Greying the darkness

Tenebræ, as a particular custom of saying Matins and Lauds for the Sacred Triduum, is sometimes explained in incomplete terms to avoid addressing the problems produced by the Pian Holy Week reforms. The word tenebræ in Latin means darkness. It is a plurale tantum, which means we can never find the word used in the singular, *tenebra. As many authors have already described the spiritual side of this darkness, we shall be content with asking one question: How do we experience ambient darkness?

Credo videre bona Domini !

Darkness is simply the absence of light. When the sun sets, its light diminishes, and darkness creeps in. When a household forgets to pay its utilities and the power provider decides to cut the line, it will have no electricity-powered light come nighttime. When we are in a brightly-lit windowless room, and some pranksters flipped the switch off, darkness engulfs us. There are, therefore, two sides to the experience of darkness: first, the disappearance of light; second, the emergence of darkness.

Now back to the Office of Darkness. Monks recited Matins at midnight, Lauds close to dawn. These are hours when the earth is morally still awash in the darkness of night. To sing the Offices, monks needed light. As with other nocturnal Offices, the same necessity for light was expected in the Offices of the Sacred Triduum. What happened differently, however, was the fact that monks started to extinguish the light gradually until all lights had been smothered by the end of Lauds. As Matins progressed and ushered in Lauds, the monks in choir were plunged deeper and deeper into ambient darkness. And what usually happens after the fact? The name is coined. The nocturnal Offices of the Sacred Triduum became the Office of Darkness.

The Office is very long, and, if coupled with extenuating circumstances, such as the staggered recitation of matutinal nocturns in monastic communities, can sometimes extend into daybreak. In places where night gradually shortens after the equinox, this meant that the Office can reach up to midmorning. “The desire to render these sublime Offices more accessible to clergy and laity,” notes the Catholic Encyclopedia, prompted the shifting of the Offices “from midnight to the previous afternoon, when no real darkness can be secured.”

Such desire evidently asserted itself when the Commission for the General Reform of the Liturgy, convened on 12 December 1952, and afterwards on 23 January the following year, and much later on 24 June 1955. In the process, no restoration happened, just another temporal translation, which also turned out to be a band aid solution for the centuries-old rhythm of Christendom to attend liturgies in the morning of the Sacred Triduum. In the process, the Office of Darkness lost the element that gave it its name. Explaining the importance of the Officium Tenebrarum now rests on unintentional half-truths.

The Office of Darkness did not come to be known as such merely by the extinguishing of lights. The service came to be known as Tenebræ after the extinguishing of lights and the darkness that waxes with each extinction. As we sing the Tenebræ on these hallowed days, we participate in the collective effort to keep the ancient liturgies alive. We, therefore, pray to God that He may deign to restore the Sacred Liturgy throughout the world.

Ut in omnibus laudetur Dominus.

—

REFERENCES

[1] Herbert Thurston, Tenebræ: The Catholic Encyclopedia 14 (New York 1912).
[2] Verbale delle 25^a, 27^a, e 51^a adunanze. See: Nicola Giampietro, O. F. M. Cap., Il cardinale Giuseppe Ferdinando Antonelli e gli sviluppi della riforma liturgica dal 1948 al 1970 (Rome 1998), pp. 315, 319, 355.

Tinieblas 2018

Three days ago, our tinieblas ended, chanted to honour the Lord, contemplating on His holy Passion, in fervent prayer, in that natural darkness that recalls the spiritual darkness that once enveloped the world awash in sin, that we may rejoice in the light of His resurrection, having reconciled the world unto Himself when He died on the Cross.

We managed to record the first parts of our tinieblas.

Spy Wednesday
Maundy Thursday
Good Friday

Ut in omnibus laudetur Dominus.

Schedule: Tenebrae 2018

The Office of Darkness, the Officium Tenebrarum in Latin, comprises the offices of matins and lauds traditionally sung or recited in the evening for the last three days of Holy Week, what we call the Sacred Triduum. In the Philippines, this office is often called in its Spanish name, tinieblas, which has also lent its name, at least in some localities, to the large wooden clapper installed in the belfries of those times, more widely known as matracas, apparently because when the time of the customary noise was come, the belfry clapper was also sounded.

We are in the week that changed the world, Holy Week, and its last three days, the Sacred Triduum, are the holiest days of Christendom. Let us honour the Lord, contemplating on His holy Passion, in fervent prayer, in that natural darkness that recalls the spiritual darkness that once enveloped the world awash in sin, that we may rejoice in the light of His resurrection, having reconciled the world unto Himself when He died on the Cross.

Cantemus, psallamus, atque oremus.

Tinieblas 2017

The Office of Darkness—Officium Tenebrarum in Latin—comprises the offices of matins and lauds traditionally sung or recited in the evening for the last three days of Holy Week, what we call the Sacred Triduum. In the Philippines, this office is called in its Spanish name, tinieblas, which has also lent its name, at least in some localities, to the large wooden clapper installed in the belfries of those times, more widely known as matracas, apparently because when the time of the customary noise was come, the belfry clapper was also sounded. The Choir chanted the tinieblas at the new chapel of the Parish of the Most Holy Redeemer in the Diocese of Cubao progressively later in the evening of Spy Wednesday, Maundy Thursday, and Good Friday.

As in 2015 and 2016, the tenebrario, what we call in Latin as the candelabrum triangulum and in English as the tenebrae hearse, holding fifteen sockets to support fifteen candles, and the Lectionarium tenebrale pro Tridui Sacri matutinis proper to the Choir, containing the notations of all the lessons sung during the Office, were used. These fifteen candles are progressively extinguished after each of the nine psalms of Matins and five psalms of Lauds. The six altar candles are put out after each double verse of the Benedictus. As the Office progresses, the chapel increasingly becomes darker and darker. At the end of the Offices, only the topmost candle on the tenebrario remains lit.

Jerusalem, Jerusalem, convertere ad Dominum Deum tuum !

Quare fremuerunt Gentes ?

Credo videre bona Domini !

Christus factus est pro nobis obœdiens usque ad mortem, mortem autem crucis !