Bishop Robert writes:

Maundy Thursday

Following our Chrism Eucharists this year, I spent the triduum with Archdeacon David Waller at the Cathedral of Holy Trinity Gibraltar at the invitation of Dean Ian Tarrant.  

We began our worship with a Maundy Thursday Eucharist including the washing of feet. The word ‘Maundy’ comes from a Latin word meaning ‘command’, referring to Jesus’s instruction in St. John’s account of the last supper that we are to love one another.  

In St. John’s account there is, strikingly, no account of the institution of the Eucharist. Instead, Jesus washes the disciples’ feet and instructs the disciples also to wash each others’ feet. Liturgical footwashing is a powerful indicator of the centrality of love and service in the new community that Jesus inaugurates. 

Good Friday

This Friday is called ‘good’ because the death of Jesus effects the redemption of the world, restoring humanity’s relationship with God. 

This painting in the Cathedral depicts the crucifixion as a fully Trinitarian event. The Father is holding the cross on which the Son is crucified, and the Spirit proceeds from the space between the Father and the Son. The context is the Rock of Gibraltar and the Cathedral building itself. You can spot one or two Gibraltarian monkeys if you look carefully. 

On the evening of Good Friday, we took part in an ecumenical ‘Stations of the Cross’, proceeding from the Anglican Cathedral along Main Street to the Catholic Cathedral. I was invited to lead the procession with the Roman Catholic Bishop Carmello. 

The tradition is for the congregation to remain standing throughout the 90 minute event as an act of penance. 

Holy Saturday

The Cathedral possesses a large and beautiful handpainted backdrop for use with their Easter Garden. It is decorated with local flora for Easter Saturday. It features an impressive rolling stone tomb that was made on the Rock and which is an appropriate reminder of the rolling stones actually used to seal tombs in first century Palestine. 

It has long been the tradition to welcome new converts through baptism and confirmation at Easter. We celebrated Easter Eve with the confirmation of two adults from Gibraltar presented by the Dean and one from Malaga presented by Fr. Louis Darrant. 

Easter Sunday

On Easter Sunday we celebrate the good news that Mary Magdalene discovered the stone had been rolled away from the tomb and the grave was empty. She was greeted by the risen Lord, who subsequently appeared to Peter and then to several other disciples on different occasions. We celebrated Easter with an all-age service in which we enacted the story of Easter, with everyone in church invited to take part. 

Easter, especially as presented by St. John, is the first day of a new creation. Jesus is the pioneer of a new and redeemed humanity, no longer bound by sin and death. 

Helen and I were particularly struck by these flowers growing in the limestone along the roadside. They are stunningly beautiful and delicate. A little bit of research showed them to be the Gibraltar candytuft. They are the symbol of the Upper Rock Nature Reserve of Gibraltar and Gibraltar is the only place in Europe where they are found growing in the wild. Seeing these lovely flowers at Easter was a reminder of God’s creative and redemptive power at work in nature as well as in the human world.