April 12, 2012Easter Week
Services for this coming Sunday, April 15th and the Second Sunday of Easter, will be at 8 and 10 AM with coffee hour following both services. The Reverend Eleanor McLaughlin will be guest presider and preacher. Ellie+ is a good friend of this parish and was part of the clergy team during Heidi's sabbatical last fall. Heidi and Duane will be taking their post Easter release Sunday, visiting family and friends in Massachusetts and celebrating their graddaughter's first birthday.
Next Sunday, April 22nd (Earth Day) we will be holding our annual spring cleanup following the 10:00 service. Feel free to come to church in your work clothes so that we can team up on outside cleanup. Bring your rakes, tarps, and garden gloves. As yet, we have not hired a replacement sexton, so there is much to be done and all hands will be put to work. Coffee hour refreshments will be quartered sandwiches, cheese, fruit and cookies to keep us well nourished.
Make your reservations for the Italian Murder Mystery Dinner to be held on Friday, April 27th at 6 PM. Admission is $15 for adults. If you have a party of eight, the charge will be $105, giving you one free dinner. This will be dinner theater at it's most exciting! Who will be the one to solve the mystery? Spread the word and invite your friends.
Holy Week and Easter in pictures at Saint Andrew's-in-the-Valley
Palm Sunday
The children eagerly prepare to distribute the palms
Maundy Thursday
Hand washing, foot washing, absolution, and the striping and wiping down of the altar
Good Friday
The empty chancel for midday meditations; communion from the Maundy Thursday celebration
Holy Saturday
The children and parents gather with Mother Heidi to explore the Good Friday story and to create the Easter garden and the tomb in which Jesus was laid.
The Easter Vigil
The kindling of the Easter fire, a large puppet proclaims the promise to God's people of a new heart and a new land, and the first eucharist of Easter
Easter Day
Connor and Aislinn light the alter candles and carry the torches. Levi joins in the procession as he prepares for his first communion.
Blessings in this Holy Season of resurrection and new life!
Heidi+
Palm SundayThe children eagerly prepare to distribute the palms
Maundy ThursdayHand washing, foot washing, absolution, and the striping and wiping down of the altar
Good FridayThe empty chancel for midday meditations; communion from the Maundy Thursday celebration
Holy Saturday
The children and parents gather with Mother Heidi to explore the Good Friday story and to create the Easter garden and the tomb in which Jesus was laid.
The Easter VigilThe kindling of the Easter fire, a large puppet proclaims the promise to God's people of a new heart and a new land, and the first eucharist of Easter
Easter DayConnor and Aislinn light the alter candles and carry the torches. Levi joins in the procession as he prepares for his first communion.
Food for thought from former Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold as we live into the Great 50 Days of Eastertide...
Easter is not simply a recurring feast day in the Christian calendar; it is the shattering of the known in order to make way for what is real. And the reality it proclaims is that everything that restricts, diminishes, imprisons, and limits life as God intends it is trampled down by the risen Christ. Christ's victory is therefore a challenge to everything within us and within the church and the world that resists Christ's all-embracing freedom.
Easter is not simply a recurring feast day in the Christian calendar; it is the shattering of the known in order to make way for what is real. And the reality it proclaims is that everything that restricts, diminishes, imprisons, and limits life as God intends it is trampled down by the risen Christ. Christ's victory is therefore a challenge to everything within us and within the church and the world that resists Christ's all-embracing freedom.
Blessings in this Holy Season of resurrection and new life!
Heidi+
