After celebrating its First Anniversary in March, the Georgetown Oratory celebrated its first Passiontide.  Fr. Michael Clark, Rector of the Oratory and the Oratory’s Sacristan, Mike Falbo, painstakingly planned a beautiful Palm Sunday, Triduum and Easter Sunday, and those attending were overwhelmed by the beauty.

As Fr. Clark prepared to celebrate Palm Sunday, he chose to use Forsythia for the Procession rather than Palm branches.  As Fr. Clark explained, the text of Leviticus 23:40 refers to many different sorts of branches including olive and willow branches. Countries in Northern Europe would often use the local flora in their Palm Sunday celebrations including willow branches.  Because Forsythia is plentiful, local, beautiful and blooming in early spring, Fr. Clark chose to use it for the Oratory’s Palm Sunday celebration.  The bright yellow flowers were stunning, especially against the red vestments representative of the Passion of Christ.  The Jesus Guild’s St. Fiacre Sodality for Floral Arranging helped to procure the Forsythia from local sources and then carefully cared for the branches so that they would bloom just in time for Palm Sunday.  The procession with the Forsythia branches began at Our Lady’s Grotto on the Oratory campus and traversed the campus, entering the church with branches held high.

In Fr. Clark’s sermon, he proclaimed, “The mystic glow of the Cross is over all of Holy Week….We know how this ends. And we are celebrating this mystery today, because we know how it ends. We know the means through which it is achieved: the glorious Cross shining forth. Therefore, the procession that we have undertaken today can be considered another kind of Eucharist. It is a prefiguring, not just of the triumphal entry, but of the Passion itself; of Calvary. Just as on the Via Dolorosa the Lord will carry His Cross, so, too, we commit to carry our crosses as well, symbolically, by the palms that we have taken into our hands.”

During Fr. Clark’s Holy Thursday sermon, he explained where the name Maundy Thursday comes from.  In the Cenacle during the Last Supper, a “mandate is given.  The mandatum, a word that gives us the title of today, Maundy Thursday, is, indeed, to love one another but not in a cheap way full of empty gestures and attention seeking. It is not there to titillate the world. The mandatum to the 12 in the locked Upper Room is to be men of unto-deathly-love, men of unto-to-deathly-love. And how are we to do that? How are they to do that for us? Do this in memory of Me.”

Fr. Clark helped his congregation to understand that the washing of the feet in the Cenacle was the way in which Christ ordained His 12 Apostles.  Maundy Thursday is both a time when the Eucharist and the priesthood were instituted.  He shared, “faithful to the mandatum handed over, like the 12, I have become a Eucharistic man. My life is given over to the Eucharist. My life is all about the Eucharist.

And indeed, my life is tied, not to any Altar, but to this Altar here in this church, at least for this time. I am a Eucharistic person, and that changes everything.

If the Eucharist is exposed, then I am exposed.

If the Lord is vulnerable, then I am vulnerable.

And if the Lord is being adored, then I must be there.

That is what we know, because after these things, it was revealed to us. At the time, the Apostles did not know. And for every priest ordained, there is so much that he can never know before he receives Holy Orders. But once he does, he is forever changed. He is forever Christ’s.”

During the Passion on Good Friday, Fr. Clark along with Heitor Caballero, the Oratory’s organist and soloist, beautifully chanted the Gospel.  Each of the people in the Gospel was voiced in a particular way.  The fluidity, expressiveness and beauty of the chant helped to draw those attending into the story in a new and profound way.

In his sermon for Good Friday, Fr. Clark echoed the Reproaches in the liturgy in his sermon, “How quickly our cries of “Hosanna” turn into, “Crucify him.” What has changed your mind?

In a few short days:

You have gone from rending your garments onto the road to stripping Our Lord of His.

You have gone from waving branches to claim Him as king, to knitting a crown of thorns and putting it on His head.

You have gone from giving Him a royal scepter, to offering Him a reed soaked in vinegar.

How dare you? How could you have done this?

The King of Glory came to offer you and to offer me salvation. He came to do it in peace, and we have given Him violence. And that, dear brothers and sisters, is the reason for the sound and feel of the Liturgy of Good Friday. The Eucharistic Man is turned into the Man of Sorrows. He who has given Himself, all of Himself, in the Sacred Species, now shows us what that act was for, as He ascends upon the Cross, the Cross where He was put for us and because of us…. Sin boils down to the misuse of freedom, the marring of God’s image in us. Rebellion against God is not taking up arms against a political ruler, but, in fact, fighting against the image in which we are made, fighting against ourselves….So as we ponder today the length to which God is prepared to go to rescue you and me from the consequences of our poor choices, let us also spare a thought for what kind of a creature man is, what kind of dignity we have been endowed with by being made in God’s image. What an honor and what a privilege that is, which requires us to treat, in a dignified and honorable way, the freedom which we have been given. So today, as the Lord’s saving purpose has reached its telos, its purpose, its completion, we are offered a New Covenant in Christ’s blood.”

The St. Fiacre Sodality for flowers planned extensively for the floral arrangements for the Triduum and Easter.  For Maundy Thursday, the Altar of Repose was stunning in its candlelit elegance with the layering of Forsythia, Andromeda, lilies, and palms.  On Saturday morning, the Altar of Repose was transformed into the garden surrounding the tomb in anticipation of the Great Easter Vigil on Saturday Evening.

As night fell in Georgetown on Saturday, the faithful gathered on the Patio in front of the church where a brazier blazed with new fire.  The oils and Paschal Candle for the previous year were consumed in that fire as the new Paschal Candle was marked by the wounds of Christ and lit.  As the Exultet was beautifully chanted, Fr. Clark processed into the church, and those attending lit their candles, a passing on of the flame of faith, lighting up the church.  From the Exultet:

We know the praises of this pillar,
which glowing fire ignites for God’s honor,
a fire into many flames divided,
yet never dimmed by sharing of its light…

May this flame be found still burning
by the Morning Star:
the one Morning Star who never sets,
Christ your Son,
who, coming back from death’s domain,
has shed His peaceful light on humanity,
and lives and reigns for ever and ever.

During the Easter Vigil, the Baptismal water is consecrated using Chrism oil and ancient prayers including the Rector blowing over the waters in the all 4 directions similar to the way the Bishop blows over the chrism oil at the Chrism Mass.

During his Easter Vigil sermon, Fr. Clark exhorted, “No longer, then, should we ever fear the death of the body, because we, too, have passed from death to life. One day your body and my body will go the way of all flesh. It is just a matter of fact, like eating or drinking or washing or sleeping. These kinds of things happen to bodies. But because Our Lord is risen, we have no need to fear anymore. Christ is your life, so you, too, may appear in Him, in glory.”

Finally, on a brilliantly beautiful Easter morning, the faithful gathered once again in celebration of Resurrection Life.  Beautiful floral arrangements filled the sanctuary with splendor and fragrant lilies.  The St. Fiacre Sodality had also decorated each stained glass window with a wonderful bouquet of country flowers.

In his final sermon for the Oratory’s Holy Week, Fr. Clark encouraged his flock, “Our friendship with Christ depends upon radical fidelity unto death. We have the opportunity to heed the call of Christ, to build such a community here. It has been offered to us. It is right there. It is low-hanging fruit, ripe for the plucking. We must dream big. Nothing is impossible with God. Brothers and sisters, in this Paschal season, we have been offered new life, a new start. Having moved out from darkness into light, let us not seek after the darkness anymore, but walk forward in the light, radically faithful to Christ, to the Gospel of Christ, and to the Church of Christ. Happy Easter.”

Indeed, a very Happy Easter as we walk forward in the flame ignited by a Glowing Fire that never dims, radically faithful to Christ, unto-deathly-love.