Yesterday was Maundy Thursday. I had a lovely day, which began with Tenebrae. Fr Bede and I then collected flowers for the altar of repose – daffodils. This was a surprisingly beautiful experience, because St Louis has been covered with a foot of snow. It had all melted and the daffodils were flat against the ground. There was something deeply evocative of the themes of Holy Week in these bright flowers flattened against the ground, being raised up to the Altar of Repose. All desperately corny really, but it gave me pause for thought whilst we were picking the flowers.
On Spy Wednesday Fr Bede and I had set up the Altar of Repose. This was a wonderful moment for me. In a way it reminded me of my childhood, in my old parish church. My mother and I would usually spend the morning of Maundy Thursday helping to prepare the church for the Mass of the Lord’s Supper. I would be sorting things out in the servers’ sacristy, polishing the thurible, faffing with candles. My mother would be helping the sacristan with linens (which my mother washed and ironed for many years). I particularly remember the hanging of the curtain to go behind the Altar of Repose, and Olga (a lady of parish) coming in with hyacinths from her garden to go on it. The smell of the hyacinths mingled with incense is the scent of the Mount of Olives for me.
So helping Fr Bede to hang the curtain behind the altar of repose and to clear the tables from the hall was a trip down memory lane that I greatly valued. Fr Bede’s parish is wonderful. It is a thriving community with many young families, and great devotion. In fact I've never encountered a parish with this youthful demographic before. In some ways it reminds me very much of the parish of my youth, even though Fr Bede’s parish offers Traditional Latin Mass and sacraments and mine did not. I think part of this is the mingling of the ‘make-shift’ and the ‘sincere’. My old parish church was a sort of hall, with a sanctuary that could be screened off at one end. It had to be a multi-purpose space in order to finance itself. But the sanctuary was very sensibly ordered, and it was a deeply prayerful space, with the tabernacle at the centre. Sadly the church was closed down, and has since been bulldozed to make way for houses. There are some pictures of it here on a very interesting website that looks at derelict buildings. Fr Bede’s parish has a similarly humble setting, but it is very prayerful, and sincere. Like my old church, it just works.
The church I now go to when I’m at home in Guildford just isn’t a prayerful space for me. I find there to be no sense of silence, or of the sacred. Architecturally it is a meeting space, not a place of sacrifice. I find it very difficult to pray there, and find that the design of the space can often exacerbate the tendency for the modern liturgy to become incorrectly focused upon ‘communal meal’ and ‘community event’. I don’t want sound mean, because I know that many people like this building, and have meaningful experiences within it. I am also acutely aware that it’s the only option many people have as a place in which to attend Mass (and indeed it’s my only option when I’m at home). But I simply don’t think it functions well as a Catholic liturgical space.
But I digress. Yesterday was a day of preparation, in which I took great comfort. And the sense of preparation was experienced in many aspects of the day. Between Holy Mass and some time at the Altar of Repose I helped Br Dunstan make fish pie. This is the same fish pie that appeared on this blog last Good Friday ... the Jennifer Paterson Two Fat Ladies recipe. But I thought some photographs of it in progress this year would not go amiss. We will eat it this evening after the Good Friday liturgy.
[Lots of mashed potato]
['Prawns for treats' as Jennifer said - I realise this looks fairly uninspiring, but we haven't baked the pie yet so I can't show you it finished]
Br Dunstan also made a delicious lentil soup for lunch today.
Indeed, I thought it was slightly too delicious for Good Friday - but perhaps that's a worrying Puritan streak coming out in me that I should stamp on ASAP. He some dill and cheddar scones from the Barefoot Contessa to go with it. Now they really were DELICIOUS and I urge you to make them. The recipe for the scones can be found here.
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