Lent in Sri Lanka-Dr Remy Perumal
Retired Physician and Freelance Journalist
Christians of different countries and Regions of the world practice and celebrate the Christian Faith in diverse ways. This applies in Lent too, which began on Ash Wednesday and culminates with the Holy Week. This great enactment and celebration of the Lord’s Passion, Death and Resurrection, forms the centre of the liturgical drama which is the bedrock of our Christian Faith. The Lenten services are some of the most ancient traditions of the Church, many originating in Jerusalem around the very places that the events of Christ’s death and resurrection took place.
The best known and world renowned secular drama of Christ’s Passion is the the drama enacted in the Bavarian village of Oberammagau in Southern Germany. This is performed every ten years, by live actors from that village itself.
In Sri Lanka too, events connected with the Passion and death of Christ, have been enacted for years. In the Catholic
Church it was never performed, as a secular drama, but as spiritual exercise, in collaboration with clergy.
European Jesuit missionaries introduced the Passion plays to Asia and the Jesuits from India brought this tradition to Sri Lanka.
Performed on Good Friday, the history of the Passion plays goes back to the period of the Portugese, who introduced Catholicism to the country. The only passion play still performed is in the coastal village of Duwa near Negombo. This spiritual drama displays the magnificent lifelike statue of Jesus made in Cochin.
My focus is on Lent as experienced by the Catholics in the 1950’s, in the then leafy suburb of Kotahena, in Colombo. From Ash Wednesday fasting and abstinence as stipulated then, was observed strictly on Fridays, with significant escalation during the Holy Week. .
On Maundy Thursday there was an evening service officiated by the Archbishop of Colombo. Blessing and distribution of Bread and Washing of feet of selected parishioners, added to the length of the service. After this service, the
main alter was stripped bare and the Blessed Sacrament was moved to a side alter, where, hourly venerations continued through the night, which signified Jesus’ all night vigil, in Gethsamani . Local community groups were assigned hourly adoration, which continued right through the night, until 3.00pm on Good Friday. The Colombo Chetty Community Holy Hour was between 8.00 to 9.00 am on Good Frday.. This service I do recall was conducted in Tamil. These hourly services ended at 3.00pm followed by the Mass of the Presanctified, again officiated by the Arch Bishop followed.
Statue of Jesus nailed to the Cross
The Church of Our Lady of Sorrows in Kotahena, located 3 miles from the Cathedral, staged the spiritual drama of the Crucifixion of Jesus. This three hour service conducted in Tamil, was based on the seven last words of Jesus from the cross. A life size statue on the Cross, with moveable joints, neck and eyes portrayed the lifelike agony and death of Christ , to perfection. The readings and chants were Interspersed by soulful hymns viz. Gethsemani , Mary Remember me, O come and mourn with me a while , which were sung in English, by the Colombo Chetty Young Mens Choir. These hymns added to the sombre experience portrayed by this moving and vivid spiritual drama- lifting up aspects Jesus’ agony and death into contemporary time and space in a vibrant way. It captured in graphic detail, the humiliation, ignominy and the brutal suffering and pain which lead his death. This service was from 12 noon to 3.00pm.
At 6.00pm on Good Friday both above churches would reopen their doors. At the Church of Our Lady of Sorrows, the crucified statue would be brought down from the cross and laid in a ‘Sepulc.re’ for veneration. Similarly, a life size statue was laid out at the Cathedral too.
Cross after the statue is removed
Statue of Christ laid out for veneration
Long queues of devotees filed past to venerate the statues, touching and kissing the hands and feet. After a long wait in the queue, on arriving at the life like image, was a surreal moment – one of contemplative silence and reflection. The devotees paid our respects, venerated and moved on.
Well into the evening and the night, of Good Friday, both churches were busy with moving queues and different Community groups expressing their grief with doleful chants which would echo in vast interior of the Cathedral. The smell of burning candles these chanting groups held, pervaded the late night air.
The solemn & reflective though, the queuing public outside the churches, had some light distraction provided by pavement hawkers selling there wares – consisting of favoured local sweetmeats viz. aluwa, Bibikkam. Others exhibiting homemade toys and rattles for sale.
The hollow Cathedral stripped of all its ornamentation was empty on the Saturday until the Easter Vigil mass.
On Easter Sunday the Cathedral was packed to capacity for the special Easter services, Rejoicing at the Resurrection of Christ from the dead,
as church bells rang out and Braziers swung by alter boys engulfed the air with the scent of incense, the chief celebrant, bedecked in shining raiment intones did conveyed the Easter message.
“ Jesus Christ is Risen Today Alleluia”
After High Mass at the Cathedral, the statue of the risen Lord was taken in procession. .
The re-enactment of the Passion, Death on the Cross and Resurrection with statues and Processions was an experience much more palpable, emotionally immediate and experiential, rather than rational, in some ways. Anti -Catholic sentiments, may perceive, the veneration and worship of graven statues and religious processions, as idolatry. This Spiritual Drama however, did convey the message of Jesus’ Passion Death on the Cross and the resurrection, very forcefully, indeed.
