It is Holy Week, and we are about to enter the Triduum, the most sacred three days in our church year. Three days that commemorate Christ’s crucifixion, death, and resurrection. While it may appear that we have multiple services over the course of these three days, the church observes them as one service. You will note that there is no dismissal at the end of the Maundy Thursday service, the Good Friday service or the Easter Vigil. We won’t have a dismissal again until we gather to celebrate Christ’s resurrection on Easter Sunday.
As we enter into the Triduum with tonight’s Maundy Thursday service, I invite you into a sacred space of contemplation, fellowship, and service. We will engage ourselves within the Last Supper, washing one another’s hands and feet and serving one another soup, wine, and bread. We will remember that Christ didn’t just die for us, he also rose for us and offered us grace and eternal life. This service is one of vulnerability, servanthood, and Grace.
Tomorrow, Good Friday, is the most solemn day of the Church Year. We will honor Christ’s sacrifice through remembrance. We will walk The Way of the Cross through scripture, and we will venerate the Cross.
On Holy Saturday, you are invited to await Christ’s resurrection however you feel called. I hope that you will at the very least consider our collective journey through this Lenten season acknowledging our beauty and belovedness not in the midst of the natural world, but as an integral part of it—inextricably connected to it, irrefutably blessed by it, irrevocably loved with it.
Christ, we ask that you illuminate our beauty and our Belovedness as we navigate our humanity—our creatureliness. Help us to remember that Easter is all about your Love for us and the assurance of our beauty and Belovedness through the brokenness and difficulties of our humanity. Help us to remember that Easter is all about Grace—Your Grace for us. We thank you, Lord, for Your Life, Your Love, and Your Grace. Amen.
My fellow pilgrims, know that you are beautiful and you are Beloved, in the fullness of your humanity, and nothing can change that. May you feel the embrace of Christ’s Love always—but especially through hardship.
Peace and Love,
Angela+