by Albert Holtz
The story of God’s love is also working itself out, though, in some pretty obscure and unpleasant places as well: in the county jail up the hill, in the daycare center for AIDS babies on Orange Street, all along Elizabeth Avenue where teenagers are racing in stolen cars, in back alleys where the hungry and the homeless while away the numbing hours. You look at these places and you ask with the psalmist, “Lord, where are you? Are you really here at all?”
We continue the psalm’s account of Israel’s unfaithfulness,
They worshipped the idols of the nations
And these became a snare to entrap them.
They even offered their own sons
And their daughters in sacrifice to demons.
Even back then children were abused and mistreated. Vigils is no escape into a pleasant fairyland: praying the psalms leads you into the dangerous acknowledgment of how life really is. You find yourself in the presence of God, where not everything is polite and civilized and “nice.”
Time after time the Lord rescued them,
But in their malice they dared to defy God
And sank low through their guilt.
The psalmist faces with the rest of us the shattering experiences and the dark times that are an inescapable part of the human condition. Sometimes I think of him as a fellow Newarker calling God to task amid the ravages of racism, drug addiction, hedonism, and despair: “Awake, O Lord! Why do you sleep?” “They prowl about the city like dogs!” “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” “Why, O Lord, do you cast us off forever … ?”
The psalms that we pray at Vigils presume, though—and this is the key—that it is precisely in such dark and dreary places that God is at work creating new life. In the midst of pain and despair, suddenly an unexpected newness breaks in on us, and God is once again acting in history. The story continues,
In spite of this the Lord paid heed to their distress …
For their sake God remembered the covenant.
It is no accident that the most solemn vigil of the year, the one that the Roman Liturgy encourages all the faithful to take part in, is the Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday. Vigils is essentially a paschal celebration, prayed with the conviction that the crucified and risen One will come again in glory in the middle of the night to finish the work of saving us.
Sometimes I can feel that newness breaking in, surprising me with the energy of the Spirit in gifts of strength, consolation, or insight. At other times, though, the psalms expose my own personal sins and shortcomings, and make me wonder how I have the nerve even to show my face at prayer. There are mornings when I bring my brokenness to Vigils and leave full of peace—but there are times, too, when I’m still waiting at the end.
Fr. Francis is finishing the last verses of Psalm 106:
O Lord, our God, save us!
Gather us from among the nations
That we may thank your holy name
And make it our glory to praise you.
I join my brothers as we recite the last stanza together in a single, resounding voice,
Blessed be the Lord, God of Israel,
For ever, from age to age.
Let all the people cry out:
“Amen! Amen! Alleluia!”
SCRIPTURAL REFLECTION
Psalm 13
How long, O Lord? Will you forget me for ever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
How long must I bear pain in my soul,
and have sorrow in my heart all day long?
How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?
Consider and answer me, O Lord my God!
Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep the sleep of death,
and my enemy will say, “I have prevailed”;
my foes will rejoice because I am shaken.
But I trusted in your steadfast love;
my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.
I will sing to the Lord,
because he has dealt bountifully with me.
This is a prayer of someone who has been waiting for God’s help. Think of an instance when God kept you waiting for a long time. Remember the feelings you had while waiting. How did you handle it? Did you try to take things into your own hands instead of waiting?
Think of a situation in which God seems to be keeping you waiting right now. Can you say to God—and mean it- “It’s okay, I can wait until you’re ready”?
RULE OF BENEDICT
“During the winter season, that is, from the first of November until Easter, it seems reasonable to arise at the eighth hour of the night. By sleeping until a little past the middle of the night, the brothers can arise with their food fully digested. In the time remaining after Vigils, those who need to learn some of the Psalter or readings should study them.” (Chapter 8, “The Divine Office at Night,” vv. 1–3)
SINGING YOUR TROUBLES: CONVOCATION
“I want to pray for my uncle who is having an operation today.”
“Lord, hear our prayer,” we respond.
“Please pray for my aunt who is dying of cancer,” adds another student.
“Lord, hear our prayer.”
I’m squeezed between a senior and a sophomore in the second row of bleachers that line both sides of the old gym. Across the way, a bank of three rows of faces looks back at us. On the floor in between, the freshmen are sitting in neat ranks and files. We’re in the middle of our daily 8:00 a.m. convocation.
Sometimes only the people sitting nearby can actually hear the student who’s praying, but everyone in the gym still joins in the response.
“I ask you to pray for me and my mom. We’re having a rough time getting along right now.”
Hmm! Interesting! Probably explains why he’s been so moody in French class lately. I’m always amazed at the private, personal things some students will pray about in front of 500 people.
“I want to lift up my girlfriend’s brother who has AIDS,” adds a strong voice from way across the gym. Then from just off to my left I hear a bashful freshman pray,
“Please pray for my cousin who got shot last night. He’s in critical condition and they don’t think he’s gonna make it.”
Hey, I say to myself, this is getting depressing! That’s the way it works, though: on some days no one has anything to say out loud, but on others a flood of troubles comes pouring out.
I start thinking of the millions of people who have showed up at their jobs this morning with no way to let their co-workers know about some particular problem, worry, or family tragedy that will be weighing them down today. I’ll take our way, I decide, even if sometimes, like this morning, other people’s troubles can start to get me down.
The petitions end with a prayer by Fr. Matthew, who is running the service this morning. He then hands the microphone to Rev. Winstead, who is standing at the upright piano. He is a short, stocky African-American in African dress, wearing beads around his neck. When he plays a couple of chords a ripple of excitement runs through the crowded room. “Yes!” We’ve just shared a lot of pain and misery both spoken and unspoken, and we don’t want to go to class feeling like this. We need to sing!
Rev. Winstead, whom the students refer to affectionately as “Rev,” is pastor of a little store-front church not far away, and writes all our songs. He half whispers the first words into the microphone, “God loves me.…”
A few of us pick up the song, “… he never leaves me, he knows what I’m going through. Everything’s gonna be all right.…”
Not everyone is singing. But as more and more voices join in, the room starts to fill with music. We’re just getting into that song when Rev suddenly switches to a faster one, “Don’t give up! No! Don’t give up! God has never lost a battle, don’t give up!”
After weeks and months of listening to one another’s worries and burdens at morning convocation, a web of trust has woven itself around us. Singing together this morning, we are lifting one another up; you can feel it happening. This must be what St
. Paul had in mind when he wrote about the mystical body of Christ: not some abstract theological concept, but a community of real people sharing their joys and fears, singing and shouting together, encouraging and strengthening one other. As a monk I value quiet time and solitude as opportunities for seeking God, but I also know how much I need my community to help me in that search. Of course, community members, whether students or monks, can be aggravating at times, and the demands of the group don’t always fit my immediate wants or even my needs, but in the end I know I couldn’t get along without them.
Suddenly the piano shifts into a calypso beat. Without missing a note we join in the new melody, “There’s a lotta stuff goin’ on in my life, but God is good, God is good.… ”
Dozens of us start clapping to keep time.
“Hey, hey-hey-hey, hey-hey-hey! God is good!” Some rows of students start swaying in their seats. Three sophomores sitting near Fr. Malachy stand up and start dancing in their places. This morning we sing the words as if we mean them, with maybe even a touch of defiance in the face of all the troubles we’ve just prayed about. “God is good!” is the shout of an Easter community in the face of sickness, misery, and even the mystery of death itself. Off to my left, the freshman whose cousin got shot isn’t singing, but is being carried along by the rest of us. That’s when it really helps to be praying with a group of people who are feeling and celebrating what you are not able to feel at the moment: “God is good!”
The song ends with hearty applause. When Rev turns around and walks away from the piano, though, the whole gym breaks into a roar of complaint: we haven’t had quite enough singing yet. The cheers and applause keep getting more insistent until he turns and walks slowly back to the keyboard. He leans down into the microphone and chants lightly,
“Don’t let nothin’ get you down!”
A few hundred voices pick up the familiar song right away, “Don’t let nothin’ get you down! Don’t let nothin’ get you down!”
The chorus gets louder and louder, then the shouting part:
Stay up! Stay up! Don’t let nothin’ get you down!
Stay up! Stay up! Don’t let nothin’ get you down!
Stay up! Stay up!
Stay up! Stay up!
Don’t let nothin’, Don’t let nothin’,
Don’t let nothin’ … get … you … down!”
This time we end with satisfied applause. Yes! That’s better!
The student who is running convocation today walks to the center of the gym and raises his hand for quiet. He asks in a loud voice,
“Are there any announcements?”
Several students stand up in their places. One of them calls out,
“This afternoon the J.V. basketball team has a game here at four o’clock. We’d appreciate your support.”
“Anybody who owes articles for the Benedict News: the deadline’s next Monday,” adds the next.
The body of Christ has begun another day.
SCRIPTURAL REFLECTION
Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. (Matthew 11:28–30)
What burdens of your own would you lift up to God right now? What about those of other people?
Do you ever ask others to pray about some specific concern that’s worrying you?
“God is good, all the time!” goes a common saying in the African-American churches. Try completing the following sentence in three or four different ways: “God is good, all the time—even when _____________________________.” When you look at the answers you gave, is there any pattern that emerges? Try lifting up these cares to the Lord.
RULE OF BENEDICT
“We must always remember, therefore, what the Prophet says: ‘Serve the Lord with fear’, and again, ‘Sing praise wisely’; and, ‘In the presence of the angels I will sing to you’. Let us consider, then, how we ought to behave in the presence of God and his angels, and let us stand to sing the psalms in such a way that our minds are in harmony with our voices. (Chapter 19, “The Discipline of Psalmody,” vv. 3–7)
NEAR THE CROSS: GOOD FRIDAY
The liturgy can catch you off guard sometimes, surprising you with an uncomfortable moment of truth.
“Were you there when they nailed him to the tree?”
The words of the old spiritual have a special richness this afternoon at the Service of the Lord’s Passion and Death. We are the usual mixture of parish and monastery: Monks in long choir robes, parishioners in African or American dress, people in business suits from the nearby courthouse and downtown office buildings, and several folks who seem to have just wandered in off the street.
The last few people in the line come up to kiss the relic of the true cross in its little gold and glass reliquary inserted into a three-foot-high wooden cross, while we sing,
“Were you there when they laid him in the tomb?”
Br. Maximilian now carries the small cross toward the apse of the church. In the six-foot-wide aisle that separates the two sets of monastic choir stalls, other servers start lifting a ten-foot-high wooden cross, standing it up in its slot in a platform. The organ intones the next hymn, one of my favorites. We start to sing:
Jesus, keep me near the cross—
There a precious fountain,
Free to all, a healing stream,
Flows from Calv’ry’s mountain.
The larger-than-life brown wooden cross is now towering straight and somber, filling the whole church the way the crucified Savior’s love fills our lives. Everyone is singing the chorus,
In the cross, in the cross,
Be my glory ever,
Till my raptured soul shall find
Rest beyond the river.
Many of the people are singing from deep, personal acquaintance with suffering—I can hear it in their voices. There’s plenty of sin and brokenness that needs to be lifted up and nailed to the cross just in our little congregation, without even going out into the neighborhood with its crack cocaine, violence, child abuse, and HIV.
Near the cross a trembling soul,
Love and mercy found me;
There the Bright and Morning Star
Sheds its beams around me.
Suddenly the words catch in my throat: “Keep me near the cross?” I realize that I don’t want to be near the cross. I’ve been there. And I don’t particularly want to go again. In fact, I’d rather be as far away from suffering and death as I can get!
Once I was on crutches for two months after a knee operation and got so frustrated at my helplessness that I sat in my room in the monastery and cried. At the time that seemed like the cross. It wasn’t until my brother was dying of cancer, though, that pain and grief really brought me to the foot of the cross. Even years later, just thinking about it is enough to put me there again. Believe me, I don’t go there on purpose!
Near the cross! O Lamb of God,
Bring its scenes before me;
Help me walk from day to day
With its shadows o’er me.
There’s a story about a church in the Midwest that was remodeling its sanctuary. The plans called for a new cross over the high altar to replace the beautiful old wooden one with its traditional image of Christ hanging in agony. The pastor asked if, rather than just destroying the old crucifix, the contractor might not be able to sell it to some other church where it could be put to good use.
The contractor paused a moment, stroking his chin.
“You know, Father, you got a problem here.”
“Oh, what’s that? It is a beautiful piece of art, isn’t it?”
“Sure, that’s not the problem. Problem is, that there’s just no market for a suffering Christ.”
That’s my story—I’m not in the market for a suffering Christ this afternoon.
Near the cross I’ll watch and wait,
Till I reach the promised Land
Just beyond the river.
“Hoping, trusting …” Yeah. There’s the problem, all right! I sneak a glance at one woman in particular whose life has been one tragedy after another. She’s singing with her whole being. I look around the church at other folks who live on food stamps, one woman whose son is in jail, a brother monk with serious medical problems. They all seem to be singing with conviction, even urgency, “hoping, trusting ever.…”
Fr. Luke, the master of ceremonies, reaches up and hangs the smaller cross with its relic onto the large cross, so that the relic in the tiny silver disk is now in the very center. While everyone in the church is gazing on it and singing of Calvary’s healing power and the saving love of Jesus I start to feel more and more out of place—I still can’t get myself to ask for a share in the cross. All I can feel this afternoon is the scary part: the image of Jesus hanging on the cross mingles with images of my brother lying in bed in the intensive care unit, hooked up to weird monitors, intravenous tubes, and an artificial breathing machine. On Calvary you’ve got nothing left. Nothing but trust in the Father’s love: “Into your hands I commend my spirit.”
In the cross, in the cross,
Be my glory ever,
Till my raptured soul shall find
Rest beyond the river.
The song comes to an end and a deep silence settles on the assembly. Everyone else seems at peace, resting at the foot of the cross. I keep my distance, though, trying to shake off the nightmare pictures from the hospital.
Maybe next Good Friday, though. Maybe by then, with the help of God’s grace and the prayers of these folks, I’ll find myself in the market for a suffering Christ.
SCRIPTURAL REFLECTION
From noon on, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. And about three o’clock Jesus cried with a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” When some of the bystanders heard it, they said, “This man is calling for Elijah.” At once one of them ran and got a sponge, filled it with sour wine, put it on a stick, and gave it to him to drink. But the others said, “Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to save him.” Then Jesus cried again with a loud voice and breathed his last. (Matthew 27:45–50)