March 28, 2013

Holy Week, and Easter Services

²  Good Friday, March 29^th. Church open all day for prayer.
Noon to 2 PM: Meditations on the Seven Last Words. Come and go as you are able.
2 PM: The Stations of the Cross.
7 PM:  Good Friday liturgy with solemn collects
         and communion from the reserved sacrament

²  Holy Saturday, March 30^th: A day for solemn reflection and preparation
8 PM: The Great Vigil of Easter with the kindling of the new fire, vigil readings,
      reaffirmation of baptismal vows, and the First Eucharist of Easter

²  Easter Sunday, March 31^st: The Day of Resurrection
8 AM: Holy Eucharist, spoken
10 AM: Festival Eucharist with hymns, choir, and organ

²  The Second Sunday of Easter, April 7^th
 9 AM: ONE service only. The Easter story and celebration continues.

We hope you will be with us for worship, celebration, and fellowship!

 Coming to the Easter Vigil? Following the vigil readings, one of which will be enacted by the children of the parish, the turning point of the liturgy comes at the moment of the Easter acclamation, which is accompanied by much jubilant and raucous bell-ringing. So please bring your bells so that you can join in the excitement!

 The Triduum has begun, the three holy days that enfold us now – from the foot-washing and Institution of the Last Supper, through the solemnity of Good Friday, until the breaking-in of the Easter acclamation at the Vigil that “He is risen!” We are invited to think of this time as one single service in the midst of which we will live and move and pray and weep and sing and have our being until the dismissal at the close of the Easter Vigil. And then, we will be charged to live fully, in the world, as Easter people – people of the resurrection.

The Good Friday Offering for the Church in the Holy Lands:  It is the tradition of the church to give special attention and prayer to the church in the lands where Jesus walked, a place torn by struggles, in which the Episcopal Church is a strong and active presence, not just for Palestinian Christians, but for people of all faiths. Envelopes are available at church. For more details:
http://www.episcopalchurch.org/notice/episcopal-church-presiding-bishop-writes-congregations-about-good-friday-offering-jerusalem-1

Food for thought as we approach the Resurrection, from Barbara Brown Taylor…
The tomb was just the cicada shell with the neat slit down its back. The living being that had once been inside of it was gone. The singing was going on somewhere else, which may be why Peter and the other disciple did not stay very long. Clearly, Jesus was not there. He could have stayed put, I guess, sitting there all pink and healthy between the two piles of clothes so that everyone could come in and see him, but that is not what he did.

He had outgrown his tomb, which was too small a focus for the resurrection. The risen one had people to see and things to do. The living one’s business was among the living, to whom he appeared not once but four more times in the Gospel of John. Every time he came to his friends they became stronger, wiser, kinder, more daring. Every time he came to them, they became more like him.

Those appearances cinch the resurrection for me, not what happened in the tomb. What happened in the tomb was entirely between Jesus and God. For the rest of us, Easter began the moment the gardener said,“Mary!” and she knew who he was. That is where the miracle happened and goes on happening – not in the tomb, but in the encounter with the living Lord.

  Blessings in the Holy time,
Heidi+

Ladies in Black (and white) at the Palm Sunday service.

Wednesday of Holy Week Supper gathering.