Lent, Holy Week & Easter
Lent, Holy Week & Easter
St. Faith’s, Burwood, 2018
From the Vicar:
This booklet is an overview of Lent, Holy Week and Easter in the parish, put together to help all of us make the most of this time.
You will find an outline of all the special services, as well as options for group studies and personal reflections. I’ve tried to collate a variety of possibilities; nobody will do them all, but I hope that this way there is something for everybody.
The forms of the special services for this season have evolved over the centuries, and are not necessarily the same from parish to parish or indeed, year to year. This year the Good Friday service, in particular, will feel a little different at St. Faith’s; there will be no communion at that service, and the gospel account of Jesus’ passion and death will be sung. I encourage you to enter into each service open to what it might bring you.
These seasons and their observances speak to the deepest parts of the heart, and the biggest questions of what it is to be human. Life and death, good and evil, hope and despair… all these and more, are explored through the liturgies, the Scripture texts and the times of private prayer and devotion that we take on. The invitation to us is to reflect on our own lives in light of this material, and to seek opportunities for God to be at work in us.
It is quite possible that as we make this journey together you will find that things are stirred within you, about which you would like to talk to someone; this can be a good thing, even a sign of spiritual growth; even so, please be assured that I am always willing to make time for such conversations, or help you find the right person for you.
Lent is also a penitential time; a time to focus on letting go of our sin and turning to God. If anyone would like to do so in a personal yet formal way, using the rite of reconciliation of a penitent (commonly called confession), that possibility is also always available on request.
Special Services:
13th February, 7pm: Shrove Tuesday. Evening prayer and pancakes.14th February, 10am and 7pm: Ash Wednesday. Eucharist with
imposition of ashes.
25th March, 8am and 10am: / Palm Sunday. Eucharist with
palms and procession.
26th & 27th March, 7pm: / Eucharists in Holy Week
28th March, 7pm: / Tenebrae. A service of readings
and reflection.
29th March, 7pm: / Liturgy for Maundy Thursday.
30th March, 9am: / Good Friday. The passion and
death of our Lord.
30th March, noon: / Three hours’ devotion.
1st April, 6am: / Great vigil of Easter.
1st April, 10am: / Eucharist with renewal of
baptismal promises.
15th April, 10am: / Third Sunday of Easter.
Confirmation service with +Paul
Barker presiding and preaching.
Study & Reflection:
Ecumenical Lenten studies, “Blessed and Broken.”
Tuesday nights beginning 20th February, 7:30pm, St. Scholastica’s Catholic Church;
Wednesday mornings beginning 21st February, 10:30am, Hartwell Church of Christ. (Cost of booklet is $10).
Common Grace’s material (videos, Bible readings and prayer suggestions), emailed throughout Lent, on the theme of “Journey Through the Beautitudes.” Sign up by email here:
Jumbunna Lenten talks, given by +Paul Barker. “The Upper
Room: John’s Gospel 14-16.”
Sundays at 6pm, February 25th, March 4th, 11th, 18th, 25th, at St.
Paul’s, Frankston;
Wednesdays at 8pm, February 28th, March 14th, 21st, 28th, at St. Philip’s, Mt. Waverley.
Eastertide study series: “Exploring the Liturgy.”
Sundays after the 10am service, April 8th, (NB: not the 15th), 22nd, 29th, May 6th and 13th.
How do we understand what happens when we worship? What does it mean to participate? What do we offer God, and what does God offer us? What is the place of Scripture in public worship, and how do we receive what we hear and read?
All of these questions and more will be explored, as we seek to grow and get the most out of our time in worship.
Thelocum in March (5-18)will be the Rev’d. Dr. Ross Fishburn, Academic Dean of Yarra Theological Union.
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