Yurtdışında Yaşam

I was half expecting quadrilingual liturgy for Triduum, much as we had for Palm Sunday, but in fact, for Holy Thursday and Good Friday, we had strictly English language liturgies. The Spanish speaking community had their liturgies in St. Barbara’s Chapel, just off the cloister garden, and I have no idea where the Czech community ended up. And for Easter Sunday, we had our usual schedule of three Masses, one for each community. For Easter Vigil, though, we did indeed have a Czech-Spanish-English-Latin mix, similar to that of Palm Sunday.

Holy Thursday and Good Friday

The liturgies on Holy Thursday and Good Friday were largely unremarkable. I was glad to see, though, during the ceremony of the washing of feet that Sv. Tomáš does not follow the practice of having only men come forward. Instead there was a mix of men and women, and even one child. There were, however, only 6 washees; I’m not sure why we didn’t have the full complement of 12.

The only place where the Good Friday service departed from the norm was in the timing: it took place at 6:30 PM rather than mid-day. I think this was probably a concession to the fact that in this largely atheistic city, it would be difficult for working people to attend a mid-day service. I was disappointed, though, as I had wanted to attend a performance of Dvořák’s Stabat Mater that had been scheduled for that evening at Národní Divadlo.

Easter Vigil

As at Palm Sunday, the quadrilingual nature of the service made it difficult to follow along, and I’m seriously disappointed with the way in which Sv. Tomáš handles this. I’m thinking that, next year, I’m going to give serious consideration to making a Triduum retreat in an English-speaking country.

It was gratifying to see, though, the number of people being received for Baptism: there were eight Czech neophytes and two from the English-speaking community. And that’s the only thing that would hold me back from going on a retreat instead: a Vigil without Baptism would seem rather hollow.

At the conclusion of the Vigil service, we had a "Theophoric Procession", which was described to us as a Czech tradition. (I had to look "theophoric" up myself: it’s from the Greek meaning "bearing a deity".) The presiding priests and the altar servers went in procession to St. Dorothy’s Chapel, which had been used as the Reservation Chapel following Holy Thursday’s Transfer of the Sacrament. They knocked at the door of the Chapel, which opened to reveal a statue of the resurrected Jesus. The statue was then carried in procession, followed by the community, out of the church, around the cloister gardens, and back into the church, where the statue was left at the altar, by the ambo.

Easter Sunday

For the Easter Sunday Mass, we again had not only a Theophoric Procession, but an "Encuentro" (Spanish for "encounter"). This is a tradition borrowed, obviously enough, from the Spanish. In this particular version, while the men of the community were invited to process behind the statue of the resurrected Christ, the women were invited (though not obliged – Father William was very careful about that!) to follow a black-draped statue of Our Lady out through a different door of the church and around the cloister gardens, in the opposite direction traced by the Theophoric Procession. Our two groups met in front of St. Barbara’s Chapel, and the statue of Our Lady was unveiled, representing the first post-resurrection meeting between Jesus and His mother. We then completed our circuit of the gardens and returned to the church, where the statue of the resurrected Christ was returned to its place near the ambo while the statue of Our Lady went to the opposite side of the altar.

Preliminary Note About Sv. Tomáš

I should preface this by explaining a little bit about Sv. Tomáš (St. Thomas’). The Church and monastery of Sv. Tomáš was established in 1285 by King Vaclav II, and we still pray for him every Sunday. It’s in Malá Strana and is staffed by Augustinians. Apparently the neighboring churches of Sv. Josef and Panny Marie Vítězné (Our Lady Victorious; home of the statue of the Infant of Prague) are also part of the parish, although I don’t understand how that works.

Besides being the official home of the English-speaking Catholic community in Prague and home to a Czech-speaking community, there is also a Spanish-speaking community that makes its home here. Mostly this isn’t much of an issue. On Sundays, there’s a Czech Mass at 9:30; the English Mass is at 11:00; while the Spanish Mass is at 12:30. On Christmas, it got a little more complicated, and the "Midnight Mass" in English actually took place at 6:00 PM, which I didn’t realize until after the fact and so it was that I attended the Czech Midnight Mass.

Palm Sunday

For Palm Sunday, then, the three communities that make up Sv. Tomáš had a joint celebration that started at 9:30 at Panny Marie Vítězné. When I arrived at the church, there was a donkey on the lawn in front of the church, placidly enduring the curious tourists with their cameras.

At the door of the church, attendants were handing out not palms, but pussy willow branches. Which makes more sense than importing palms, although the mental picture of throngs lining the road into Jerusalem with pussy willows and waving them as they sing their "Hosanas" makes me smile. (Last year, at Sacré Cœur, we didn’t receive palms either; instead, we got green branches of some kind – laurel, maybe?)

When the service started, we had opening prayer in English, Czech, and Spanish; the Procession Gospel was proclaimed each of the three languages; and the branches were blessed three times: once in each language. One of the boys of the parish was there, in a red hooded cloak; he was the "stand-in" for Jesus and was mounted on the donkey. We then wended our way in procession through some back streets of Malá Strana to Sv. Tomáš. Once there, I saw the main doors of the Church thrown wide open for the first time to allow our mounted "Christ" to go right up to the altar, where he dismounted. (I didn’t notice, but I’m guessing that the donkey was led into the cloister gardens.)

Once the Mass proper started, we had a quadrilingual (Czech, Spanish, English, and Latin) liturgy, with the languages trading off rather than prayers and readings being repeated. From a pastoral point of view, of course, it makes perfect sense. However, I was disappointed by the way in which it was implemented. Maybe I’m just spoiled, but the Oakland diocese certainly knows a lot more about how to put on a multi-lingual liturgy! As it was, it was impossible to fully participate in, and difficult even to follow, the non-English parts of the liturgy. I must say, though, that the Czech choir is absolutely exquisite!

The language issue aside, the Mass was unremarkable, except that Communion was given by intinction (i.e., the minister dipped the Host in the Chalice before placing the Host on the communicant’s tongue). The only other time I’ve seen that done was at Sacré Cœur last year, at the Mass of the Lord’s Supper. But at Sacré Cœur, they usually don’t offer Communion under both species, while at Sv. Tomáš, they always do, so this departure from the norm seemed rather odd to me.