All: Hosanna to the Son of David Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
Minister:
Behold your king comes to you, O Zion, meek and lowly, sitting upon an ass. Ride on in the cause of truth and for the sake of justice. Your throne is the throne of God, it endures for ever; and the sceptre of your kingdom is a righteous sceptre. You have loved righteousness and hated evil. Therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your fellows.
St. Mary the Virgin Anglican Church. Palm Sunday, April 5, 2020, Beth Christianson
Well, I think this may go on record as the strangest Palm Sunday I have ever passed in my life in the Church. Last year at this time, we were parading in St. Mary’s with palm branches, palm crosses, and banners. We sang, we lit candles. When I think back, my imagination conjures up sound and motion and color. Today, I am thinking of each of you in your homes, with your loved ones. I hope that you are singing together, and that you found something to stand in for palm branches!
One of the ancient spiritual writers of the Church, St. Dionysius, wrote about the three liturgies that take place. The first is the liturgy that takes place before the altar in heaven, as described for us in Chapters 4, 5. 7 and 8 of the Book of Revelation. The second is the liturgy is that which takes place on earth, which we celebrate before the altar St. Mary’s. (see photo above). And third liturgy is the one that takes place in altar of our heart.
The purpose of the liturgy that takes place on the earth is to unite the liturgy in heaven with our heart. And so it is that in the Holy Communion we pray,
Lift up your hearts!” “We lift them up unto the Lord! Let us give thanks to the Lord! “It is meet and right so to do! Therefore with angels and archangels an all the company of heaven, we laud and magnify thy glorious Name, evermore praising thee and saying, Holy, Holy, Holy…
Our purpose in the liturgy at the altar at St. Mary’s on Sunday morning, is that that we should “at all times and in all places give thanks unto thee, O Lord, Holy Father, Almighty, Everlasting God, Creator and Preserver of all things”( BCP p. 78) in a ceaseless offering of our lives in thanksgiving and praise to God.
But what are we to do in this time when our liturgy before the altar at St. Mary’s has been silenced?
This is where we need to undertake the difficult work of entering more deeply within our own hearts, to find and serve at the altar of our hearts, and to find the Lord there.
Now that Holy Week is upon us, “ Let us dust off the altar of our heart, place the Gospel back in the centre, take what is given to us in this life( both good and bad) and offer it to God in thanksgiving ( Eucharist). When we do so, we will find that we will receive Christ Himself in return, and every encounter with Christ is Pascha, a passing over from death to life.” ( Abbot Sergius Bowyer)
In support of this collective spiritual effort of ours at St. Mary’s this week, I am attaching a table of lessons and psalms for Holy Week from The Book of Common Prayer, which will serve as our spiritual guide.
I have also attached an Evening Service for Light and Peace for parents to celebrate with their children, in conjunction with the video of the service which was taped at St. Mary’s yesterday afternoon, and can be found here: https://youtu.be/jLIp8gK9xwA
In addition you can also expect to receive by e-mail the following Holy Week services for you to celebrate in the safety of your home, and in spiritual communion with your family at St. Mary’s:
Palm Sunday: Liturgy of the Palms and Morning prayer with Hymns and Sermon ( Beth Christianson preaching)
Maundy Thursday: Evening Prayer with Hymns and sermon ( Gene Packwood preaching)
Good Friday: Celebration of the Lord’s Passion with Hymns and sermon ( Nathaniel Deng Mayen preaching)
Easter Sunday: Morning Prayer with Hymns and Sermon (Claude Schroeder preaching)
These services will also be posted on our web-site.
Families will also receive “Stations of the Cross” Service which may be used at home, or as part of a prayer walk on Good Friday.
Finally, sanitized palm crosses are available for you to pick up at 15 th Avenue entrance of St. Mary’s today and tomorrow as you make your way home perhaps from a trip to the grocery store.
Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lift up ye everlasting doors, and the King of Glory shall come in
Who is the King of Glory? It is the Lord strong and mighty, even the Lord mighty in battle.
Psalm 24. 7,8
With every prayer for a rich and blessed Holy Week,
Now I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seven seals, and I heard one of the four living creatures say, as with a voice of thunder, “Come!”2 And I saw, and behold, a white horse, and its rider had a bow; and a crown was given to him, and he went out conquering and to conquer.3 When he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come!”4 And out came another horse, bright red; its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that men should slay one another; and he was given a great sword.5 When he opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, “Come!” And I saw, and behold, a black horse, and its rider had a balance in his hand;6 and I heard what seemed to be a voice in the midst of the four living creatures saying, “A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius; but do not harm oil and wine!”7 When he opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say, “Come!”8 And I saw, and behold, a pale horse, and its rider’s name was Death, and Hades followed him; and they were given power over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword and with famine and with pestilence and by wild beasts of the earth. (Revelation 6. 1-8).
St. Mary the Virgin Anglican Church, Canon Claude Schroeder (John 11. 1-45)
Today we have come to the Fifth and final Sunday in the season of Lent, and the story of the Raising of Lazarus from the dead. This is the fourth in a series of encounters from St. John’s Gospel this Lent, where Jesus has been demonstrating His power to heal, save, and deliver us from all the powers of evil which threaten and destroy human life and God’s good creation.
Let me encourage you to create a beautiful space in your home, and at 10.30 to sing, read and pray through the service as you are able. Hopefully you will have someone with whom to share the various roles.
I will be in my accustomed place tomorrow morning, and will joining with all of you in worship and prayer.
So today we are continuing our Lenten sermon series, “Becoming the Story We Tell” where, in the Gospel lessons from St. John, we are exploring the meaning of Baptism, our “birth from above by water and the Spirit.” (John 3.5)
St. Paul, speaking of Holy Baptism, wrote, “For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his.”( Romans 6.5). Baptism is union with Jesus in His death. What was the death of Jesus? The death of Jesus Christ on the Cross was a death to sin. It was a death in which He entrusted Himself to God in love and obedience. It was a death unto life with God, and by that death He has defeated the power of death on our behalf, and was raised bodily to life again.
Some of you will perhaps recognize the figure of the man in civilian dress standing to the right of centre of a group of uniformed British Army chaplains. It is C.S. Lewis, celebrated author of children’s stories, and most celebrated Anglican lay theologian of the 20th century.
In a lecture he gave to his students at Oxford University during World War II, Lewis said, “The war creates no absolutely new situation, it simply aggravates the permanent human situation so that we can no longer ignore it. Human life has always been lived on the edge of a precipice. Human culture has always had to exist under the shadow of something infinitely more important than itself. If men has postponed the search for knowledge and beauty until they were secure, the search would never have begun. We are mistaken when we compare thewar with “normal life.” Life has never been normal.”
Replace “the war” with “the corona-virus” and you have some sobering words for us to take to heart in the midst of what we regard as an abnormal situation and our longing for and our wondering how long before things return to normal…As far as our calling as Christians is concerned, nothing has changed. We must go about our business.
“My heart says of you, “Seek his face!” Your face, Lord, I will seek. (Psalm 27:9.)
On a practical front, please note the following:
Public services of worship at St. Mary’s have been suspended until further notice.
A phoning committee has been struck and will be contacting you to touch base either today or tomorrow.
I have prepared an order of service for Morning Prayer with Sermon which I will be sending out tomorrow. I encourage you all to create a beautiful space and read and pray through the service at home, knowing that though “spacially-distanced” from another, we have communion with Christ and with one another through His Word and Holy Spirit.
Pending the resolution of some technical issues, I may be able “live stream” the service on the St. Mary’s U-Tube channel on Sunday morning.
I will be checking messages on the office answering machine at 306-522-6052 daily. Please call me at home for emergencies.
… As a matter of extreme caution, and after consultation with the diocesan executive committee and Saskatchewan bishops, I suspend, with immediate effect, all regular church services, study groups, fundraising events, and other social gatherings in the Anglican churches of the diocese of Qu’Appelle…
