained by good works,
may we wholeheartedly follow your commandments
and come unstained to the paschal feast.

What is faith? Check-out Charlotte was Both for a long quote by Pope Benedict XVI.

Tuesday, March 04, 2008

It is a big place

Tuesday, March 4th, 2008

Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead!

My soul, O my soul, rise up! Why are you sleeping? The end draws near, and soon you will be troubled. Watch, then, that Christ your God may spare you, for He is everywhere present and fills all things.

From the Great Canon of Andrew of Crete

I got this from the website of the Byzantine Catholic Church in America. I was looking into stories of the kidnapping of Msgr. Paulos Faraj Rahho, Chaldean Archbishop of Mosul, Iraq.