Holy Week & Easter

Dear Trinity Church and Friends, 

Grace and Peace and Lenten greetings. I hope this message finds you and yours well. 

As we now near Holy Week – that sacred turning from the spare devotions of Lent to the glorious promises of Resurrection at Easter – please find below descriptions of our worship and formation plans for the days ahead. 

With thanks to God for the pandemic’s loosening grip on our common life – as well as our Diocese’s new allowances to continue our track toward an unencumbered “regathering” – we look forward to announcing changes to our COVID-related worship and formation protocols, set to begin in Easter Week (April 18). Between now and then, please note that we will continue to require masks and offer Communion in one kind only (the bread) through Easter Sunday. These modest accommodations ensure that we can welcome as many as possible, as safely as possible, to our glorious space during this treasured time of year. 

In the same spirit, we will offer livestreams of our 9:45 am worship on Palm Sunday; 7 pm worship on Maundy Thursday; noon worship on Good Friday; and 10 am worship on Easter Sunday. We hope you will share near and far the link to these services, which promise to be beautiful and meaningful, both in-person and From-Home.

Looking forward to joining in prayer with you, 

The Rev. Morgan S. Allen 

Rector 

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Palm Sunday, April 10 

8 AM, 9:45 AM (Livestreamed), and 5 PM, Church

Liturgy of the Palms, Sunday of the Passion, & Holy Eucharist 

Recalling Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, we will gather on the West Porch before processing around Copley Square. The processions, led by Rambax MIT drummers, will return to the West Porch, where we will offer a concluding prayer before entering the church for the Sunday of the Passion readings and worship. 

 

11:15 AM, Church & Livestream

A Resurrection Beyond: Death & Grief 

Even if you have not yet attended our Lenten series, you will want to make plans for this Sunday’s 11:15 am session. Drawing on the crucifixion narrative in the Gospel of Mark and Jesus’ cry of despair from the cross – “My God! My God! Why did you abandon me!” – we will grapple questions of God’s will, suffering, grief, and theodicy, in conversation with the impossible anguish of Stephen King’s Creed family. Purposefully scheduled at the same time as Christian Formation for Children (downstairs, in the Forum) and Youth (down the street, at the 233 Clarendon Street Rectory), everyone will find a place to begin their Holy Week. 

 

 

Maundy Thursday, April 14 

 

7 PM, Church & Livstream

Footwashing, Reservation of the Sacrament, & Stripping of the Altar

Gathering at dusk, we will recall Jesus’ Last Supper with the disciples, when he washed their feet and commissioned them to continue gathering for the community meal “in remembrance of him.” Abiding Jesus’ mandatum – his “new commandment” that we love one another – we will wash one another’s feet, before celebrating the Eucharist for the final time until the Easter Vigil. We will “reserve” on the Baptistry altar all the consecrated bread remaining, and we will remove much of the adornment from the sanctuary and apse. This powerful evening of worship will conclude with our scattering in the dark from the emptied high altar. 

 

9 PM via Zoom & Church

Gethsemane Watch

Keeping watch on the night we remember Jesus’ arrest, all can covenant to pray for an hour during the night and early morning. The Watch will begin at 9 PM via Zoom and continue in person at 7 AM in the Baptistry, a setting before the consecrated Sacrament known as “the Altar of Repose.” The Watch will conclude at 11 AM on Good Friday. 

Sign-up for the Watch at this simple registration site.

 

Good Friday, April 15 

12 PM, Church & Livestream

Reading of the Passion, Devotions Before the Cross, Communion from the Reserved Sacrament 

Our Holy Week worship continues at noon, when we will pray the moving Good Friday liturgy our Book of Common Prayer commends. This hour-long service includes a reading of the Passion narrative from John’s Gospel, anthems sung as a lone acolyte bears the wooden cross into the church, and a spare Communion with the consecrated bread remaining from the night before. Once all the Sacrament has been consumed, we will extinguish the Sanctuary lamp – the light symbolizing the presence of Christ in the church. All may remain in the church and offer quiet prayer until 3 PM, the hour when we traditionally mark the moment of Jesus’ last breath. 

During our Good Friday prayers in the church, we invite children to gather in the Forum for the planting of “Easter Gardens,” promising glad chutes of green before Sunday’s arrival! 

 

5:30 PM, Church

Concert: Five Centuries of Music for Passiontide.  

In observance of Good Friday, the La Farge Ensemble (composed of a select group of singers from the Trinity Choirs) will perform a variety of choral music set to evoke the drama and emotion of the Passion of Christ. Featuring composers from 16th century Italy to 21st century Boston, this concert will provide a diverse look at this eternal moment. Purchase tickets here.

 

Holy Saturday, April 16 

5 PM – Lighting the New Paschal Fire, Easter Vigil, & Holy Eucharist 

Returning to the West Porch where our Holy Week began, we will light the first fire of Easter, declaring Jesus’ passage from death into life, and announcing our “Alleluia!” for the resurrected life we share with the risen Christ. With all members of the congregation bearing handheld candles, we will enter the darkened church and brighten that holy space while a cantor sings the Exsultet. Our prayers will continue with the Vigil liturgy, a series of reading-song-prayer segments echoing the format of Candlelight Carols, before we renew our baptismal vows and celebrate the first Eucharist of the Easter season. 

 

Easter Sunday, April 17 

8 AM, 10 AM (Livestreamed), 12 PM, Church

Flowering of the Cross & Festival Eucharist 

With the church bedecked in signs of new life, we will sing our “Alleluia!” accompanied by brass and timpani, organ and choir, at all services. On the West Porch, we invite all to share in the flowering of the same cross borne into the church on Good Friday. We welcome worshippers to bring a bloom or spray of green from their home windowsills, gardens, and lawns. As we gather indoors, a meaningful time of preludial music will welcome us to prayer, as we celebrate Eucharist and give thanks for the Hope we have received. 

 

Easter Monday, April 18

7pm, Via Zoom

Price Lecture: Trauma and Grace on the Emmaus Road 

A Visit with the Rev. Dr. Serene Jones, Dean of Union Theological Seminary

"As we try to make meaning in the aftermath of collectively experienced traumatic events, what should be the work of the church?" President Jones, author of Trauma + Grace and President of Union Theological Seminary in New York, originally posed that question in the aftermath of September 11, 2001. Considering the traumas our nation has experienced in the past two years - political, racial, epidemiological - her question proves newly and powerfully urgent. Join us for a visit with Dr. Jones on Easter Monday, as we walk the Emmaus Road narrative (Luke 24:14-33) we her and with one another.