*ONLINE* Love’s struggle, love’s renewal: an exploration of Handel’s Messiah for the Easter Triduum

Euan Tait

This retreat will be held online using a mixture of live Zoom sessions and pre-recorded video and audio resources.

Come and enter into the mystery of the Easter Triduum (the holy weekend from Good Friday to Easter Day), as Euan Tait joins us again to lead us with reflections on the human drama of the Passion story, infused with meditations on Parts 2 and 3 of Handel’s Messiah.

Starting with the fundamental gift of Christ’s sacramental tenderness towards us in the first Lord’s Supper and the Washing of the Feet, Euan will then focus on characters who experienced the confusion of that first Triduum: Peter’s denial, Pilate’s entrapment, Simon of Cyrene’s surprised discovery of tenderness, the frightened disciples in hiding on Holy Saturday, and finally their confusion and joy on Easter Sunday.

The musical focus of this retreat will be Handel’s Messiah Parts 2 and 3, which takes us through the Passion’s struggle and pain to a final, magnificent Amen, where all
our longings are swept up in Handel’s great prayer. Throughout, we will join the Launde community in the beauty of their chapel worship.

Euan is a professional librettist. He is a college lecturer, and an experienced retreat leader who takes the unique approach of exploring great music as a ‘praying poet’. He has worked in the L’Arche community in Sussex in the 1990s, and in the 2000s trained and supported adults with learning difficulties. He also worked at Ammerdown and in 2013 retrained as a teacher and now lectures in English in Swindon. He leads music retreats across the UK and his libretti for choral works have been performed in the Birmingham Symphony Hall, Trondheim Cathedral and across the USA, most recently in Boston, Mass.

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