​

Dear Friends, 

​

A little more than a week away from today, we will begin our Holy Week celebrations with Palm Sunday. The liturgies of Holy Week are amongst the most moving liturgies of the Church year. Through word, music, and ritual, we are drawn into Christ’s passion, death, resurrection. The liturgies are meant to be felt, for they speak to our human experience of suffering, loss, and ultimately new life. I encourage you to participate fully in the liturgies of the week and let your hearts and souls “feel” the liturgies and to listen attentively to God speaking to you and your life experience. 

​

This year, our celebrations will express the fullness of the liturgical rites as conceived of in the Book of Alternative Services. You will experience a few small, but important changes.  

​

Our modern Holy Week liturgies arose out of the Liturgical Movement, a joint Lutheran, Anglican, and Catholic movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries intended to restore Western Christian Liturgy as experienced in the early Church. The movement’s mission was to foster ecumenism between the three great liturgical churches of Western Christianity. One of the fruits of the movement was the Book of Alternative Services, which was the Anglican Church of Canada’s restored rites. 

Amongst the most profound changes that came from the Liturgical Movement was the restoration of the Holy Week liturgies as celebrated in the early Church. Prior to the 1970s, our Holy Week liturgies were much reserved, and few experienced the fullness of the liturgies. While some liturgies, such as Palm Sunday and Good Friday were observed, they were quite plain and reflected the austerity of Anglicanism as experienced in earlier generations. 

​

However, archaeological work of the 19th and 20th centuries, along with a renewed appreciation of the Church Fathers and Mothers from the first few centuries of Christianity, led to a rediscovery of a much more vibrant and rich celebration of the Holy Week and Easter liturgies. Most importantly, the writings of a 4th century woman by the name of Egeria relate to us of how the early Church in Jerusalem celebrated Holy Week and Easter. She describes a colourful and dramatic series of liturgies by which the people – clergy and lay – commemorated the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Her writings inspired the recovery of those early liturgies. Today, Anglicans, Catholics, and Lutherans now celebrate Holy Week and Easter much more fully, in many ways like our early Christian ancestors.  

​

Fortunately for us at Grace Church on-the-Hill, our clergy of the past few decades enthusiastically embraced the changes so that we celebrate the full complement of Holy Week Liturgies. However, there were a few, albeit small, yet important details were omitted, which we will reintroduce this year. They include: 

​

• On Maundy Thursday, we will sing the Gloria, the great hymn of praise at the beginning of the Liturgy. Maundy Thursday marks the end of Lent and the beginning of the three-day-Liturgy known as the Paschal Triduum. We begin with great rejoicing, and our church bells will peal through the Gloria, and the organ will radiate a joyful noise. However, as soon as the Gloria ends, no instrumental music will be heard until the intoning of the “Glory be to God on high” at the Easter Vigil. This is an ancient custom by which all bells and instruments go silent until Easter. Only the human voice, the purest of all instruments, will be heard throughout the remainder of Maundy Thursday, all Good Friday, and the first part of the Easter Vigil.  ​

​

• During the Maundy Thursday liturgy, we will also consecrate enough of the Sacrament to administer it to the people on both Thursday evening and at the end of the Good Friday Liturgy, during the Liturgy of the Pre-Sanctified Gifts. At the end of the Maundy Thursday Liturgy, just before the clergy strip the sanctuary bare of all ornaments, the reserved Sacrament will be carried in procession to the chapel, and the Sacrament will remain there until the Good Friday Liturgy. All of us are invited to remain with Jesus through the night during the great watch, much in the way that Jesus invited his disciples to do the night before his passion and death on the cross. 

​

• On Good Friday, in addition to the reading of the Passion and the veneration of the cross, we will celebrate the Liturgy of the Pre-Sanctified Gifts as expressed in the Book of Alternative Services. Again, drawing from ancient Christian sources, we will simply pray the Lord’s Prayer, sing the Agnus Dei, and all will be invited to partake of the pre-consecrated Sacrament before leaving in silence.  

​

• Finally, the most notable of changes will be on Palm Sunday. Rather than read the Passion Narrative on Palm Sunday, we will read Matthew 20:20-28, a gospel text that sets the tone for Holy Week, in which we hear Jesus teach about our call to be servants and announces that he has come not to be served, but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many. Historically, this was the gospel lesson read on Passion Sunday. Rather than read the Passion narrative twice, we will mark the beginning with a text that teaches us the mission and nature of Jesus’ earthly ministry and gives focus to our own ministry. 

​

My friends, join us for the liturgies of Holy Week and Easter and let your hearts and minds be moved by beauty. Let your hearts experience the life-giving grace of Christ as experienced in the Easter Mysteries. All are welcome!  

​

Peace and Blessings, 

Fr. Don Beyers