Dear ones,

Holy Week and Easter are fast approaching. This coming Sunday we will observe Palm Sunday, which ushers us in to the Great Mystery of Jesus’s passion, and death on the cross. We observe Jesus’s triumphal entrance into Jerusalem for the last time at the beginning of the service, moving through the drama of passion and crucifixion. Our Holy Week services unpack these events, and provide us with space to contemplate the mysteries as we observe them. The last three days of Holy Week, running into Easter, are called the Triduum, or Three Sacred Days of our redemption.

On Maundy Thursday, we gather to remember the Last Supper, Jesus gathered with his friends for a meal before the indignity of arrest, mock trial, torture, and execution. We commemorate Jesus enacting and modeling servant ministry as we wash one another’s feet. At the close of the Maundy Thursday observance, there is no dismissal, as the observance of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Easter Vigil are one great service extending over the days of Jesus’s passion, death, and resurrection.

On Good Friday, many gather at noon to observe the hours that Jesus hung on the cross. We have been invited by First Congregational Church in Wakefield to attend their noonday service, which will be followed by a silent vigil until three o’clock. Our evening service commemorates Jesus’s crucifixion in the reading of the Passion, and an opportunity for contemplation before the cross.

The Triduum continues into Holy Saturday, the quietest day, when there is no celebration of the Eucharist, and we wait at the tomb. The service for Holy Saturday is in the Book of Common Prayer on page 283, and I commend it to your personal devotions on that day.

The Triduum continues into Easter with the Great Vigil of Easter, properly observed between sunset on Holy Saturday and sunrise on Easter morning. It includes light in the darkness—the kindling of the new fire, the recounting of our salvation history, baptism or renewal of baptismal vows, and the first Eucharist of Easter. The Easter Vigil was a traditional time for baptism following significant preparation. While we are not hosting an Easter Vigil this year, we are invited to share with All Saints Wolfeboro in this most important of celebrations.

Our celebration of Easter continues with our Easter morning Eucharist at 9 am, and through Easter Week to the Second Sunday of Easter, the end of the Octave of Easter, a week of continuing celebration heralding the remainder of the Great Fifty Days of Easter, because it’s such an important celebration that we can’t fit it into just one day!

I invite each of you to join us for as much of Holy Week as you are able.

--Parson Kit+

Holy Week and Easter Services

4/3      5 PM Monday in Holy Week Stations of the Cross with DOK

4/6      5 PM Maundy Thursday Liturgy with Foot washing and Holy Communion

4/7      Noon Quiet Good Friday Service followed by silent vigil until 3 pm at First Congregational Church in Wakefield

            5 PM Good Friday Liturgy w/Solemn Collects and Veneration of the Cross

4/8      5 PM Easter Vigil at All Saints in Wolfeboro

4/9      9 AM Easter Sunday Festal Eucharist

4/16    9 am Second Sunday in Easter Festal Eucharist