A community reshaping itself to be fit for God's purpose.
Thursday, April 2, 2020
Reflections on the eve of another
Holy Week
I’m feeling the grief of the moment. It’s personal. I miss seeing people, miss hugging them and joking with them. I miss the proximity of other bodies and the experience of being part of a group, a crowd, a throng, a congregation in worship.

It’s also communal – this feeling of grief and sorrow. We mourn the familiar patterns of relating and relationship; patterns either now forbidden or seriously hampered by restrictions on travel and association. Our personal sorrow is of waking up in a world where we could pose a danger to one another – a fear that is compounded and magnified 10x 100x 1000x over, and over, and over. I’m feeling it very personally, and I’m hearing that you are feeling it also - as many of you share with me by phone or some form of virtual face to face encounter your bewilderment, confusion, fear, and sense of what is currently lost.

I'm a liturgical being – so no surprise I'm an Episcopal priest. What I mean by a liturgical being is that I am one for whom the steady drumbeat – the heartbeat – the pulse energy of our wonderful worship together fills the space within which we ache for connection. Words, no matter how meaningful, music no matter how beautiful, for me both find their most intense expression through the heartbeat of worship – that wonderful melding together of word and action, intimation of the ineffable alongside a sense of the tangibly physical.

Each year I approach Easter with a real sense of the journey required to reach there; a journey through the waystations of the Holy Week services. Palm Sunday with its themes of clash of empire (God and the world); with its joyous, if not impossible, raising of high expectation among the crowds before the dashing of their hope. Maundy Thursday – eat this bread – it is my body. Drink this wine - it is my blood about to be broken and shed for you. We, who must become commanded to love one another - for only by love will the world know we are HIS disciples. Good Friday - talk about solemn drumbeat of the liturgy as the service opens in silence – a silence broken only by the percussive sound of the nails being hammered into the cross – bang, bang, bang, bang! Good Friday - that ends with the sharing of the bread broken and wine outpoured – bringing to completion the drama begun on the evening before and enacted through the long and lonely stretches of the Gethsemane night watch.

This year, because of the ravaging of our world by the C oronavirus, we are having to find new and, at first sight, seemingly less than satisfying ways of accompanying one another on the journey through Holy Week - moving towards the discovery of Easter. That awful phrase social distancing requires us to construct liturgy adapted to the vastness of the cyberspace, where musician, technician, and clergy toil together to facilitate worship that can connect us up into a community. This work has been by turns challenging and exciting, and also exhausting and so much more time consuming than live liturgies ever were.

Our journey to Easter feels understandably different this year, yet it’s a journey we more intensely long to make. It’s paradoxical that as our fear of the Coronavirus threatens to isolate us from one another, our longing for connection is every day, redefined in a new light. The discovery of Easter is that we are designed to triumph through adversity because we are made in the image of a God who in Christ revealed to us that life is stronger than death; love is stronger than hate.

John Donne, poet and priest, 1631, whom we remembered this past Wednesday cannot be equaled in these words: Any [man’s] death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. And therefore never send [ask] to know for whom the bell tolls: It tolls for thee.
 
This Holy Week and Easter journey carries a very special discovery - enforced physical separation is actually rekindling and strengthening our drive towards communal and social solidarity.

Blessings for the journey!
Mark+
Holy Week & Easter

Please view our Holy Week and Easter trailer here:

Sunday
Palm Sunday Liturgy of the Palms and Ministry of the Word
p  re-recorded and webcast for Sunday Morning in time for 9:30 am

Tuesday - Thursday
Morning Prayer - 9 am
will be said in the chapel and zoomed - click here
Compline (Night Office)
From SSJE -click here

Maundy Thursday
Service of Agape Table Fellowship*
Video pre-recorded and webcast for 7 pm

Good Friday
Solemn Liturgy - pre-recorded and webcast for 7 pm

Easter Day
Please go to the live webcast from the National Cathedral - a proclamation of the raising of Jesus Christ from the dead through word and song.

*Agape Table Fellowship is not a Eucharist. The Eucharist cannot be celebrated without people being present. Instead, this is an ancient service where bread and wine are blessed and shared but remain unconsecrated, i.e. do not become the body and blood of Christ. We invite you to a virtual participation in this service by having bread and a glass of wine ready at home.

A Message from the Senior Warden
Our work, our outreach, our faith must overcome the world!

To help us overcome I have a simple ask: just keep doing what you’ve been doing to support St. Martin’s. If you give electronically, push that button. If you put a check or an envelope in the plate, take a minute to put it in an envelope and send it to St. Martin’s or contact your bank about setting up an electronic check payment. You can also use the paypal button on the website. If you put cash in the plate, put in in a jar labeled to support your Christian Community. Bring it or send it when you can.

I’m not asking you to do more than what you’ve already told us you can do. We have a balanced budget. If your support continues at our current level, we can, and we will maintain and even grow our mission - and thank you!

Many of you may be wondering about how the economic woes will impact the capital campaign plans. Rest assured that our planning proceeds with a strong planning team chaired by Mary Gray now in place. Discussion is taking place about necessary changes to our timeline and we will communicate these after Easter.

David
St. Martin’s Hands:
A Pastoral and Practical Ministry in a time of Pandemic

St. Martin’s Hands is a newly formed ministry with both a pastoral and practical approach to strengthening our parish community as we journey together. During this season of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is even more important that we stay connected to each other. St. Martin’s Hands provides compassionate presence for parishioners through phone calls, letter writing, and prayer, and also works to address the more mundane needs of any parishioner in need of practical assistance during this time of social distancing.
Please consider bringing your time and talent to support this new ministry, or if you feel you would benefit from the services of St. Martin’s Hands, we want to hear from you! For details, please reach out via email, phone call or text to Linda Griggs, Cathy Bodner at 401-272-6610, or Elizabeth Welshman at 401-688-7037.
Healing Prayers
Even though we are not able to meet together at church, it doesn't mean we need to be secluded from one another. The Healing Prayers team is committed to continuing in ministry to those of you who would like prayers at this time.
Healing Prayers, a tradition during our church services, will be offered for the week of April 5 through April 11 by Martin Flaherty . He can be reached by phone at 212-838-7644 or by email. May you know the fullness of God’s healing love.
Weekly Prayer List

  • Those with the virus or in quarantine

  • Those affected by the economic fallout from the virus

  • Those who have birthdays this week: Patrick Gobeille, Sheila Hoogeboom, Autumn Jencks, Heather Annis, John Ditson, Arthur Chute, Penny Dennehy

  • Those commended to us: Largie Richardson (aunt of Arline Walker) who died on March 27. We also pray for Gail, Pauline, Angela, Eidan, Melissa, Chris, Donna, Jeremiah, Scarlett, Lisa, Joe,Virginia, Don, Justin, Eliza, Don, Mimi, Lisa, Annette, Douglas, Jean, Carla, Carol, Isabel, Jerry, Jackson, Patrick, Oliver, Pam, Theresa, Paula, Shirley, David, Ursula, Michael, Sam, Sheila, Morgan, Murielle, Charlie, Truls, Jill, Christine, Katie, Beth, Linda, Adam, Cheryl, Tom, Chris, Martha, Jean, Timmons, Isabel, Alicja, Neal, Patrick, Jennifer, Cynthia, Mark, Robin, Lora, Mariette, Isabella, Justa, Sarah, Harry, Ada, Denny, Marvin, Cathie, and Geoff.
St. Martin's Church | 50 Orchard Ave | Providence, RI |02906
(401) 751-2141