This year I celebrated Holy Week.
Being raised a practicing Mormon I actually had to do a little research about
how to do this. Imagine, a member of a church bearing Christ’s name having to
research how to celebrate Holy Week! Growing up, more energy was put into
celebrating the Pagan aspects of Easter than the Christian ones (Easter eggs,
candy, bunnies, ham dinner, etc.). If General Conference was not happening, church
featured typical sounding talks given by lay members vaguely focused on Christ,
an extra song or two, and more pastel colors.
So this year I started with Lent; I
gave up meat and dairy, I read the synoptic Gospels, and I really tried to
focus more time on prayer, meditation and solitude for the 40 days before the
beginning of Holy Week. During Holy Week I attended the Cathedral of the
Madeleine in downtown Salt Lake City because it is walking distance from my
apartment and it is such a beautiful space. I started my Holy Week celebration by
attending the Palm Sunday Mass, which began with a procession around the
Cathedral holding our palm fronds up in the air, celebrating Christ’s entrance
into Jerusalem and his humility as a leader whose kingdom is not of this world.
On Holy Thursday, which commemorates Christ’s initiation of the Eucharist and
the washing of the Apostles feet, I attended Mass and watched the Bishop wash
the feet of a dozen or so people, giving a moving Homily on serving the poor. On
Good Friday I attended an interfaith procession between five down town church (the
LDS churches being conspicuously absent) where the Lord’s passion was sung,
spoken and contemplated as we walked the city streets behind a large wooden
cross. Holy Saturday was celebrated by a beautiful candle light vigil in the
darkness of Christ’s death. During the liturgies and especially the vigil, I
felt myself imagining and participating in the final week of Christ’s life like
I have never before been encouraged to do. The darkness of the Holy Saturday church
was an overwhelming symbol of the darkness of death, retold each year at this
time as we emerge from winter into spring. It is no accident that we celebrate
Holy Week in the spring. Christ rises each year in the buds of trees, dormant
for months. It is a miracle we witness each year. Christ is the story
Christians tell about this sacred cosmic cycle of death and rebirth and for the
first time in a long time I was totally enamored with this Jesus who died and
rose again on the third day.
On Easter Sunday I worked my way to
the front of the crowded Cathedral, wearing both my crucifix and Salt Lake temple-door-knob-beehive
belt buckle. The Cathedral is covered by painting, stained glass, sculpture and
murals of saints, the life of Christ, and the Cathedral’s Patron Saint Mary Magdalene.
Pillars draw the eye heavenward like so many oak trees in a sacred grove. The
altar is covered with candles and beautiful flowers and lilies. As the service
began the cathedral choir was joined by the Utah Symphony Orchestra and each liturgical
piece was better than the last. The music lifted my soul in ways I have not
felt in years. Each crescendo filled the echoing space of this microcosm of the
macrocosm. We crossed ourselves, stood, sat, recited, sang, kneeled and
listened. We participated. We performed the passion in a way that was so
different than listening to two or three talks about Christ. Watching the devout move with hdeads bowed to the
front, hearing the Bishop say ‘Body of Christ’, I wanted so much to partake of the
Eucharist and contemplate this God made flesh. Christ as Incarnation makes Christ
present in all things, and that to me is the essence of Christianity: God
become stuff, the universe is his/her body! Christ is the word which was with
the Father from the beginning of the Flaring Forth of this sacred universe. I
left the Cathedral more in tune with the changing season, the breaking buds,
the wafting clouds and sacred sky.
For a church which is increasingly
offended by not being included within the Christian fold, why is it that Mormon’s
have eschewed celebrating this Holiest of Holy Weeks? I am sincerely asking,
because I do not know or understand. Perhaps it is a response by 19th
century Mormonism, seeking to form an identity that rejects not only the orthodoxy
of Trinitarian Christianity but also its orthopraxy and liturgy. Perhaps,
Mormonism is a religion of the American restoration, and much as the Book of Mormon has become the primary
sacred text of Mormon devotion, we have left traditional Christian liturgy
behind?
It would seem that for a church
that accepts participatory liturgy in its temples, we could incorporate
something similar into our worship. In the temple we rehearse the story of Adam
and Eve as they navigate the sacred ordinances of salvation. Why couldn’t we
spend an equal amount of attention of the passion narrative?
Why is the how of salvation so much more important to Mormons than the why?
·
According to Salt Lake Tribune Reporter, Peggy Fletcher
Stack Mormons are increasingly unsatisfied with LDS ritual and practice and are
celebrating Easter among other Christian communities. http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/lifestyle/55968017-80/church-says-lent-lds.html.csp
·
I also found this Dialogue article interesting. http://www.dialoguejournal.com/wp-content/uploads/sbi/articles/Dialogue_V37N03_161.pdf
