Triduum Archives - New Song

A happy quarantine Triduum story

One of my former students, a graduate of Wyoming Catholic College, ended up teaching a K-12 school to support his family. Looking to supplement his income, he acquired an old property originally established in 1826 with seven houses on it.

When COVID-19 swept the country and everyone had to work from home, he invited many of his friends to join him in a group quarantine on his property. They had a number of married couples with kids, as well as a house for singles, and all together they holed up in their village behind a strong wall of isolation. Quite a few were WCC grads, and one current student joined them when WCC sent everyone home.

Triduum Screensaver

Last year, I came across St. Alphonsus Liguori’s “Passion Clock,” a set of meditations for each hour beginning Holy Thursday and ending Easter morning. It’s a way of entering into the events of the Gospel.

Handily, Sharyn over on this blog collected public domain artwork to go with each of the meditations. So my son David and I collaborated to create a Windows screensaver that would display the appropriate artwork and meditation for each hour of the Triduum. It was pretty neat to wander by at a random point on Good Friday and see a picture of what was happening, Gospel-wise, at that hour.

This year, David updated and improved the screen saver, and with Sharyn’s permission we have decided to make it available to everyone. Go here to see the artwork and text that will appear. If you are so inclined, you can get view the source code for the screensaver here. Or you can just download the screensaver here. Right-click on the downloaded file and choose “install.”

Sorry, it’s just for Windows. The system may squawk at you because we didn’t pay the buckos and go through the process to get an official certification, but we’ve run it on our own computers just fine. Windows 10 will give you a dire warning with no apparent option to install, but if you click on “more information” or whatever then the option appears.

The Annunciation and the Death of the Christ

It’s an odd year. Because Good Friday happened to fall on March 25, we end up celebrating the Annunciation in April.

According to the usual account, it’s a strange coincidence. Christians instituted Christmas on December 25 to combat the pagan feast of the sun. If you count back nine months from December 25, you land on March 25 as the date of the Incarnation and of Gabriel’s message. And as luck would have it, sometimes Good Friday falls on that day. But the usual account is wrong.

The Annunciation falling on Good Friday is no coincidence at all. Continue reading “The Annunciation and the Death of the Christ”