Good Friday in Fatima.

Leiria

Fiona and I took a bus to Leiria on a chilly and blustery Good Friday morning; after coffee there we came to the cathedral just as they were beginning to sing Lauds, and after that little treat it was time for the bus on to Fatima. The day continued to fall into shape very well, with the commemoration of Christ’s death on the cross in the new basilica there in the afternoon

The Basílica da Santíssima Trindade was dedicated in 2007, and built since our previous visit to Fatima on the occasion of Pope St John-Paul II’s going there in May 2000; it was near the end of our first wintering in Portugal in the Anna M. A bit of internet browsing shows that to traditionalist Catholics it is a monstrosity, symbolising all that has gone wrong with the Church since Vatican II. I have to admit that I was taken aback by it myself, since it does have something of the atmosphere of a glorified aircraft hanger. It was not helped in that our first port of call was the Blessed Sacrament chapel, which is austere and functional like everything else there, with an odd altar that was hard to take to. Neither did we like the huge crucifix that confronts one above the altar in the Basilica; however, when we attended the Good Friday liturgy along with some few thousand other pilgrims, the church came alive as a good liturgical space.

It has 8633 seats according to Wikipedia, and they are comfortable ones where everyone should be able to see what’s going on. Maybe our traditionalists would rather one was in discomfort, but considering this service went on for 2 hours and 20 minutes, I was grateful for the bit of comfort. Perhaps they would have been impressed to witness about 6000 people going up to venerate the Crucified One,  in four orderly files and reverent silence, apart from the excellent singing. I was anyway!

Perhaps they would rather old style choir singing, but I love the way the Portuguese are inclined to sing in church - actually sing the liturgical prayers rather than somewhat jazzy hymns, with the choir leading and the people joining in. There was a priest/cantor helping them to do so, and they seemed to mostly know what to sing without the need for books. The whole proceedings have a humane and relaxed dignity, that is indeed somewhat lacking in reverence on occasion, but I fear that’s a price that has to be paid if one seeks authentic participation in a world that hardly knows what reverence is! But what on earth do the traditionalists imagine it would have been like in a medieval cathedral?

When I was a young lad, I well remember how there was a deal more reverence about, but we have since had to recognise there was a lot of rot lurking behind it. It makes me think of the Anna M as we sailed into Nazaré last June. She was sailing and indeed looking fine, but when we stripped out the furniture we found the bad stuff. The trouble is, you don’t see it from the outside,- but it’s those rotten and fractured ribs that have to hold the planks together on the inside, have to give them their shape and strength.

So much is like that these days, in the Church and in society too. It’s bound to take a lot of disruption to sort it all out, and we just have to be patient. ‘Behold the wood of the Cross, on which hung the salvation of the World.’ Instead

of giving off about the failings, along with all our miseries and weariness, it is better to leave them to the One who offered Himself to bear them, so that our sins may be forgiven and ‘all things made new’ - not of course that this absolves us from attending to that rot!

If there is indeed a 'message' that Our Lady of Fatima sends out to the world, surely it is one of encouragement along such lines, but yes, it is also something of a rebuke to our heady, superficial and irreverent culture; if only we could perceive those inner things, in the spirit of those shepherd children, Jacinta, Francisco and Lucia!

Happy Easter to you all!

photos by Fiona.