Good Friday

Vendredi Saint, here in Molières, is a day of quiet reflection. I went  down once to the neighbouring Cistercian abbey for the Good Friday service but won't go again. I go to Mass there as often as I can and relish the contemplative atmosphere created by the sisters, but the Good Friday liturgy leaves me cold and unmoved - it's too busy and if ever there was a day for helpless inaction, this is it.

For the last three years, I've done little on this day but read, pray and remain in silence until our evening meal. No radio, no music only peace and quiet. I clean the 13th century church next door, leaving it bare save for a small icon of the crucifixion on the altar before which a candle will burn all day. We get a lot of visitors passing through and this is a gentle reminder that this day is unlike any other. This year I can't clean as thoroughly as I would like because my back is too fragile but I've wiped down the benches so that, should anyone take a few moments to sit, they won't leave dustier than when they arrived.

I spent a very agreable hour on the phone yesterday with a sister who taught me scripture in the olden days. She's now 82 and in frail health but her mind is as sharp as ever and her heart as full of the love and life of God as anyone I know. We spoke of the tension between being and doing and how people tend to look for the meaning of life in terms of what they do, and measure their worth by what they produce whereas, in reality, the real ground of our being is to be found in relationships. The first relationship is with God who loved us before we even realised we needed love. This unconditional love which wills us into existence is mirrored in our human relationships which sustain that existence. We find our worth and dignity in the love of God. We find signs of that same worth and dignity in the lives of those with whom we're in relationship. What we produce, how much we earn, our social standing has nothing to do with our worth.

If the Church called us to gather in silence on Good Friday, to spend an hour in contemplation of God's love for the world, I'd me more inclined to go. If ever there was a day for the words to cease and for us to see our worth in the eyes of those around us, it is today. If ever there was a day for action to cease and for us to realise our existence in our relationship with God, then this is it. Hermann Hesse expresses the desire more powerfully that I ever could:

"Hands, stop all your work.
Brow, forget all your thinking.
All my senses now
yearn to sink into slumber.

And my unfettered soul
wishes to soar up freely
into the magic circle of the night,
to live there deeply and  a thousand times more intensly." 

Beim Schlafengehen.