A Journey through Holy Week

Tonight I shall be going to our Easter Saturday Eve vigil, with a Service of Light and Eucharist, remembering the night our Lord Jesus Christ passed over from death to life. After some readings we will light the Easter or Paschal Candle from a fire which will be lit outside the church. We will then have our hand candles lit from the Paschal  Candle before singing Gloria in Excelsis and the Easter Acclamation.

He is Risen Indeed, Alleluia, Alleluia!

 This morning our church was a buzz of activity as many of us were there to put the sanctuary all together again following the stripping of the altar and sanctuary on the evening of Maundy Thursday. This is a time of spring cleaning for the sanctuary, before we bring out clean altar cloths, brand new altar candles and we deck absolutely everything we can with beautiful flower arrangements ready for our festival Eucharist on Easter Day. More about that next week.

This will be the climax of our Journey through a busy and reflective Holy Week, that has included a Service of Wholeness and Healing,  a Taize service, (already written about in a previous post), a Meditation on the 15 Stations of the Cross, the Maundy Thursday Liturgy of the Day and Gospel of the Watch, the most solemn Good Friday liturgy of the Day in a stripped out sanctuary, and then tonight's service.


The photos show various arrangements of candles, flowers, stones, nails, all creatively dreamed up by our priest to aid our meditations and worship throughout the week.

© Eleanor Stoneham 2011