Tenebrae

[Terrance]

The opinions, many of them outrageous, of the Catholic
Encyclopedia are not my own. 
I still continue to post information from it because it is,
despite its faults,  a very good source of information. But
again, I don't share the opinions of the authors. 


Happy New Year. 


Terrance wrote:
> 
> Tenebræ is the name given to the service of Matins and Lauds
> belonging to the last three days of Holy Week. This service,
> as the "Cæremoniale episcoporum" expressly directs, is to be
> anticipated and it should be sung shortly after Compline
> "about the twenty-first hour", i.e. about three p.m. on the
> eve of the day to which it belongs. "On the three days
> before Easter", says Benedict XIV (Institut., 24), "Lauds
> follow immediately on Matins, which in this occasion
> terminate with the close of day, in order to signify the
> setting of the Sun of Justice and the darkness of the Jewish
> people who knew not our Lord and condemned Him to the gibbet
> of the cross." Originally Matins on these
> days, like Matins at all other seasons of the year, were
> sung shortly after midnight, and consequently if the lights
> were extinguished the darkness was complete.
> 
> http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14506a.htm