April 6, 2012 Good Friday MEMO
Deposition from the Cross, thirteenth century, Volterra, Italy
Services for Good Friday at Saint Andrew's: Noon to 1:30 -- Meditations at the Cross, for which you are invited to come and go as you schedule allows. This evening at 7:00 PM -- The Liturgy of the Passion, with hymns, readings, solemn collects, and communion from the reserved sacrament. [Please note: Yesterday's posting was INCORRECT. Tonight's service will be at 7:00.]
Holy Saturday: Children's Easter Garden gathering 12:30 to 2 with bag lunch.
The Great Vigil of Easter: Saturday at 8 PM with kindling the new fire, the Vigil readings, and the first Eucharist of Easter. Bring your bells to ring at the Easter acclamation!!!
Easter Day: 8 AM and 10 AM, with Easter reception following both services.
Easter Dinner: 5 PM Dinner Bell, hosted by the Raus and the Souths!
Food for Reflection for Good Friday from Poet Denise Levertov...
Maybe He looked indeed
much as Rembrandt envisioned Him
in those small heads that seem in fact
portraits of more than a model.
A dark, still young, very intelligent face,
a soul-mirror gaze of deep understanding, un judging.
That face, in extremis, would have clenched its teeth
in a grimace not shown in even the great crucifixions.
The burden of humanness (I begin to see) exacted from Him
that He taste also the humiliation of dread,
cold sweat of wanting to let the whole thing go,
like any mortal hero out of his depth,
like anyone who has taken a step too far
and wants herself back.
The painters, even the greatest, don’t show how,
in the midnight Garden,
or staggering uphill under the weight of the Cross,
he went through with even the human longing
to simply cease, to not be.
Not torture of body,
not the hideous betrayals humans commit,
not the faithless weakness of friends, and surely
not the anticipation of death (not then, in agony’s grip)
was Incarnation’s heaviest weight,
but this sickened desire to renege,
to step back from what He, Who was God,
had promised Himself, and had entered
time and flesh to enact.
Sublime acceptance, to be absolute, had to have welled
up from those depths where purpose
drifted for mortal moments.
Blessings on this holy day,
Heidi+
Pieta, Michelangelo, 1498-99
Saint Peter's, Vatican City
Services for Good Friday at Saint Andrew's: Noon to 1:30 -- Meditations at the Cross, for which you are invited to come and go as you schedule allows. This evening at 7:00 PM -- The Liturgy of the Passion, with hymns, readings, solemn collects, and communion from the reserved sacrament. [Please note: Yesterday's posting was INCORRECT. Tonight's service will be at 7:00.]
The washing of the bare altar in preparation for Good Friday and Holy Saturday
Holy Saturday: Children's Easter Garden gathering 12:30 to 2 with bag lunch.
The Great Vigil of Easter: Saturday at 8 PM with kindling the new fire, the Vigil readings, and the first Eucharist of Easter. Bring your bells to ring at the Easter acclamation!!!
Easter Day: 8 AM and 10 AM, with Easter reception following both services.
Easter Dinner: 5 PM Dinner Bell, hosted by the Raus and the Souths!
Food for Reflection for Good Friday from Poet Denise Levertov...
"Salvator Mundi: Via Crucis"
Maybe He looked indeed
much as Rembrandt envisioned Him
in those small heads that seem in fact
portraits of more than a model.
A dark, still young, very intelligent face,
a soul-mirror gaze of deep understanding, un judging.
That face, in extremis, would have clenched its teeth
in a grimace not shown in even the great crucifixions.
The burden of humanness (I begin to see) exacted from Him
that He taste also the humiliation of dread,
cold sweat of wanting to let the whole thing go,
like any mortal hero out of his depth,
like anyone who has taken a step too far
and wants herself back.
The painters, even the greatest, don’t show how,
in the midnight Garden,
or staggering uphill under the weight of the Cross,
he went through with even the human longing
to simply cease, to not be.
Not torture of body,
not the hideous betrayals humans commit,
not the faithless weakness of friends, and surely
not the anticipation of death (not then, in agony’s grip)
was Incarnation’s heaviest weight,
but this sickened desire to renege,
to step back from what He, Who was God,
had promised Himself, and had entered
time and flesh to enact.
Sublime acceptance, to be absolute, had to have welled
up from those depths where purpose
drifted for mortal moments.
Blessings on this holy day,Heidi+
Pieta, Michelangelo, 1498-99
Saint Peter's, Vatican City
