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From the Vicar...
Holy Week is not for the faint of heart
Holy Week is not for the faint of heart. Then again, the 6 o'clock news is not for the faint of heart, either. War, terrorism, violence, corruption, discrimination, inequality - such stories make up the soundtrack in our living room more evenings than not. The fact is, the world is not a safe place.
God knew that before the Word was made flesh. Jesus knew that before his flesh was subjected to violence and death. The world is not a safe place, but the Word was still made flesh and Jesus still taught the astonishingly good news of God's Kingdom because, thanks to him, the world is not a hopeless place. In fact, the world is a deeply loved and loveable place, and Holy Week invites us to confront the depth of both of these truths.
As Christians, we need to experience Holy Week in its fullness. By participating in Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, the Easter Vigil, and finally the Feast of the Resurrection on Sunday morning, we learn together that popularity is not all it seems, that service is a sign of strength, that empire will go to horrifying lengths to preserve itself, that innocent people are sometimes punished, and that good people sometimes suffer. We also learn that God loves the world anyway and that God's love is always stronger than hate and injustice.
We can't protect ourselves from the world of the 6 o'clock news. We can't even protect ourselves from our own fallible human hearts. But we can travel with Christ into the dark and dangerous places of today's world by means of our prayers and witness - just as God travels with all of us as we walk the Holy Week path. This is the journey of Holy Week, in which we emerge beyond the guilt and fear and pain in order to proclaim the victory of love, revealed on Easter but too often hidden from view in our daily lives.
The world is not a safe place, but it is a powerfully loved place. The liturgies of Holy Week give us a chance to not only hear but experience both of these truths so that we can live wisely, compassionately, and without fear.
Fr. Chip
Holy Week and Easter services
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At Trinity Church
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At Christ Church
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Palm Sunday
March 29
Note: no Saturday evening liturgy at Trinity Church on March 28
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8:45 a.m.
Palm Sunday Procession and Holy Eucharist at Trinity Church
Service begins in Hobbs Hall with the Blessing of the Palms
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10:30 a.m.
Palm Sunday Procession and Holy Eucharist at Christ Church
Service begins on front steps with the Blessing of the Palms
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Maundy Thursday
April 2
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7:00 p.m.
Holy Eucharist and Stripping of the Altar at Christ Church
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Good Friday
April 3
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7:00 p.m.
Good Friday Liturgy at Trinity Church
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Easter Even
April 4
Note: No Saturday evening liturgy at Trinity Church on April 4
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7:30 p.m.
Great Vigil of Easter at Christ Church
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Easter Morning
April 5
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8:45 a.m.
Festival Eucharist at Trinity Church
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10:30 a.m.
Festival Eucharist at Christ Church
Easter Egg hunt follows on church grounds
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Additional Holy Week notes
Maundy Thursday - Christ Church will host our liturgy, to be held at 7 p.m. The service ends with the solemn Stripping of the Altar and the procession of the reserved Sacrament to the Chapel for repose. The Chapel remains open after the service for any who wish to stay for prayer and meditation.
Ecumenical Good Friday Services - During the first of the three hours of Our Lord's suffering on the Cross, North Church, Market Square, Portsmouth, will host an ecumenical service of readings and meditations. Our Vicar is one of the clergy participants; lay participants are invited as well. Hampton will also have a service at noon that day, with First Congregational Church, 127 Winnacunnet Rd., serving as host.
The Good Friday Liturgy - Please join us at Trinity Church for our joint evening service, at 7:00 p.m. This moving liturgy recounts John's version of the Passion and includes the praying of the Solemn Collects of Good Friday and the Veneration of the Cross.
Good Friday Offering for the Holy Land - The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church, has shared a request for this year's Good Friday offering. In her letter to clergy, she explains the Church "has been in partnership with the Diocese of Jerusalem for a very long time. Since 1922, we have taken an offering in our churches on Good Friday to support the work of the gospel in the Land of the Holy One. That Land is still the place of deep division and conflict, more than 2000 years after the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. He and his earthly family suffered under threat of oppressive regimes, fled as refugees to another land, labored to supply their bodily needs in the face of dire economic realities, and he himself was executed as an enemy of the state. All of those realities are present today in the Anglican/Episcopal Province of Jerusalem and the Middle East."
To honor the Presiding Bishop's request, there will be an offering plate placed at the entrance to our Good Friday liturgy at Trinity Church on April 3. All loose gifts will go to the Good Friday Offering; if you are making your gift by check, please provide a memo, "Good Friday Offering," so our counters are clear as to your intentions.
The Great Vigil of Easter - Ringing in the Resurrection!
On Saturday evening, April 4, you are invited to bring a bell, small or large, to the 7:30 p.m. Easter Vigil service at Christ Church. We will gather in the darkness, light the New Fire of Easter, process the Paschal (Easter) Candle to the strains of the glorious chant, Exsultet, hear the marvelous stories of God's work in salvation history and then ring those bells at each mention of the word, "Alleluia!" as we celebrate the First Eucharist of Easter. This is a joint celebration, with music from our combined choir and participants from both congregations.
Easter Sunrise Service at North Beach -
This annual service near where Rt. 27 meets Ocean Blvd. in Hampton, will be held at 6:15 a.m. Easter morning. The Rev. Mark Lowe of Hampton's First Baptist Church is the preacher; Fr. Chip will be among the clergy participants.
Notes from the March Bishop's Committee meeting
The March meeting of our joint Bishop's Committee was held at Trinity Church on a blustery St. Patrick's Day evening. The meeting opened with a reflection on gratitude and the origins of the words, "thank you," by Wesley Rowe.
We then went into break-out sessions for the next segment of our meeting to discuss matters of concern only to each church individually:
Trinity Church - The next steps in our Hobbs House accessibility project were reviewed. Work on the stairs begin later this week; the lift itself will be installed after the Easter Bunny breakfast and Palm Sunday services to minimize disruptions to those events. Once the project is complete, doors and woodwork will be painted and the Hobbs Hall floor stripped and waxed.
Christ Church - Little Blessings director Diane Lewis provided an update on our Child Care ministry and presented the group with Little Blessings' budget for 2015 as approved by its Advisory Board. We learned that Chuck and Susan Ott are stepping down as Christ Church's representatives on that Board. We will appoint successor(s) by the Board's May meeting. We also learned that Christ Church's Clerk, Linda Seward, and her husband, Paul, are relocating to N.Y. State in May. Suzanne George was appointed to succeed her as Clerk.
Vicar Chip reviewed our follow-up efforts since February's Mutual Ministry Review. Open forums in each congregation will be held in April (see above article) and an all-congregation retreat held in early June.
In other business:
- We learned that our Fair Share adjustment requests have been approved. Christ Church's Fair Share will be $10,383, a reduction of approximately $2,500; Trinity's will be $10,692, a $5,000 reduction. It is anticipated Trinity will be completing payoff of its Diocesan Advance Fund loan in early 2016, so a smaller adjustment may be possible after that.
- Several events will occur in Hobbs Hall in May including a Jazz evening on May 2 and the rescheduled Celia Thaxter presentation on May 16.
- Members of both churches were urged to register for the diocese's Lay Leadership Institute to be held in Concord on Saturday, May 8.
Full minutes will be posted as they become available. The April meeting will be held at Trinity Church on April 21.
Mutual Ministry Review open forums
There will be an "Ask the Bishop's Committee" open forum after church on
- Sunday, Apr. 12 at Trinity and on
- Sunday, Apr. 19 at Christ Church
to introduce the work we are doing in response to our recent Mutual Ministry Review and answer questions/quell rumors. In Christ Church's case, there will also be some introduction to the upcoming Capital Campaign there. Be looking for a letter in your mailbox during Easter Week to introduce these forums, the issues being discussed, and to invite your participation.
We are still putting together plans for a joint "whole congregation" retreat facilitated by Canon Hannah Anderson to address the questions, concerns, celebrations, fears, and in some cases misconceptions the February questionnaire revealed. We are likely looking at a summer or early fall date. Stay tuned.
Calendar Raffle for our Shared Ministry
The calendars have been printed and are now available for sale! There are items worth approximately $1,500 in prizes and you can win up to 30 times for the month. Please be sure to buy a calendar from a church member and pick up additional copies to sell to your friends! You may also email the Shared Ministry Office to purchase a calendar at trinity55ad@gmail.com.
For anyone that donated gift cards or items to the calendar, please bring the items to church and give them to Fr. Chip or me so that they can be available.
Throughout the month of April, we will be publishing the winners of our daily Calendar fundraiser drawings. Cindy Robinson will draw a name at noon each day starting April 1 and the winner will be notified they've won - and how to retrieve their gift. All names go back in the basket - so each person has thirty chances to win. And no prize is worth less than $50! One reminder to our Calendar sellers: If you are selling to someone outside our congregations, put your name on the back of the ticket so we can convey the gift via you.
Tena Wolf
Our Shared Ministry Cycle of Prayer
Each week, in both of our churches, we pray for one ministry we share and one or two households in each church. About once every six weeks, we will instead using the Shared Ministry Collect we prayed throughout the opening months of our Shared Ministry.
In our prayers the next two weeks, we give God thanks for...
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Mar. 29
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Outreach Ministries of both congregations; Joanie Gagnon and Carol Gobar, both of Trinity Church; Gary Dozier of Christ Church
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Apr. 5
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We will use the concluding collect for our Shared Ministry
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Amare Cantare concert coming to Christ Church
Amare Cantare welcomes special guest artists Catherine York on piano and the Artful Noise String Quartet to accompany the choir for Mozart's Misericordias Domini and Fern Hill by John Corigliano, a lyrical setting of Dylan Thomas's poem about his pastoral childhood in Wales. The program also includes Samuel Barber's a cappella Reincarnations and Four Slovak Folk Songs by Béla Bartók, accompanied by Ms. York. A special feature of the concert will be Artful Noise's performance of Land of Pure Delight: Shaker Songs and Dances for String Quartet by New England's own Kevin Siegfried.
The concert at Christ Church will be on Wednesday April 1, at 7:30 p.m. General Admission: $15 at the door, $12 in advance. Seniors and Students: $12 at the door, $10 in advance. Advance tickets are available at: Baldface Books, Dover; Flower Kiosk, Portsmouth; Water Street Books, Exeter; Durham Book Exchange, Durham. For more information see www.amarecantare.org.
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