Easter continues

This week has been a busy one--I just got back from helping my mother after surgery, and I leave on Monday for "Credo," a program offered by the national church for Episcopal clergy. It's centered around vocational discernment and development, and clergy are invited to attend to meet with colleagues from across the country. I'm looking forward to it, sort of. I've just got back from my first trip away from my son, Isaiah, since he was born, and I'm not sure I'm ready to be away from him again quite so soon! And unfortunately it will mean missing another Sunday, so our friend, the Rev. Norm Faramelli will be filling in for me again on May 3. The Rev. Devin McLachlan, rector of Parish of the Messiah in Auburndale, will be on call in case of a pastoral emergency. It will still be our usual kids' service, though--Jonathan Duce will be offering a Godly Play story for everyone and Norm will invite the kids to come up and help celebrate the Eucharist. When I was in Erie, I celebrated the Eucharist at the church where I grew up--kind of surreal, but quite lovely. I was amused to find out that the altar actually IS as big as it looked to me when I was a kid--sitting behind it, I was invisible, and during the Eucharistic prayer I found myself inching up on the tips of my toes at several points. My dad is the deacon there so he preached (I said I was on vacation from preaching...), and it was neat to serve together.

And Easter season continues!
Easter lasts fifty days--it takes us a while to get the message. Some liturgical changes you might have noticed are the usual things--the service music changes with the season (different melodies for the Gloria (Glory to God), Sacntus (Holy, Holy, Holy) and the Anthem at the Breaking of the Bread)--the Eucharistic prayer changes (we're no longer praying for "this fragile earth, our island home" as Prayer "C" of the Book of Common Prayer phrases it-we're on Prayer "A" for Easter, which prays in thanksgiving for Christ, sent to "share our human nature, to live and die as one of us"). There's one bigger change, too, that you've probably noticed. During Easter season, we don't say the confession of sin.

In the early church, there was no general confession of sin at all; the understanding was that the whole action of receiving the Eucharist was absolution enough, and the prayer that consecrated the bread and wine was also a prayer of thanksgiving for God's forgiveness of our sins. Of course, it still is, and so we rest from Lent's focus on our sinfulness and brokenness, and spend the season of Easter just giving thanks with wonderful Easter hymns, blooming Easter flowers, and joy in God's unconditional love for each one of us.

Blessings!

Join the "Christ Church Waltham" group on facebook! [you can also be our "fan," but to be honest I'm less certain about that helps to create community] We'll be able to post pictures and link up with one another online. After you're logged in on facebook, visit http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=189394425594&ref=mf. It's free and anyone can join, so if you don't have an account and you'd like to, you can make one.

Reviewing Holy Week

This week, a happy breather from the busy-ness of last week and our preparations, and services, for Holy Week. Isaiah is glad to have his parents home again, though the visit from my family went a long way in soothing his spirit. Apart from the marathon quality of church 4 evenings in a row, (and then back on Sunday morning), Holy Week is kind of a spiritual marathon, too. We go from the introspection of the healing and reconciliation service, to the vulnerability and service of Maundy Thursday, to the sorrow and pain of Good Friday, the watching and listening of the Vigil, and the joyous celebration of the breaking out of Easter as we rejoice in the service. Our preacher, Rev. Christine from St Peter's, talked about having waited vigil in the forest all night when she was growing up in Uganda, waiting for rebels to leave her town-a story not, I think, unlike Jesus' vigil in the garden. Our Vigil really was amazing-there was an element of spontaneity (and only slightly controlled chaos) between Marcia, Paula, Stephen, and me as we prepared for the service. "And WHEN will they light their candles? And HOW will we see?" Happily, it all came together-the Driscoll Scalisi family started us out with a wondrous vigil fire-the new fire of Easter, from which the light of Christ was lit in our paschal candle. And Stephen sang the Exsultet beautifully, and somehow our readers were able to see in the dimly lit church, and Emma led us in and out of the church, processional cross held high. It was, as Marcia said to me afterwards, "the most Easter it's ever felt!" Christ was RISEN!-and Christ STILL is risen. (Alicia Duce also commented to me that it was one of the better days of her life, having both been to the Easter vigil and a birthday party at Chuck E Cheese-pretty hard to argue with that as a perfect day). Many, many thanks to all the altar guild, especially director Paula Tatarunis, for Marcia, and Jeanne, and Jim, and Becky, our Lay Eucharistic Ministers for the week, and all the people who came out to read the lessons and pray with us. Thanks also to Cathy and the fellowship group who arranged for a great Easter Sunday coffee hour, and to Mike and Sarah who helped both on Palm Sunday and on Easter!

This week, the Rev. Norm Faramelli will be our celebrant. My mother had hip replacement surgery (thankfully, successful) and so I am going back to Erie, Pennsylvania, to help her in settling back home. I will just be away Friday-Monday, so your wardens, Marcia and Jonathan, will be able to handle anything that comes up. I will be back for our vestry meeting at 7:15 on Monday night.
Blessings,
Sara+

For our Lent series we talked about our cherished beliefs-- now listen to people who've had to give up their formerly cherished beliefs. On the radio show This American Life this week: "This I used to believe." On WBUR (90.9) Saturday at 3:00.

Join the "Christ Church Waltham" group on facebook! [you can also be our "fan," but to be honest I'm less certain about that helps to create community] We'll be able to post pictures and link up with one another online. After you're logged in on facebook, visit http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=189394425594&ref=mf. It's free and anyone can join, so if you don't have an account and you'd like to, you can make one.

Rest in Peace, Sarah Lefebvre, 1914-2009. Services for Sarah will be held Monday, April 20,at 1:00 at Christ Church, the Rev. Patricia DeBeer, Celebrant. Please keep her husband Norman and their children in your prayers.

From April 9

This evening, I'm just about to go into our Maundy Thursday service (I hope you're already on your way!). I'm passing on the Easter message our bishops sent to us. I think it applies well to each one of us. With them, I hope that all God's blessings will be yours this Holy Week and Easter.

Your bishops hold you and those you serve deep within our hearts and prayers during these most sacred and holy days. God thanks you for your faithful, loving, and inspired leadership. While we are with only a few of you in the next few days, we carry all of you with us with gratefulness for all you do for the spiritual nurture and formation of those God gives you and for God's mission and kingdom on earth.

As you journey with Christ these days, may you receive Christ's blessings poured out from the cross and Christ's power and transforming love through his resurrection and abiding presence with you. In these hard times God has blessed us and this diocese with gifts to bring healing, hope, and peace to those who suffer and struggle, near and far away.

We are blessed, honored, and privileged to be among you and with you as servants and disciples of Jesus Christ, our risen Lord and Savior.

May you, those you love and those you serve know the peace and joy of the Resurrection in these days and in the season ahead.

Tom, Bud, Gayle

The Vigil of Easter

SATURDAY, APRIL 4: All church clean up, 9 AM! Come and help our grounds and sanctuary look beautiful for Holy Week and Easter. We'll finish with lunch.

Dear Church,
You'll hear more about it in the Fieldstone Crier, our monthly newsletter, but before I delve more into Good Friday (the third part of our series on the services of Holy Week), I wanted to share a little about how excited I am about the Easter Vigil. It's been celebrated at Christ Church before, but not for a while--and it's such a wonderful service that I am very pleased we're bringing it back this year. The Easter Vigil is just that--a Vigil--we enter a darkened church, after lighting the pascal candle from a fire outside the church (a small fire, admittedly-we'll be on the stone front steps of the church with plenty of extinguishers in hand) and then we process in singing, and hear the stories of our salvation from the Hebrew Scriptures. Halfway through the service, Easter begins!--we ring in our celebration with bells and more light (each of us will have to bring our own bell to ring). The service continues with a festive Eucharist, with incense and wonderful Easter hymns. The alleluias will be back! (speaking of familiar music, for the Easter season we're moving back to the service music settings from the Hymnal 1982). The Easter Vigil is at 7 pm on Saturday, April 11. I hope to see you all there.

The Vigil is the third part of what is technically one service of the "Triduum," or "Three Days." Part One is Maundy Thursday, with the washing of feet, celebration of the Eucharist, and stripping of the altar. Part Two is Good Friday. For Good Friday at Christ Church, we follow the liturgy in the Book of Common Prayer. It differs in some significant ways from the regular Eucharist we celebrate on Sundays. Instead of the Prayers of the People, we hear a series of collects (aptly named "the Solemn Collects) that offer prayers for the church and the world, for those who suffer and those who seek faith. After the collects comes the central moment, the entrance of the cross. The cross we use is not an elaborate one--it's not made of nice wood, or stained a beautiful color. It's two rough sticks, bound together, that Paula, the director of our altar guild, found in the woods. After the cross enters, we are all invited to reverence--to bow, to kiss, to kneel, or just to stand and wonder at the mystery of that symbol, an object of shame and violence transformed into life and love. On Good Friday we don't celebrate the Eucharist. The preacher Barbara Brown Taylor has said that Good Friday is the quietest day of the year--part of that silence is not celebrating the sacrament. In recognition of our need to be fed, however, we do share communion (the bread and wine having been consecrated at the service on Maundy Thursday). The service ends after a final prayer--as with Maundy Thursday, there is no dismissal, as the service has not, technically, ended. That only happens after the Great Vigil the next day.

Holy Week is, spiritually and theologically, the high point and center of the whole church year. Having gone through the journey of Maundy Thursday, the depths of Good Friday, the watching and waiting of the Vigil, the celebration of the Easter resurrection is that much more powerful--and honest. Our liturgies remind us of the truth of the human experience. On Maundy Thursday we enter Christ's care for each of us and the way we embody Christ to each other. On Good Friday we ponder the mystery of how the cross saves us--beyond our imagining, but a deep truth each one of us knows. And at Easter? We taste the joy we've been longing and longing for.

Blessings,
Sara+

Thanks to all who made last Sundays' ministry fair a great success, especially our organizers, Marcia Luce and Shawn Russell!