I’ve been somewhat ambivalent about Holy Week this year. I am very grateful to have time off from school, but Spring Break means that many people are traveling. I am grateful that families plan time away together. But when Spring Break and Holy Week overlap, we tend to choose the trip. I suppose we think that Holy Week comes every year; we only have so much time together. If you’re away, please find a local community of faith or tune in on YouTube (7pm on Thursday and Friday; 8am on Sunday). Why is this so important to me? I’ve struggled to articulate this well. Then on Monday, Tim Schenck (an Episcopal priest from Florida) put it this way on Facebook:
When you hear clergy strongly encouraging you to attend the services of Holy Week, especially the Great Three Days (Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, the Easter Vigil), it’s not just because they like to see more people in the pews, or it’s good for their egos, or they want parishioners to see how much effort goes into these liturgies.
It’s because they believe in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and the transforming power of the Christian faith. It’s because they love you and want nothing more than for you to have such a moving encounter with our Lord, that it will change your life. It’s an invitation rooted in profound love, and a recognition that there is literally nothing more important in the entire world than to participate fully as we collectively journey from the Upper Room to Calvary to the Empty Tomb.
I hope you will join your local parish a lot this week. And I bid you all a most blessed Holy Week.
That…all of it…to the glory of God alone!
Pastor Culynn
Through Jesus Christ, we are living the God-fashioned life together.