Hi church,
It's Holy Week - the most sacred time of the church year. This is the week when we remember Jesus' final days on earth. It's the week of the Last Supper (on Holy or Maundy Thursday), the Crucifixion (on Good Friday), and the Resurrection (on Easter Sunday). So let's journey together, in true Common Table fashion...making it up as we go along. :-)
At the time of this writing, we have plans for gathering together on Maundy Thursday. There may be a plan for Good Friday, and there will be a plan for Easter - but at the moment, those plans are still up in the air. Watch this space for updates. But for now, Maundy Thursday:
6:00 p.m. Agape Meal, McGill Hall
7:30 p.m. The "Mandatum" and Holy Eucharist, Sanctuary (With Incense)
8:30 p.m. Garden of Gethsemane Vigil, St. Mary's Chapel
If anyone can make it early and wants to join in for the Agape Meal, please bring "Middle-Eastern-style simple fare" (such as pita, hummus, cheese, olives, grapes, wine, etc.) (or whatever you want) and join the gathering in the parish hall. The meal should be going on until 7 or 7:15, so there's no need to get there by 6.
But most of us will probably just gather for the "Mandatum" service at 7:30. It includes foot-washing and lots of other moving liturgical goodness, and transitions from the deep community stuff of Maundy Thursday (the institution of the Lord's Supper; the foot-washing; the "new commandment" that we should love one another as Christ has loved us) to the awful darkness of Good Friday in a very powerful way.
The Garden of Gethsemane Vigil is an all-night prayer vigil in the chapel (which they decorate with plants and earthenware and bubbling water to recall the garden). People sign up to cover a given half-hour through the night. I sign up nearly every year, praying and reading the Gospel accounts of Jesus' agony in the garden, and it's typically just about the most spiritually moving half-hour of my year.
So please join us for any or all of the above, and like I said, stay tuned for more Holy Week plans!
Peace,
Mike Croghan
