Easter in the Church is not simply the day we know as Easter Sunday. The celebration continues as the Great Fifty Days!
Don't miss the Easter Vigil pictures at the bottom of the page.



Saint Andrew's-in-the-Valley
Thursday MEMO
April 28, 2011



Join us for the Second Sunday of Easter at 9AM on May 1st. Please note: Since this is the first Sunday of the month, we will have ONE service only, followed by coffee hour hosted by the Liturgy Committee. Coffee hour will be followed by our Annual Spring All-Parish Work Day ... more accurately a "work hour". So come in your "scruffies" this Sunday, and bring along your lawn rake, work gloves, or other favorite tools. This is the time to enjoy the spring weather and the companionship of others as we pitch in to prepare our grounds for the coming season. If outside work doesn't appeal to you, there are certainly some indoor chores as well. Window washing, anyone? Plan on being done by noon.

Welcome the Rev. Susan Ackley as guest preacher and presider this Sunday as well! Susan retired last year from her position as rector at Holy Spirit Episcopal Church in Plymouth and has been a dear friend of mine since our opening week at seminary together in 1996. Susan knows Saint Andrew's well, having been a member here in the 1990s. In fact this was the parish that raised her up and presented her for ordination! So this Sunday will be a homecoming for Susan, and her first opportunity to preside and preach here since she was ordained. She is well known as an excellent preacher and well loved as a pastor and friend. She also has agreed to be part of the clergy team that will provide coverage when I am on my Sabbatical leave in the fall.
I'm sorry I will miss this time. Duane and I will be in Boston with our new granddaughter and her parents on Sunday, and I will be taking some vacation time next week. In the event of a pastoral emergency next week, please call the church office and either Debra or the voice mail message will let you know whom to call.

A word about "The Great Fifty Days" (of Easter): During this period in earlier times, those who had been baptized at the Easter Vigil continued to wear their white garments and were instructed by the Bishop in the "mystogogia" -- the holy mysteries of the Sacraments and rites of the Church. Fasting and penitential acts were suspended and feasting and forgiveness were encouraged. (This is the reason we omit the confession during Eastertide at St. Andrew's.) In today's world it is perhaps difficult to envision sustaining any mode for as long as 50 days, but in our liturgies the burning of the Paschal [Easter] Candle and the singing of joyful music filled with "alleluias" [praise God] invites us to enter a more spacious realm of the heart and soul, and to carry the spirit of resurrection into the rest of our lives.

Abundant thanks to all who worked to faithfully last week preparing and leading our numerous Holy Week and Easter liturgies: Joan Wright, Dale Appleton, and Lisa Thompson -- altar guild members extraordinaire! Bernice for her wonderful and varied organ and piano playing, Duane for his conducting (in Val's absence), and choir members Carol, Jonathan, Ann, Sally, Judy all for their well-worked anthems and their hymn-singing. Thanks, too, to our two new acolytes, Aislinn and Connor, whose serving contributed so much to our Easter liturgy! And thank you to each of you who by your presence, your prayer, your love, your faithfulness, and the joy of your praise because bearers of resurrection promise as winter melted into spring in this place!

Food for thought on the power of liturgy from our friend Ellie McLaughlin+, especially for those preparing to watch the Royal Wedding...

I will get up to watch [the Royal Wedding], in honor of my Grandmother, who roused me to watch Elizabeth II's Coronation ... 

As I will be arguing in my forthcoming book, it is primarily the Church's rituals, which form, re-form and convert us, that lie at the heart and center of the Church's being, by which we participate in God through praise and thanks to our Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier. Hence, to take part, even in this dis-incarnate technological way, in such a Ritual offered by the Church of England, is a goodly reminder of who we are and what we are to be about. The British 'do' ritual in a particularly splendid and faithful way...but it is not that we 'do' the liturgies of the Church, but what the Liturgies 'do' to and for us that matters, including what we are empowered to be and do in the world when sent forth by the Deacon at the closing of the Eucharist...

May the joy and new life we glimpsed at the Paschal Feast continue to blossom in the coming great Fifty Days!

See you in church.
Pax, Heidi+
More pictures below.




The Exsultet: "Rejoice now, heavenly hosts and choirs of angels, and let your trumpets shout, 'Salvation' " ....













"In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth....









From deep darkness to bell-ringing and light ...

Alleluia, Christ is risen! the Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!