We enter into the intensity and the mystery of Christ’s Passion with Palm Sunday. It marks the beginning of Holy Week. In the Passion of Christ our humanity is on display in all of its varied array and disarray, in all of our faults and failings, in all our sins and foolishnesses, in all the betrayals and deceits of our hearts. And yet there is a great good that is shown here as well, a greater good which ultimately speaks to our dignity restored. Holy Week shows the height and the depth, the length and the breadth of God’s love for us. Do we care enough to enter into what we are given to behold?
I encourage you ever so strongly to make the effort. The fullness of the Passion is set before us this week from all four Gospels. This week, in a way, is one continuous liturgy. What kind of Easter can there be without Good Friday, without the fullness of the Passion, which this week presents us?
Walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us
an offering and a sacrifice to God.
I remind you of the schedule of services for this week: Wednesday Night, 9:00pm, Tenebrae, meaning shadows or darkness, is a short service of mostly psalm readings which anticipate the Passion; Maundy Thursday marks the beginning of the Triduum Sacrum – the three great holy days – in which we gather with Christ in the Upper Room and then go with him to Gethsemane (the 1 hour watch); Good Friday takes us to the Cross with Mattins at 7:00am; the 11:00am Ecumenical Service at Windsor United Church and The Solemn Liturgy of Good Friday at 7:00pm; Holy Saturday gathers us first at the grave with Mattins & Ante-Communion at 10:00am and then to watch with a short Vigil at 7:00pm ending with the Lauds of Easter Day leading us to the grand and glorious pageant of the Resurrection on Easter Day beginning with the 7:00am ecumenical sunrise service at Fort Edward, followed by 8:00am & 10:30am Holy Communion services and Evening Prayer at 4:30pm.
Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us,
therefore let us keep the feast!
Fr. Curry
Christ Church ’09