Fr. Tony’s Midweek Message
April 10, 2019
Holy Week
One of the things that first attracted me to the Episcopal
Church was its celebration of the liturgical seasons and great feast days and
fasts of the Church, and this in a progressive theological setting. The spiritual discipline of service coupled
with regular daily religious practice and prayers, keeping holy, in the words
of George Herbert, “not just one day in seven but seven whole days,” marked for
me a community dedicated to Jesus’s ideals of putting the Reign of God first by
loving God and one’s neighbor above all else.
The great feast days like Christmas and Easter were known to me from my
youth. But here there were feasts and
commemorations throughout the year previously unknown to me, both on Sundays
and during the week: Holy Name,
Epiphany, Candlemas, Ash Wednesday, Pentecost, Ascension, Trinity, St. Mary the
Virgin, and others. And we had the
seasons of Lent and Advent, twelve days of Christmas, as well as the Great
Fifty Days of Easter.
The centerpiece of this rich treasury was Holy Week: Palm and Passion Sunday followed by the great
Three-Day Liturgy (Triduum) lasting
from the evening of Maundy Thursday, through Good Friday and Holy Saturday, on
to Easter Sunday itself.
The first time I attended the Three-Day Liturgy, I was
astounded by its beauty, wholeness, and emotional depth. Starting on Thursday with a quiet service of
washing each other’s feet and celebrating Eucharist in honor of Christ’s new
commandment (mandatum novum, where
Maundy Thursday gets its name) to love each other, it proceeds with the solemn
and emotionally devastating symbolic representation of Jesus’ betrayal and
arrest: stripping the altar. At the end
of the service, there is no dismissal and we leave in darkness and
silence: this is but the first part of
single service that lasts three days. After
the service, there is a chapel of repose for contemplating the Blessed
Sacrament in one-half hour stages through the night, reminding us of the Garden
of Gethsemane’s “could you not watch with me for one hour?” and Christ’s
arrest. Good Friday is quiet and emotionally bleak:
either a short simple service of the reading of the passion narrative and
adoration of the Holy Cross or the longer meditative three-hour preaching
service: again, no dismissal. Holy
Saturday is quiet and also bereft, commemorating Christ’s descent into
Hell. But then after sunset, there comes
the most beautiful and important of all the year’s liturgies: the Great Vigil
of Easter. A bonfire is kindled
symbolizing new light and life, the paschal candle is blessed and lit from the
new fire with the words, “Christ yesterday and today, the beginning and the
end, all time belongs to him” We then
process into the Church led by the Paschal Candle to the increasingly higher
pitched and louder chant, “The Light of Christ, Thanks be to God.” An ancient chant follows, the Exulstet, to
my mind the loveliest of all expressions of joy in Christ: “Rejoice now,
heavenly hosts and choirs of angels.”
Then, several scriptural readings and psalms about salvation history,
followed by baptisms and baptismal renewals, and then the lights come on with
the acclamation “Alleluia, Christ is risen. The Lord is risen indeed,
alleluia,” and Holy Eucharist, ending the liturgy with a joyous dismissal. Often
there is a light meal after the service.
The later Eucharists during the daylight of Easter Sunday are in some
way simply echoes of the first, great Eucharist of our salvation, the Great
Vigil.
Because it is so gloriously beautiful and emotionally deep,
I have always been somewhat sad to see that attendance at the whole Three-Day
Liturgy (Thursday evening, Friday Noon, and Holy Saturday evening) is low by
normal Sunday standards, and substantially lower than Easter Morning. Often, this is because people come only to
one or two Holy Week services in addition their regular Sunday service;
sometimes it is because people only come on Sunday, if then. But missing the continuity of the all three
parts of the Triduum liturgy by missing any part of it diminishes the
experience and impoverishes in some degree the Paschal celebration.
With joy and love, I invite all of you to attend all our
Holy Week worship, including the three parts of the liturgy, in addition to an
Easter Sunday Eucharist, especially if it has been a while since you have been
to the Great Vigil. I believe your
spiritual life will be enriched by so doing.
Grace and Peace
Fr. Tony+
HOLY WEEKSUNDAY APRIL 14 PALM & PASSION SUNDAY8 AM and 10 AM Holy Communion with the Liturgy of the Palms (at 10, processing from the Labyrinth with a miniature Jerusalem donkey, Dot.)M-F 8 AM Sung Morning Prayer in ChurchTHURSDAY APRIL 18 MAUNDY THURSDAY12 noon Healing Eucharist (no foot washing)7 PM Holy Eucharist with Foot Washing and the Stripping of the AltarOvernight: “Watch and Pray with Jesus” Vigil (half-hour stages) in a small chapel set up in the Nave of the ChurchFRIDAY APRIL 19 GOOD FRIDAY8 AM Morning Prayer, Reposition (and Reverent Consumption) of the Blessed Sacrament11 AM Stations of the Cross12 Noon Good Friday Liturgy with Adoration of the Holy CrossSATURDAY APRIL 20 HOLY SATURDAY8 PM The Great Vigil of Easter, starting with the lighting of the New Fire in the Labyrinth (light incense)SUNDAY APRIL 21 EASTER SUNDAY8 & 10 AM Festal Choral Eucharist (light incense at 10)No evening service
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