The three hours of the Maundy Thursday vigil always seems to pass quicker than three hours should. By this time I was unaccountably weary and my ability to enter into the sufferings of Christ in Gethsemane was very limited; I had brought along a book about George Herbert to read but couldn't manage more than a page, and was in little mood for more scripture. Once upon a time I would try and pray through my whole list of personal intercessions, bringing my friends and family into the Garden, to be with the Lord as he readied himself for the ordeal to come, but mustering up the concentration is harder than that sounds. Now I just visualise them, as they are, rather than do anything with them. Mostly, my mind wanders, occasionally pulled back to our Lord. I manage by getting up and having a stretch every hour or so.
I've always had the feeling, near-blasphemous though it sounds, that at this moment you are not so much praying with Jesus as for him, that he will indeed have what he needs to take the Via Dolorosa. Perhaps it isn't so fanciful: perhaps the prayers of the faithful and less-faithful, all down the centuries, have indeed been some help to our brother and champion.
Swanvale Halt was mostly quiet. A young woman came in and sat at the back of the church, tearful: 'just the usual rubbish', she told me when I asked. Another crying female voice went along the path outside at one point, but its owner was gone by the time I arrived. The village was silent as I went up the hill with Marion and her family, the last vigil-keepers that night - within the church, at least.
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