HOLY WEEK & EASTER

      Holy Week and Easter form the core of the Church’s year. At Saint George’s it is the most important week in our calendar and we have long striven to keep this week as best we can. It is a week that demands our attention and commitment as Christian people. In this week we come very close to the heart and centre of our faith: we commemorate the events surrounding the death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, and because we are members of his body, the Church, we ourselves are caught up in those events.

We are irresistibly drawn to this week because it holds the clue to why we are Christians at all. In it we are urged to reflect deeply on our Christian profession, and as God ushers in a new creation by the death and resurrection of his Son, so we are renewed in our discipleship and brought with Christ from death to new life.

      Palm Sunday and the Great Three Days of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday are the major days when the whole community assembles. On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of the week a simple Sung Eucharist is followed by an address to lead us into these sacred mysteries.

      The services of Holy Week are unlike anything else in the Church’s year and yet their form and content come from very early in the history of the Church. So as we take part in these liturgies of Holy Week, we are in touch with one of the earliest strands of our common history.

      But we are not just aimed at recreating either history or old liturgical routines: God redeems us and calls us into relationship with himself through Jesus, and our presence and participation in these services is tied up with our response to God’s self-giving love. That is why these services are important.