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Service details:

  • Maundy Thursday foot washing and holy communion, 7pm
  • Good Friday stations of the cross, 1pm
  • The Great Vigil of Easter, Saturday, at St. Augustine's (with St. David's and St. Patrick's joining us), 7pm

*All in person and livestreamed via facebook as usual
*In-Person information here

Easter Sunday Easter basket info here: https://www.staugustinesedmonton.com/blog/traditional-easter-basket

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Leaning on Everlasting Arms

We use strange words for church this time of year because we are sharing in very old traditions.  The church has marked these days of Jesus' Passion with great solemnity and reverence for centuries.  There is freedom in that.  The liturgy - the inherited pattern of prayer - carries us and invites us into mysteries and wisdom deeper than we could ever create ourselves.  We might change and renew some elements, but the pattern, and many of the exact same words, remain

One Service

The Triduum, is a tradition of viewing these three great moments of worship as one single service.  The Triduum begins Maundy Thursday, continues through Good Friday, through Holy Saturday, and find its completion in the Great Vigil of Easter.  You will notice that there is no 'dismissal' in the first two services, they just fade into silence.  The aura of worship is carried by participants into their own homes, into their hearts and consciences.  It is helpful that we are free from work on Good Friday so that we can inhabit this holy space and follow it two its completion.

Watch and pray.

Three Parts

1) Maundy Thursday: "Maundy" shares the same root of the word "Mandate."  This first part of the Triduum brings us into the upper room with Jesus and his disciples.  Jesus gives them a new mandate to love one another.  He washes their feet.  He uses bread and wine to help them understand the fullness of his self-giving.  They go to gesthemane where he prays, and they sleep.  He is betrayed by a kiss.

2) Good Friday: Jesus dies.  Wherever we have found light in Jesus' story, there is none here.  And yet, even from the cross, there are words of forgiveness, words of transformation, and words of fulfillment.  We find in Jesus a solidarity with all the darkness of our world.  We need to know that God is with us even in death.  We need to stay with this dying man, our friend condemned, and keep vigil.  On Holy Saturday, we remember how Jesus rested in the tomb.  We hold that day in reverent attention and think what the disciples would have been doing that day on their Sabbath.

3) The Great Vigil of Easter: While we don't hold this service currently as a midnight vigil, we still gather, as if in a home, as if around a fire, to tell stories of Jesus and of the history that led up to his coming.  We, in fact, light a fire outside and process that new light into the church to light the candles.  We review the "history of salvation" through many readings in the first part of the service.  Then, as if we did not know it was coming, as if we did not yet believe, we mark the end of Lent, and the beginning of Easter.  The Easter Vigil becomes the first service of resurrection.  We renew our baptismal committments and gather around the Communion table.  The Triduum is complete.

Do not underestimate the power of these services - the power of God!  Let yourself be simply carried through these days in the way of renewal and prayer.

 

 

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