Weekly Email – Palm Sunday and Holy Week | All Saints Margaret Street All Saints Margaret Street | Weekly Email – Palm Sunday and Holy Week

Weekly Email – Palm Sunday and Holy Week

Friday 8 April 2022 at 13:45

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Dear friends,

What do we mean when we say that Holy Week is about the commemoration of the death and resurrection of Christ?

In the liturgies of Holy Week are we simply re-enacting the final days in Christ’s life?

In the secular world, there are many people who devote their lives to re-enacting historical events or dressing up as well known figures and celebrities. The Sealed Knot, for example, is an organisation which re-enacts Civil War battles. Its members dress up as Cavaliers and Roundheads, and charge at each other in country fields, imagining they were present at some crucial battle in the 17th century.

But our commemoration of the Lord’s entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday is about something different from the kind of thing the Sealed Knot get up to. It is not just about us imagining we were there, or mimicking the events described to us in the gospels. Liturgical commemoration is very different from secular re-enactment.

As we commemorate something liturgically, we enter into a place where God can use the movement, music, words, and drama of the liturgy to draw us into the saving mystery we celebrate. It’s not about us merely imagining, creating, or fabricating a memory. Rather, it is about placing ourselves in Christ’s presence and allowing him to touch and move and change us as we are drawn more deeply into his life.

Secular re-enactment is about casting our minds back to an event in past time, which is external to us. Liturgical commemoration, by contrast, is about being drawn into a reality that is not separate from us, but which we discover lies at the heart of our being in Christ, and gives our whole life meaning.

Secular re-enactment revolves around an understanding of time that is linear. It is about looking back chronologically and trying to create that experience in the present through historical imitation. During the celebration of Holy Week, however, linear time gives way to liturgical time.

By this I mean that as we focus on the entry into Jerusalem, we do so in the light of the Resurrection. We are not simply recounting an interesting story with a quirky ending. Rather, we are celebrating the fact that the whole of human existence only makes sense when seen through the lens of Christ’s Resurrection. We celebrate Christ’s betrayal and death knowing he is already risen, and that we are part of him.

At the end of an Elvis Presley impersonators’ convention, all the participants take off their outfits and go home, back to being who they were before. That is the very nature of secular re-enactment. But this is the opposite of what happens in the celebration of Holy Week and in our liturgical anamnesis of the Lord. Through the Week we are about to celebrate, we emerge different, transformed, and fundamentally changed in a way that cannot to be laid aside or dropped as we enter back into the secular spheres in which we must work and live.

Christ calls us through our corporate celebration of the Mystery of the Passion to be changed, to encounter him, and to have our limited understanding of human existence to be blown open by his love once more.

Fr Peter

 

It was a great privilege to have Sister Gemma Simmonds with us last week as our guest preacher. Here she is with a group from the St Anselm Community at Lambeth Palace, which came to hear her preach. Listen to her excellent sermon again here.

Lent Lecture – TONIGHT!

Join us in person tonight (8th April) at 7.00 pm for our Lent Lecture at All Saints’ which will be focussed on the life and thought of St Augustine of Hippo. It promises to be a remarkably interesting evening and has a first-rate speaker, Fr Dominic Keech, Vicar of St Nicholas’, Brighton.

His lecture will be entitled, “The Infinite Vision: Augustine and the formation of the Western mind.” The evening will be an introduction to the life and thought of the great fourth century North African theologian, exploring his influence on Western Christianity’s understanding of the human person in time and eternity, and probing his continuing presence in contemporary crises of self and society.

Fr Dominic is an accomplished Augustinian scholar and has published an excellent monograph entitled, “The Anti-Pelagian Christology of Augustine of Hippo,” in which he examines Augustine’s reading of Origen’s assertions about who Christ is.

The evening will aim to be as approachable and inclusive as possible, and be an exciting opportunity to learn about St Augustine for beginners and aficionados alike.

 

Our beautiful church entered the season of Passiontide last Sunday when images were veiled, the liturgy becomes even more sombre, and our hearts are drawn to focus on Christ and his coming death.

All Saints’ Lent Appeal 2022

In the light of exceptional events in Ukraine, all our fund-raising will be devoted this Lent to helping refugees fleeing from the conflict.

The outward giving committee and PCC have, therefore, agreed that all our Lent Appeal money this year should be donated to the joint USPG/Diocese in Europe appeal for the people of Ukraine. Read more about that appeal here.

Parishioners of All Saints’ can now know that every penny they donate to our Lent Appeal will now go to help those involved in the conflict in Ukraine and will support refugees fleeing from the fighting.

The appeal closes on Sunday 1st May.

How to Donate
Please give generously online via our parish website and following the link to the donation page. Or you can send a cheque to the Parish Office, made payable to: “Parochial Church All Saints (Lent Appeal)”. If you qualify for Gift Aid, please write ‘Gift Aid’ on the back of the cheque.

Lent boxes will not be issued this year.

 

Footage of a number of liturgical celebrations from last Sunday is available on our YouTube channel: the High Mass is available here; and Evensong and Benediction is available here. Our choir sang Allegri’s Miserere as the anthem at Evensong, which is well worth listening to.

Ecumenical Service for Ukraine

We are warmly invited to a special ecumenical service praying for Ukraine at the Ukrainian Catholic Cathedral in Duke Street on Monday 11th April (Holy Monday). The service begins at 12 noon.

 

Confession times in Holy Week

Two priests will be available each evening to hear confessions in Holy Week on Holy Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, from 5.00 pm-6.00 pm.

 

Holy Week and Easter Liturgies

Please note that, there will be no 12 noon Mass on Holy Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, and that we will gather for one celebration of the Mass each evening at 6.15 pm.

In a small change to what has previously been advertised, Bishop Rowan will not be preaching for us on Holy Tuesday evening, as he now needs to be away. He will, however, continue to offer the homily at all other Holy Week liturgies as planned.

Palm Sunday 10th April 2022
11.00 am High Mass with sermon
N.B. Meet at 11.00 am in Oxford Market for the procession of palms.

Holy Monday 11th April 2022
5.00 pm Confessions
6.15 pm Low Mass with homily

Holy Tuesday 12th April 2022
5.00 pm Confessions
6.15 pm Low Mass

Holy Wednesday 13th April 2022
5.00 pm Confessions
6.15 pm Low Mass with homily
7.30 pm Tenebrae

Maundy Thursday 14th April 2022
6.00 pm High Mass with sermon, followed by watch at altar of repose until midnight

Good Friday 15th April 2022
3.00 pm Solemn Liturgy with sermon
7.30 pm Stations of the Cross (Maria Desolata)

Holy Saturday 16th April 2022
9.00 pm Easter Vigil with baptisms, confirmations and sermon.

Easter Day 17th April 2022
11.00 am High Mass with sermon
5.15 pm Mass
6.00 pm Evensong and Benediction

 

Chrism Mass

You are warmly invited by the Bishop of Fulham to attend the Chrism Mass which he will celebrate on Holy Tuesday (12th April) at 11.00 am at St Andrew’s, Holborn.

This is the celebration each year at which the oils to be used in this parish for the celebration of the sacraments over the next twelve months are blessed.

It is also the occasion on which Bishop Jonathan’s priests renew their ordination vows and pledge themselves afresh to the service of the People of God.

 

Maundy Thursday Watch

We urgently need donations towards the cost flowers for the garden of repose. The flowers used for the garden of repose on Maundy Thursday are then used to decorate the church for Easter Day. Please be in touch with Fr Peter or Shawn if you would like to contribute.

A list has been placed at the back of church for people to sign up for slots to watch at the altar of repose on Maundy Thursday. Please sign up for a period of prayer before the Blessed Sacrament on this holy night so that the Lord’s sacramental presence is attended the whole time

 

Walsingham Devotion

Tomorrow our monthly Walsingham Devotion, in the form of the Rosary with intercessions, will be offered at 1130 before the noon Mass.

 

Links for Sunday

The link for the Propers for Palm Sunday is at the end of this email. Click here for the YouTube live stream.

Evensong and Benediction is at 6pm. The music includes Ouseley O Saviour of the World, and Rachmaninov Canticles and Benediction hymns. Click here for the YouTube live stream.

 

Flowers

We are looking for volunteers to help with the flowers in church. If you have a particular talent for flower arranging and would like to help from time to time or on a regular basis, please contact Shawn on 07988 287 663 or shawnwilbe@outlook.com

If you would like to make a donation for flowers, please contact Shawn or speak to Chris Self.

 

Prayer list

Prisoners and captives

Ismaeil Maghrebinejad, Nasrin Sotoudeh, Maira Shabhaz
Rohingya Christians in Pakistan, Karen Christians in Burma, Tigrayan Christians in Ethiopia.

The sick

Fr Harry Hodgetts, Elizabeth Lyon, James Shrimpton, David Robin, Martin Berka, Gloria Fleming, Sister Benedicta SLG.

Those known to us recently departed

Hugh Wilcox, Pr, Simeon Sanders, Robert McEwin, Pr.

Anniversaries of death

10th – Thomas Senior Pr, Brian Phillips
11th – Maud Woodin, Mildred Banyard, Roy Sutherland
12th – Edith Wood, Norman Peryer, Eric Yates
13th – John Rogers, Dennis Burke, Justin Kelly
14th – David Evans, Stephen Woolley, Friederica Swinburne
15th – Rose Lethbridge, Christopher Dean, Julian Tan
16th – Evelyn Cowie, Mary Gotts, Geoffrey Heald Pr, Marilyn Goggin, Ian Miller

 

 Supporting All Saints

Parish Giving Scheme

You can set up a regular donation to All Saints here.

We use the Parish Giving Scheme, which allows contributions to be anonymous and deals with GiftAid, saving our office a lot of time. You can read about how the scheme works here.

 

Donations for general church purposes

To give by BACS please use the following details, advising the Administrator to collect Gift Aid:

PCC All Saints (Charity no. 1132895)
Sort Code 60-09-15
A/C 04559452

 

Parish Legacy Policy

We are always delighted to hear from anyone who wants to support us with a donation. Our PCC Legacy Policy encourages people to leave bequests specifically to one of our two related charities to be used for purposes of lasting value (rather than day to day costs):

All Saints Choir & Music Trust (Charity # 802994)

or The All Saints Foundation (Charity # 273390).