Holy Week prayer services

The season of Lent culminates in Holy Week, the week leading from Palm Sunday to Easter. Special prayer services during this week include:

Palm Sunday/Sunday of the Passion begins with the liturgy of the palms at the entrance sign and includes a celebratory procession reminiscent of Jesus’ entry procession into Jerusalem. The mood shifts radically with the reading of the passion narrative reminding us that there is no resurrection without crucifixion.

Eucharists on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday focus our attention on Jesus’ activities and teachings during the last week of his life.

On Maundy Thursday, we gather for a meal, remembering the last meal Jesus had with his disciples in which he washed their feet, the job of the lowest slave and charged them to serve one another. After we enjoy a meal together (sign up for meal here), which will also include Eucharist, we conclude with the stripping of the altar remembering that Jesus gave up everything, including being physically stripped of his garments as he was crucified. The prayer vigil begins immediately following and continues to noon on Good Friday (sign up the prayer vigil here).

Good Friday includes interactive stations of the cross for our younger members, a noon prayer liturgy, and a community stations of the cross, which begins at Grace Lutheran in downtown Concord at 3:30 PM and EFM-led stations of the cross at 7 PM at All Saints’. The stations of the cross are an ancient prayer form walking with Jesus through the events of his arrest and crucifixion. 

The Great Vigil of Easter (celebrated on the Saturday night preceding Easter Day) includes the kindling of the new paschal (“pascha” meaning passover as Jesus is understood to be the Passover Lamb) candle, readings of several stories of our salvation history, renewing our own baptism – as this was the time when the Church first set aside to welcome new members through baptism – and the celebration of the first Easter Eucharist. 

You are invited to participate in these beautiful prayer services intended to lead us to the Cross and ready us for the Resurrection.

Blessings,
Nancy+