Holy Week

Dear Beloveds,

We began this Lenten journey by burning palms and burying our Alleluias, knowing that the ashes smeared across our foreheads the next day would propel us even deeper into our confrontation with our mortality. If you ask us, we’ve done nothing but confront our mortality these past few years, and we have all felt stuck in Holy Saturday time—not quite Crucifixion and not quite Resurrection! And yet, this Holy Week, this Easter, might we be beckoned from an even deeper descent into death into a more glorious and intimate experience with the Risen Christ? Might our belief that death does not get the last word call us to expanded hearts in new ways? Might we wholeheartedly proclaim our allegiance to the God who through the resurrection of Jesus declares that Love has the last word? 

As we look toward this blessed HOLY WEEK, we invite you to try new services and forge new relationships. Many people who walk into the doors on Sunday are visiting and wondering if St. Paul’s can be a safe place of welcome and resurrection. Will you show up to each service with your eyes searching for eyes that look lost, look uncertain, look hopeful or look scared, and reach out? Will you show up to services not just for what you can take away from them, but for what you can offer to those weary souls who have come to rest and wonder if the message of Jesus is for them? 

However you enter this most Holy Week, you are invited to make the journey to the cross and to the empty tomb with your full self. Every part of you is invited to the shouts of “Hosanna!” then “Crucify him!” You are invited to Walk the Stations of the Cross and then to join us for the Last Supper on Maundy Thursday. Sign up for an hour to Stay Up and Pray with Jesus at the Altar of Repose. Come to the haunting emptiness of the Good Friday service. Sit with Mother Mary on Saturday morning. Don’t miss out on THE service of the season: The Great Easter Vigil Saturday at 8PM! It’s a service of darkness and light, story and song, and God’s Great Love that Made the World and Conquered Death. Candles and incense and a reminder of who we are and Whose we are is a stunning way into the life of Resurrection. And if you haven’t had enough, join us at one of the three services Easter morning. 

We look forward to this Holiest of Weeks with you. 

May you know you are not alone. You are loved. And out of God’s Infinite Love, God Made YOU. May the Passion of our Lord deepen your faith.

God’s Peace,

The Rev. Jessie Thompson & The Rev. Dan Kline, Co-Rectors