| The Parish Church of St James |  |
| St. James's Road, Hampton Hill, TW12 1DQ (Parish Office 020 8941 6003) | |
| WORSHIP/SERVICES | |
| Section Contents: Services
| Christian Year and other Special Days | Rites
of Passage | Christian Calendar | Worship
| Worship/Services Through the
Years |
|
 |
|
| The Christian Year Contents: The Christian Year and other Special Days | Colours of the Christian Year | Advent | Christmas | Epiphany | Candlemas | Lent | Easter | Pentecost | Trinity | St. James's Day | Michaelmas | Harvest Festival | All Saints Day | Remembrance Sunday |
The Christian Year - Lent: Holy Week
 |
Holy Week is the
last week of Lent, the most solemn week of the Christian year, in which
we recall the final week of the mortal life of Jesus with His suffering
and death. Holy Week takes the Christian on Christ’s own journey,
from the triumphal entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday through to the
empty tomb of Easter Day. There are special services only held in this
week. |
| Palm Sunday |
 |
Palm Sunday (the Sunday before Easter)
is the first day of Holy Week which is the last week of Lent. It celebrates
Jesus' triumphant entry, on the back of a donkey, into Jerusalem where
later He would be arrested and crucified. |
| On Palm Sunday at St. James's,
each member of the congregation is given a palm leaf folded in the
form of a cross. The service begins with a triumphant procession with
the children carrying palm leaves while the congregation sing songs
of praise and wave the palm crosses, acclaiming Christ as king. This
is to help us imagine what Jesus' entry into Jerusalem might have
been like. (Left over palm crosses are always kept to be burnt so
that their ashes can be used in the Ash Wednesday service the following
year.) As part of the eucharist on Palm Sunday there is a reading
about Jesus’ suffering and death (his ‘passion’),
laying out the sequence of events of Holy Week. |
| Maundy Thursday |
Maundy Thursday, or
Holy Thursday, is the day before Good Friday and celebrates the Last
Supper of Christ and His disciples. Maundy is an old word for a commandment.
Maundy Thursday remembers when Jesus met with His disciples for the
Last Supper and gave them a new commandment, to love one another as
He had loved them. |
|
 |
During the meal Jesus
broke the bread and poured the wine and shared them with His disciples.
As He gave them to His disciples He told them to continue to do this
to remember Him. He said the bread was his body broken for them and
the wine was His blood shed for them. He was telling them that He was
going to die and that when they shared bread and wine they should remember
Him. We continue to do this as part of our worship in church today in
the celebration now known as Holy Communion. He told the disciples that He would be betrayed by one of the men sitting at the table with them who turned out to be Judas Iscariot. After supper Jesus went to the garden of Gethsemane to pray. He was later betrayed by Judas and arrested. |
At the Maundy Thursday
service there is a rich series of themes - humility and Christian service
expressed by Christ’s washing of the disciples’ feet which
the presiding priest enacts during the service; the institution of the
eucharist; the agony of Jesus in the Garden of Gethesemane before his
arrest. The sanctuary is stripped at the end of the service as we recall Christ’s desolation and the congregation leave the church in darkness and silence as a mark of respect for what happened to Jesus. A watch is kept after the service for an hour reminding us of how Jesus kept watch in the Garden of Gethsemane. |
|
As a way of showing love for others, there was a custom in England before 1689 for the king or queen to wash the feet of the poor in Westminster Abbey every Maundy Thursday. They also gave them gifts of food and clothing. In Queen Victoria's time, men received clothing, shoes and stockings, and women 35 shillings. Today our Queen does not wash feet or give clothing. Instead she gives out something called Maundy money (coins specially made for this occasion) to a group of pensioners. |
| Good Friday |
 |
Good
Friday remembers the day on which Jesus was crucified on a wooden cross,
the day after Maundy Thursday and two days before Easter Day. It is
known as Good Friday because Christians believe that Jesus gave up His
life for the good of everyone. It is thought that the name Good Friday
is an altered form of God's Friday. Some people say that Good Friday
is the most appropriate name for the day as it shows God's goodness
to sinful people as it opened up the way to God for mankind. It is good
because the barrier of sin was broken. Good Friday is a sad day and
churches never have flowers or decorations on this day. |
| He
was afterwards condemned to death by the Roman Governor Pontius Pilate,
even though Pilate could not find that Jesus has done anything wrong.
He was handed over to the Roman soldiers to be beaten and flogged with
whips. A crown of long, sharp thorns was thrust upon His head. Jesus
was forced to carry His own cross outside the city to Skull Hill. |
 |
 |
There
are many ways in the Christian tradition to keep this day. It is an
incredibly important day. Jesus died on this day and Christians should,
if at all possible, be in church on this day. At St. James’s there
is a service in the morning with children especially in mind. In the
afternoon there is a simple service centred on the reading of the account
of the suffering and death of Jesus according to St. John, the bringing
of a plain cross into the bare church, and holy communion is given from
bread and wine remaining from the service the night before. It is a
widespread custom not to celebrate the eucharist on Good Friday, but
nonetheless many churches offer the option of receiving holy communion.
St. Paul writes, after all, that ‘as often as you eat the bread
and drink the cup you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.’
(I Corinthians 11.26) |
| The Altar on Good Friday |
| Holy Saturday |
| Holy Saturday is the
day after Good Friday. It is the Saturday before Easter, the last day
of Lent and is the day when Christ's body lay in His Tomb. |
|
It is held in the hours of darkness
between sunset on Holy Saturday and sunrise on Easter Day – most
commonly, and at St. James's, in the evening of Holy Saturday –
but is considered to be the first celebration of Easter Day since, in
Church (and Jewish) reckoning, days begin at sunset the night before.
The service includes the first use of the word 'alleluia' since the
beginning of Lent as well as the first Eucharist of Easter. |
 |
The Easter Vigil
is celebrated by lighting a wax candle which has a cross on it (known
as a Paschal candle). This symbolises Jesus overcoming the darkness of death with His resurrection. The year is also marked on the candle for Christ is Lord of all time. Also, the letters ‘Alpha’ and ‘Omega’, the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet for Christ is the beginning and end of all things. Finally, five nails are placed in the candle. Christ had five wounds on the cross, and He still had them when He rose again. |
| The idea behind the service that we celebrate a kind
of ‘passover.’ The newly lighted candle is brought into a
dark church – we pass over from darkness to light. We read from
the Old and New Testaments – we pass over from the old to the new.
We renew our baptismal vows – we pass over from death to life. Then
we move to the first eucharist of Easter – the eucharist is the
celebration above all others of the presence of the risen Lord in the
world. |
| Further Information |
|
 |
Contact
the Parish
Office 020 8941 6003 or the The
Vicar 020 8979 2069 |
 |
Prayer for Lent 1 | Prayer for Lent 2 | Prayer for Lent 3 | Prayer for Lent 4 | Prayer for Lent 5 | Lent, Holy Week and Easter at St. James's 2008 | Parish Communion on Palm Sunday | Liturgy of Maundy Thursday | Liturgy of Good Friday | Liturgy of the Easter Vigil |
 |
Associated pages on this website:
Easter Through the Years: Lent Services (1886 March) | Spire Leader (2002 February) | Spire Leader (2005 February) | Spire Leader (2005 March) |
 |
Links to other websites: The Easter Story (Topmarks) | Lent (BBC) | Holy Week (BBC) |