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Dominican novices Francis Dominic Nguyen and Koa Mary Bartsch extinguish candles during Tenebrae at St. Dominic Church, April 18, 2019. The morning liturgy of psalms and readings is held during the Easter Triduum and prayerfully begins each day.
April 18, 2019
Nicholas Wolfram Smith
Catholic San Francisco
For three days, parishioners at two Dominican parishes in the Archdiocese of San Francisco are participating in one of the church’s ancient Easter liturgical traditions. At St. Dominic in San Francisco and St. Raymond in Menlo Park, people can attend Tenebrae (Latin for “darkness”) a somber morning liturgy held on the three days before Easter that combines chanting the psalms with contemplative readings.
The early morning light streaming through the stained glass at St. Dominic Church threw deep shadows across the faces of the congregation during Tenebrae on Holy Thursday. Psalms praising God and asking for his mercy and guidance bracketed readings from the Book of Lamentations, in which the Prophet Jeremiah mourned Jerusalem’s destruction.
While the parish community at St. Dominic regularly prays morning and evening prayer together, Dominican Brother Michael James Rivera told Catholic San Francisco that Tenebrae helps people to slow down “and enter into the prayers in a different way, as we grieve Jerusalem and enter into this huge grief for Christ’s suffering.”
The most distinctive aspect of Tenebrae comes from its ceremony of extinguishing candles. Before it begins, 15 candles are lit on a hearse, or candelabra. After each reading or psalm, a pair of candles are extinguished, until only the middle candle, called the Christ light, remains.
Dominican Father Isaiah Mary Molano, parochial vicar at St. Dominic, said the symbolism of the Christ light, which is kept lit Thursday, extinguished Friday, and taken away on Saturday, parallels “Christ the light, who is alone on Thursday, dead on Friday, and hidden away in the tomb on Saturday.”
Tenebrae has existed for more than a thousand years and was common throughout the church during Holy Week celebrations until the middle of the 1950s. Liturgical reforms in 1955, and later changes to the liturgy of the hours led to its gradual disappearance from much of the Catholic Church, though some parishes and religious orders have maintained the practice.
For the Dominican friars of the parish, Tenebrae is “part of the Dominican patrimony that we’re offering to the people of God,” Dominican Father Isaiah Mary said. He said it was also important to hold Tenebrae in the parish because “especially in Holy Week there are things that we do only once a year, so it’s rare and there’s a power that it brings.”
It’s hard for some to imagine Holy Week without Tenebrae. Parishioner Kelley Cutler said she has been attending the liturgy since she entered the church 10 years ago at St. Dominic. “It’s Holy Week, I come out every year," she said. "This is all that I’ve known because it’s my parish.”
Lisa Hamrick has been attending Tenebrae at the parish even longer: “at least 25 years,” she said.
“A very few times I’ve missed a day here and it’s such a loss. It’s a very beautiful, prayerful time to start off the triduum and it’s a very rich Dominican tradition.”
Hamrick said the liturgy’s music and readings “really sets the tone for entering into the Easter Triduum.
“Something feels amiss when I don’t get here,” she said.