Maundy Thursday, 2016
Triduum and Easter
Service ScheduleToday: Maundy Thursday – Liturgy 7 pm Eucharist with Foot Washing, the Institution of the Lord’s Supper, and the Stripping of the Altar.
March 25, Good Friday:
Noon to 2 pm – Two Hours at the Cross: Scripture, Psalms, Meditation. (Come and go as you are able.)
7 – pm Good Friday Liturgy of the Day with communion from the reserve sacrament
March 26, Easter Eve: 8 pm – The Great Vigil of Easter, kindling the Paschal fire, Vigil readings, and First Eucharist of Easter. Bring your bells to ring jubilantly at the Easter acclamation!!!
March 27, Easter Sunday: 10 am – Festival Eucharist with organ, choir, hymns, sermon
Dinner Bell Easter Dinner. 5 pm. All are welcome!
The church does not pretend that it does not know what will happen with the crucified Jesus. It does not sorrow and mourn over the Lord as if the church itself were not the very creation which has been produced from his wounded side and from the depths of his tomb. All through the services, the victory of Christ is contemplated and the resurrection proclaimed. Thomas Hopko, Orthodox priest and theologian (1939 – 2015)
We hope you will join us for this rich and varied liturgies, as we live and pray and celebrate these holy days together.
Looking ahead…
Mark your calendars for our 5th Murder Mystery Dinner – the “Stone Church Players” presenting Murder on the Dis-Oriented Express! Friday, April 15 at 6 o’clock sharp. Reservation are required. Please call the office. 323-8515. Song, entertainment, and a delicious meal! It’s set in the 1920s, so you’re welcome to dress accordingly!
Registration for Safe Church Training: Anyone planning to attend this session, to be held here at Saint Andrew’s from 6 to 9 pm on April 18, should contact Marty Cloran atmartycloran@roadrunner.com or at 603 447-8841 so that you can be registered.
The Dobyns Library is a much underutilized parish resource and lending library located in the Prince Room. We have acquired some new books – among others: Great Women of the Christian Faith and the Reader's Digest Complete Guide to the Bible (a comprehensive but still accessible full of pictures as well as lots of background information). New books are displayed on the mantle of the Prince Room fireplace. Come take a look. borrow and do some reading.
Food for thought 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, unjudging.
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) extracted 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, not to be.
Not torture of body,
not the hideous betrayals humans commit
nor 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.
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, unjudging.
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) extracted 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, not to be.
Not torture of body,
not the hideous betrayals humans commit
nor 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.
And Good Friday is followed by Holy Saturday…
Something strange is happening – there is a great silence on earth
today, a great silence and stillness. The whole earth keeps silence because the
King is asleep. The earth trembled and is still because God has fallen asleep
in the flesh and he has raised up all who have slept ever since the world
began. God has died in the flesh and hell trembles with fear…
[from an ancient homily Office of Readings
for Holy Saturday, Roman rite]
And
then, yes … Alleluia, Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed Alleluia!
Blessings in these three holy days and beyond!
Yours in the (almost risen) Christ,
Heidi+
Blessings in these three holy days and beyond!
Yours in the (almost risen) Christ,
Heidi+
