What a busy day yesterday! Well I guess it all began on Saturday morning rather than yesterday. Saturday was the Saturday of Lazarus and we had an all too rare Saturday morning Liturgy. After this Liturgy a cleaning of the church, bulletin preparation, homily finishing, newsletter stuffing, and then vespers and confessions. After all of that, the ladies were in the church kitchen preparing for our meal after Palm Sunday Liturgy. A little shut eye and ready for Sunday.
Sunday mornings always begin early for me. I usually rise about 6am and begin the day by looking over the Scripture passages again for the morning liturgy. Here in our little church we celebrate the service of Orthros at 9am. This is a great service that sets the mood for the day. Liturgy at 10am with the blessing of palms. I do this at the beginning of the liturgy and I was surprised at how many people were not there for the blessing, although liturgy always starts at 10! I guess we are still getting used to the time change… LOL
The church looked great, sorry I forgot to take pictures! Palm branches were all over and this year I used the Palm fans for decorations, man did they look good. The opened up over night and were about three feet across I was so shocked when I entered the church in the morning.
After liturgy off to the hall for a little simple meal as a community to begin Holy Week. It is nice to be able to sit and have some food with the folks here and get caught up on all of there comings and goings. We had some new faces in the crowd today and rumor has it they were brought to the church because they found these humble pages. That took me back a little to think that someone came to the church because of something I wrote here. Hmmmm that still needs some thought. The meal was simple tuna casserole prepared by the ladies and served buffet style. Most everyone came to the hall after liturgy. We had some food left over so I jumped in the truck and took it to my guys at the Fire House. They are always so appreciative of free food, as I am!
Back to the church to begin the transformation from Palm Sunday to Holy Week. The first liturgical celebration was last night with Bridegroom Matins. Actually this service is for the morning but we seem to mix things up a little during Holy Week and we do our service in “anticipation” of the next day. Thankfully we have one book for the entire week so no more shifting around looking for things. Last year we purchased several copies so the people can follow along. Fr. Greg has a great post on this little book, commonly know as the quarter pounder because of its size. I think these first few days of Holy Week are my favorite. I am not sure why, maybe because they are the lest complex services and the cantor has to do all the work, but I think it goes deeper than that. Look for more posts on this subject latter on.
Well blessed Holy Week to all and if you are in the neighborhood stop by for a service. I posted the Schedule earlier so scroll on down to see.
