Dear Friends,
Well, we’re here.
We’ve worn the ashes of repentance and worked to stay true to special disciplines. We’ve dodged that big, inconvenient cross in the chancel and struggled to remember changes in the liturgy. We’ve revisited the hymns written in minor keys and read each week the commandments God gave through Moses.
We’ve witnessed Jesus’s temptation by Satan, seen his miracles of healing, watched as groups and towns and even families in the scriptural stories have been divided by the question, “Who is this Jesus?”
And now, we’re here, just outside Jerusalem, as Jesus sends ahead two disciples to bring a donkey and a colt for his entrance. A crowd welcomes Jesus, lining his path with cloaks and branches and shouting, “Hosanna!”
We know the story will end much differently. Our liturgies during this Holy Week invite us to enter into the stories of Jesus’s last days, to suspend our knowledge of what will happen and follow, often moment by moment, events as they unfold. We enter again the emotional descent into pain, betrayal, despair, and darkness, and rise suddenly on Easter morning into joy, hope, and light.
Don’t miss a moment of this special time: Maundy Thursday, as we revisit Jesus’s last evening with his beloved disciples; Good Friday, as we mourn his death on the cross; Holy Saturday, a brief service during our time of continued mourning; the Great Vigil of Easter, which moves from darkness to light and from Creation to the Resurrection; and Easter Morning, a service of unbound joy!
On Sunday, we’ll meet outside of St. Mary’s Hall, on the 14th Street side of Calvary, for a blessing of the palms for our procession into the nave and the beginning of our Holy Week journey.
Wishing you every blessing,
Mtr. TJ