‘You can still feel the Holy Spirit when you listen’
MINT HILL — For members of the Eritrean Catholic community in Charlotte, honoring Good Friday, the day of Christ’s crucifixion, is an all-day affair.
On Good Friday, Eritrean Catholics gather for a liturgy in the Ge’ez Rite, which is rooted in the ancient Alexandrian Rite of Egypt. Liturgies last more than three hours and are sung in Ge’ez, a Semitic language that is no longer commonly spoken but is still used in sacred worship and texts.
The Good Friday service follows a text known as the Liturgy of the Hosanna and features Scripture readings, sung psalms, prayers centered on Christ’s Passion, and rhythmic chants invoking ancient names for God and Christ such as Emmanuel and Adonai.
This beautiful liturgy also requires physical exertion. It is centered on a prayer practice called Sigde, where worshipers perform repeated prostrations in which they bow all the way to the ground and rise again. On Good Friday, some worshipers perform it hundreds of times as a way to show deep devotion and penance, said Semret Hailemariam, a member of the Charlotte Eritrean Catholic community.
The liturgy was led by the community’s priest, Father Michael Solomon Debesay, who arrived in Charlotte a year ago to care for the growing Eritrean Catholic population. He was assisted by men who serve as deacons in the Ge’ez Rite, many of whom discerned a call to the priesthood in seminaries in Eritrea.
The chants and psalms create a mesmerizing cadence, increasing in speed and volume as they are repeated by different sections of the congregation. One of the day’s most powerful was the “Keria Lison,” sung back and forth between the priest and the people in a meditative rhythm.
Worshipers started gathering at 9 a.m. at a cultural center in Mint Hill that the Eritrean Catholic community recently purchased. The liturgy continued until late afternoon, with a few breaks in between.
The crowd filled the main building, which holds about 200 people, and spilled out into a covered outdoor space where participants could watch the indoor service on a screen.
Members of the community fast all day while taking part in the service, taking only sips of water during breaks.
“Going without eating all day is a way of suffering yourself, to share in the suffering of Christ,” said George Yosief of Charlotte. “We are celebrating the day of our salvation when Jesus died for our sins to set us free from all the suffering of this world.”
As with other Catholics around the world, the 40 days of Lent are an important time of fasting, prayer and repentance for the Eritrean community, said Asmeret Tewelde of Charlotte.
Many of the beautiful chants took on a mournful tone as the people considered Christ’s Passion.
“This is an important day, because without Good Friday there is no Easter,” Father Debesay said.
While not everyone at the liturgy understood all the words they chanted, the feeling of reverence and solemnity abounded.
“You might not know all the words that are being said, but you can still feel the Holy Spirit when you listen,” Tewelde said.
— Christina Lee Knauss
