“SAINT Nicholas pressed me to sing along with them; saying, that it was fitting that the voice of men of goodwill should be joined with the voices of angels.”* The hermit broke off and wept — as did Reginald, who had been too blind and deaf to experience any of it. “It lasted from nightfall” Godric went on “until morning dawned in the east, the time when Christ rose from the dead, and at the rising of the sun the angel rolled away the stone.* In the meantime, they walked round and round the tomb, and amid the sweetly flowing music, fragrant myrrhs and a scented incense that passed my understanding rose from beneath it and spread about it.”* He fell again to weeping, grieved that he was still bound to the circle of the earth, and that the day of his departure was so long delayed. Softly Reginald left him, for he saw that his spirit was in bitterness.*
* See Luke 2:8-14.
* See Mark 16:1-8.
* The Rites of Durham (1593), a record of the worship at Durham Abbey prior to the Reformation, describes how on Good Friday an icon of Christ upon the cross was brought with great reverence to a specially constructed wooden ‘sepulchre’ set up near the altar on the North side of the Quire, covered with red velvet hangings embroidered with gold. On Easter morning, the clergy then brought an icon of the risen Christ out of the ‘sepulchre’ as the whole community sang the hymn ‘Christus resurgens.’ All was done with much procession, singing and incense.
* See Job 10:1: ‘My soul is weary of my life; I will leave my complaint upon myself; I will speak in the bitterness of my soul.’