page_title: Tenebrae
section_title: Roman Rite since 1970
hierarchical_section_title: Tenebrae / Roman Catholic Church / Roman Rite since 1970
caption_attribution_description: English: The image depicts a Tenebrae service at a Roman Catholic church in the United States held on Spy Wednesday, 17 April 2019.
context_page_description: Tenebrae is a religious service of Western Christianity held during the three days preceding Easter Day, and characterized by gradual extinguishing of candles, and by a "strepitus" or "loud noise" taking place in total darkness near the end of the service.
  Tenebrae was originally a celebration of matins and lauds of the last three days of Holy Week in the evening of the previous day to the accompaniment of special ceremonies that included the display of lighted candles on a special triangular candelabra.
  Celebrations called Tenebrae today may be of quite different content and structure, based for example on the Seven Last Words or readings of the Passion of Jesus. They may be held on only one day of Holy Week, especially Spy Wednesday, They may be held during the daylight hours and the number of candles, if used, may vary.
  Tenebrae liturgical celebrations of this kind now exist in the Latin Catholic Church, Lutheran Churches, Anglican Churches, Methodist Churches, Reformed Churches and Western Rite Orthodoxy.
context_section_description: After the 1970 revision of the Roman Breviary, now called the Liturgy of the Hours, a 1988 circular letter from the Congregation for Divine Worship recommended communal celebration of the Office of Readings and Morning Prayer − which were formerly called matins and lauds − on Good Friday and Holy Saturday, and remarked that this office was "formerly called 'Tenebrae'". The General Instruction of the Liturgy of the Hours says: "Before morning Lauds on Good Friday and Holy Saturday, the Office of Readings is, if possible, to be celebrated publicly and with the people taking part." The Ceremonial of Bishops (1984) says: "It is also desirable that, if at all possible, the bishop take part with the clergy and people in the office of readings and morning prayer on Good Friday and Holy Saturday." The Office of Readings and Morning Prayer have only 6 psalms (3 in either hour), not the older form's 14, after each of which a candle was extinguished. The readings are no longer 3, divided into 9 sections, but 2 longer readings, and there is provision for extending the Office of Readings on more solemn occasions. In the older form, liturgical practice on those days differed from that on other days, even those of Lent: for instance, Gloria Patri was not included at the end of psalms and responsories. The office of Tenebrae was abandoned at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem only in 1977 − although the rule against anticipation of Matins and Lauds to the previous evening was already in effect there − because the times of Catholic Holy Week services had to remain unchanged due to the established rights of other churches.
  Summorum Pontificum (2007) permits clerics bound to recitation of the Divine Office to use the 1961 Roman Breviary. Several religious and secular institutes and societies of apostolic life have availed themselves of this permission. The 1955 and 1960 changes incorporated into that edition of the Breviary continue to exclude anticipation of matins and lauds to the previous evening, whether celebrated with or without the Tenebrae ceremonies.
  Services called Tenebrae, differing in several respects from the original form and not necessarily connected with Holy Week, are held even where the pre-Vatican II 1961 Roman Breviary is not used:
  The Jesuit Institute provides a service, denominated Tenebrae, without psalms and not necessarily in darkness, in which a candle is extinguished after the reading of each of seven Scripture passages related to the Passion of Jesus.
  A modified form of the old-style Tenebrae that leaves the church in darkness is used by the Canons Regular of Saint John Cantius in Chicago.
  Several Catholic cathedrals and other churches arrange one-off services with Gregorian chant and polyphonic music from the traditional Tenebrae service, sometimes as an evening concert.
  Unlike the original well-attended Tenebrae, these modern adaptations have attracted little attention on the part of musical composers.
caption: A modern Tenebrae service in a Roman Catholic parish church on Spy Wednesday 2019, adapted by, for instance, replacing the 15-candle hearse with individual candlesticks for a much smaller number of candles and omitting the six altar candles
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