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!

Upcoming Events and Maundy Thursday

I'd like to draw your attention to two important events here at Christ Church in the next few days. First, I hope you'll be with us on Sunday for our ministry fair. Tables will be set up for representatives of the many projects and ministries you can get involved with in our parish. On Monday, March 30, we're having a meeting here at Christ Church at 7 pm (with pizza) to discuss the possibility of hosting a site for free lunches for local children. We are just a mile from the Whittemore School, where fully half of the students receive some kind of discounted or free meal during the school day. When school's out, they may not receive a balanced lunch. We were asked to help because of our location, and because the city is losing one of its former lunch sites (after already having lost 3 lunch sites from 2007 to 2008). This would be a shared effort between Waltham churches, and members from the Baptist, Unitarian, Lutheran, and Methodist churches will also be meeting with us. Please let me know if you can be there so I can provide enough food for us all. On a related note of ministry with kids in need, save the date for B Safe, on July 16 and 17, the inner city summer day camp program we volunteered with last year. Bill Fowler will have pictures to show at the ministry fair and can tell you more about it on Sunday!

This week I'll continue our exploration of the Holy Week services, and talk a bit more about Maundy Thursday. The word "Maundy" comes from the Latin, mandatum, which means commandment-we commemorate the Last Supper, when Jesus washed his disciples' feet and gave "a new commandment."
I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." (John 13:35)

In the liturgy, we wash each others' feet-we are each others' servants. Men and women, older and younger-we are all called to serve each other. Is it awkward? Of course. It's a level of nearness we don't frequently experience with our friends, much less the person you sit behind in church. But is it holy? Absolutely. The disciples didn't understand what Jesus was doing at first, either. When Jesus kneels at Peter's feet, he says, "You will never wash my feet." Jesus answered, "Unless I wash you, you have no share with me." Peter is confused-an act of submission by his Lord? No way. Jesus says, "You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand." Does Peter get it, later? Much later, he does-after the crucifixion, after the resurrection, he understands just how different a Lord Jesus was. Not one who wants domination and power, a Lord who wants to be on the floor, kneeling in front of us, comforting and consoling. A Lord whose only commandment is love. One who invites us to kneel there, too, to continue his work for each other. We are his Body, now in the world. It's time to get down on the floor.

The foot washing takes place between the sermon and the prayers of the people. The liturgy continues with Communion. After Communion, we strip the altar. All the hangings, all the chairs, all the cushions and candles come out of the sanctuary. We do this to prepare for Good Friday, to remind ourselves of the abandonment of Christ, and the utter absence and desolation of that day. Everyone who is present in the church is invited to help strip the altar-it's not just a performance by the clergy or leaders of the service; it's shared by us all.

The great "Triduum," or "Three Days" of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Great Vigil are, technically, one service-there's no final blessing or dismissal until the end of the Great Vigil. Wednesday is a bit of a prelude to the "big event" of those three days.

Next week: The mysteries of Good Friday.
Blessings,
Sara+

From March 19: Holy Week Services

This week, I've started getting ready for our Holy Week services at Christ Church. I know there are a lot of folks who are new to the Episcopal Church (and those of us who aren't can always use a reminder), so for the next few weeks leading up to Holy Week, I'm going to dedicate part of this space to talking about the services. As Ed put it at vestry this week: "Maybe you should actually say what it means to strip the altar? It gets really uncomfortable without those kneelers!" (that happens on Maundy Thursday, which is the topic of next week's email...)

Here, our observance of Holy Week begins on Wednesday, with a service of healing and reconciliation. Technically, the services of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Easter Vigil are ONE service, called the Triduum-one long meditation on the events of Christ's Passion and resurrection. It's an intense experience, and helps us to approach the heart of what we believe as Christians. I find that the Wednesday service helps us to draw near to those services that observe Christ's passion with (if you'll excuse the expression), our spiritual ducks in a row. The service consists of a regular Holy Eucharist, but instead of doing the general confession like we do on Sundays, we do the rite of Reconciliation (sometimes called Confession) all together. In the time when the penitent is invited to confess particular sins, we have time for silence.

The rite of reconciliation has a distinctive place in Anglican/Episcopal tradition quite unlike its place in the Roman Catholic Church, where people are more familiar with it. It's not ever required of anyone-the absolution we receive all together as part of the regular Sunday service is sufficient-but doing the rite can be especially healing if there are particular sins and sorrows on your heart. The rite consists of prayers to enlighten us to acknowledge and remember what we have to confess. The penitent promises to forgive others as s/he accepts God's forgiveness. The rite concludes with the absolution and these words: Now there is rejoicing in heaven; for you were lost, and are found; you were dead, and are now alive in Christ Jesus our Lord. Abide in peace. The Lord has put away all your sins.

In our Wednesday service, the reconciliation of the penitent is followed by a litany of prayers for healing. After the litany, individuals who desire special prayers for healing (for you or for someone else) come to the altar rail. The Celebrant makes the sign of the cross on the person's forehead as they kneel at the altar rail, and whoever is present is invited to come up and lay a hand on their shoulder. Healing services have become quite common in the Church; some parishes do them regularly even on Sundays. The rite reminds us that God is never far away, though we sometimes need special assurance of God's presence and grace.

After prayers for healing, we celebrate the Eucharist. We are re-membered as the Body of Christ, nourished and sent out in God's grace. We meet next for the liturgy of Maundy Thursday, which you'll learn more about in next week's email!

Blessings,
Sara+

In the Wider Church and Community
Saturday, April 25: The Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts Parish Historians' Society. Held at Christ Church, Quincy. Registration at 8:30 a.m., Opening Remarks at 9:30 a.m. Topics include researching slavery in the history of your parish.

Safety for Kids Event
This comes to us from Michelle Hache-- at the American Legion, Waverly Oaks Rd on March 29, 10-2. With police dog demo, karate demo and assorted booths. The Masons offer a child ID kit which include dental imprints, DNA, fingerprint, and a video--the parents keep the kit, but have the information in case it's needed. Michelle has found in the past that showing up a bit later means that the lines aren't quite so long, so you can still come

From March 12: Lent

The word "lent" comes from the Old English world "lencten," for the lengthening of days. With daylight savings time having started last Sunday and the last few snow storms finally passing, I'm starting to actually believe that spring-and Easter-are coming. After a long winter like this, though, I've had a hard time believing that spring will actually come. Whenever we talk about the weather Marcia always reminds me about the snowstorm that came one June, and we're not out of the woods yet.

Of course, in the church, Easter always follows Lent-in the Gospels Jesus never talks about his suffering and death without talking about his resurrection. That can be harder for us to remember, though, in the midst of our darkest times, when even the ordinary days of Pentecost seem an impossibility, much less the joy of Easter. As he called from the cross, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" I think that was probably Jesus' experience as well. He knows what it feels like.

Where are you in your Lent?
Is it feeling like Lent to you, or like Advent, or just like an ordinary time? The church year brings our attention to certain aspects of human life, but our own spirits aren't necessarily always there. Noah's and my honeymoon ended up being in Lent, and I assure you that it was not what I would call penitential. But this year I am feeling like Lent. It seems like everyone in my house has been sick since Christmas. It's cold. Even the dog is pitiful, since he was neutered this week and isn't allowed to run around. As I pray my Lenten discipline of being mindful of my time, I'm all too aware of how little time it seems that there is. It is definitely Lent.

But Easter is coming. We get glimpses of it here and there. At our book group on Tuesday, we had a wonderful discussion about belief, and mystery, and what Helen Keller, who wrote about how faith is a state of mind, might say to Penn Jillette, whose essay was about how there is no God. In the liturgy on Sundays we receive the Body of Christ-we are reminded that we are the Body of Christ. We are nourished, though, not just for ourselves, but for what it enables us to do. One of my favorite lines in all the prayer book comes from the Eucharistic prayer we're using now--Deliver us from the presumption of coming to this Table for solace only, and not for strength; for pardon only, and not for renewal. The grace of God isn't given us just to make us feel better; coming to church on Sunday isn't just a spiritual "pick-me-up." We are forgiven to empower us to live freer, more generous lives; we are fed to enable us to feed others.
Blessings,
Sara+

In the Wider Community
Hearts Alive! Gulf Coast Benefit Art Show
Artist Lori Gordon: March 27-28 Trinity Church, Boston: Proceeds support St Anna's Episcopal Church's Medical Van in New Orleans. Click Here.

Spaghetti Dinner and Raffle
Saturday, March 28, 5:30 - 7:30 p.m., Fundraiser for Community Day Center of Waltham, a day shelter supporting homeless and low-income adults. Hosted by First Evangelical Lutheran Church, 6 Eddy St., Waltham. Adults $7, children $5 in advance or at door. email director@communitydaycenter.org