Mtr Taylor Devine

Dear Friend,

Good Friday is here, the day we commemorate Jesus' ultimate sacrifice with the words and prayers, "Behold the wood of the Cross, whereon was hung the world's salvation." These words echoed in my head last night as I prayed at the Altar of Repose after the Maundy Thursday service, as I got sleepy along with the Disciples. Between the candles was strung a handmade, desert-inspired crown of thorns, and I think it was that image that took hold. That ultimate sacrifice of Jesus for the love of us, is, yes, for us, but also so far beyond to the embrace by Christ through time and space and style and sin, and this sunk in for the briefest of moments. That sacrifice for those who may most irk and disappoint us, and for those who are beyond our knowing because of that time and space, hit home again. This day I pray that you may be struck by the depth, height, and width of the love and sacrifice of God among us, who makes a new creation, who invites us into the life of God's love. On this day of the pilgrimage of Holy Week it seems that we can be so sad together, to see ourselves in the Gospel all too clearly. Together we pray in the patterns of Christians throughout the generations, and God's work through ordinary things is experienced again. I give thanks that I get to be on this pilgrimage with you this Holy Week, and I give thanks to God who in Christ gives us the commandment to love one another as he has loved us.

In Christ,
Taylor

The Holy Triduum (the three great and sacred days before Easter) continues today, Friday, at noon with the Good Friday liturgy (including the Passion Gospel, the Solemn Collects, the Veneration of the True Cross, the Mass of the Pre-Sanctified). On Holy Saturday, there is Morning Prayer in the Columbarium Garden at 8:30am and the Holy Triduum concludes with the Great Vigil of Easter, the kindling of the New Fire, the lighting of the Paschal Candle, the proclamation of Easter, and the first Mass of Easter, on Saturday at 8:00pm. Please join us for this profound pilgrimage from the upper room, Gethsemane, to Calvary, the darkened tomb, and beyond to the first light of Easter!