Hello, Darkness, my old friend,
I've come to talk with you again.
And so that ballad by Simon and Garfunkel begins.
The Sound of Silence!
How well that seems to capture the memories I hold of many, many Good Fridays.
Silence!
As a youngster, I can recall being told to keep all speech, all words, all sounds to a basic minimum on this day. Good Friday is not a day for noises and sounds. It is and should be, so we were told, a day for quiet and reflection.
Even the radio (Yes! I go back that far, back to when radio was our norm for background sounds. Phonographs were also in play back then. However, no matter the device, radio or phonograph were not to be turned on, not on Good Friday.
It was a day for silence.
Even when television came along, on that one Friday of the year, that dial was not to be touched. That screen was to remain blank.
And when I grew older and was spending those Fridays in the seminary, the rule of the house echoed that of my parents' home - silence. Good Friday meant Grand Silence - nothing spoken, nothing to be heard, nothing to break the stillness of the Silence.
And that was the rule right up to the final year of studies. In that final year we were deacons and many of us on Good Friday were sent off campus to various places to enhance the services in parishes. And because we would be out and about, if necessary, we would be allowed to break that Grand Silence, at least until we got back on campus at day's end.
And if a silence ruled Good Fridays that week called "Holy" seemed to be filled with still other sounds, sounds that still come to me in present Holy Weeks and sounds that, I suspect, many of you, reading this, remember as well. While a Good Friday Silence may or may not have been a part of your days past, you may still remember sounds from your Holy Weeks past as well.
Palm Sunday - palms were blessed, usually only before the main (or High) Mass and for that purpose priest/presider and altar servers gathered outside the church's main entrance and that door was shut. When the palms were blessed, there came a sound.
A knock - but a strange sounding one.
The base of the processional cross was used to strike the door three times, in a sense demanding - "Let us in!"
A strange sound that sharp metal against wood knock.
And then on Thursday, early on the sound of the singing of a triumphant Gloria, a sound not heard for some six weeks, now restored and even enhanced.
It was accompanied by the ringing of bells, every bell available was in play including, if that particular church had a bell tower, the steeple bells. It was a shockingly jubilant sound to be certain!
Which was followed by a somber sound - voices singing through the remainder of the service but singing a cappella. No mighty organ, no other instruments accompanied the voices. Suddenly, the jubilation of that Gloria had faded into an ominous seriousness.
And still another jolt.
At the time we usually did hear bells, now, not bells but a jarring clap of wood striking sharply against wood. Almost as if we were hearing the sound of hammer against nails!
And on Friday - that Day of Silence - still another haunting and memorable sound, shuffling, feet shuffling as young and old, rich and poor, saints and sinners made their way forward to the cross, to touch, to kiss, to weep perhaps, and to remember the ugliness of sin and the wonder of Love.
And then back into the Silence.
And waiting.
Until at last another sound broke through the silence and the darkness of a dark, dark night.
Exultet!
Rejoice!
This is the Night!
And the storytelling began, stories from history, our history, stories of a God Who chooses not to give up on us! Who wants to wash us clean! Who wants, one day, to welcome us Home!
The God Who even now is giving life to those daffodils and crocuses!
This is the Night of the triumph of the God of Life!
And then another sound.
"I do believe!"
And finally the greatest sound of all, the one that has power to break through every Sound of Silence.
Alleluia!
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