Note from the Rector

Dear Friends,

One of the things I love most about being a part of a liturgical church is that we use a lectionary. A lectionary is a schedule of scripture readings for the year that generally corresponds to the various seasons of the church year (Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter, Ordinary Time).

In the Episcopal Church, we actually use several lectionaries for various reasons. You are most familiar with the Sunday Lectionary which follows a three-year cycle (Years A, B, & C). In year A, we read from Matthew's Gospel. In year B, we read from Mark's Gospel. And Luke's Gospel is read from in Year C. What about John? John gets sprinkled in throughout the year and is featured prominently during Holy Week. In theory, the lectionary is supposed to frame or form our life in Christian community.

Sometimes, however, the secular calendar overrides the church calendar and disrupts how we engage with Christian community. For example, next week is Holy Week - the most important week of the church year. Next week is also Spring Break for most of our local students.

The overlap of Holy Week and Spring Break is a vivid example of the tension that is held between the church calendar and the secular calendar. The church wants us to observe Holy Week while our secular culture wants us to observe Spring Break. What will we do? While observing both is possible, I imagine neither would be observed adequately.

While I'm not asking any of you to cancel your Spring Break plans, I am offering you an invitation to notice how often the secular calendar gets in the way of the church calendar. Some of us are in seasons of life when school calendars and sports calendars make up most of our calendars. And that often means the church calendar gets pushed to second place.

If this is your particular season of life, I hope you see Holy Week as an opportunity to be more intentional about your life of faith. If you are out of town, you might try to catch our services online. In addition to live streaming our Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday services, we will also live stream our Maundy Thursday (6pm) and Good Friday (12pm) services. Our Easter Vigil service (Saturday at 7pm) will not be live streamed. You might also consider attending an Episcopal Church close to your vacation spot.

This coming Friday at 5:30 p.m., members of the Cursillo community will offer Stations of the Cross for the entire Ascension community. So, if you are away on Spring Break next week, you'll have a chance this Friday to remember Jesus trial and execution before you return for Easter Sunday to celebrate resurrection.

At the end of the day, God will love the person who doesn't darken the door this Holy Week just as much as the person who comes to every service. If you need a little extra reminder that God loves you, Holy Week is as good a week as any to remember that unchangeable truth.

I hope to see you soon!

Faithfully,

Jack+