Parish of Llandudno North Wales, Rector's letter

April 2014

Which of the special events of Holy Week and Easter mean the most to you? Is it the Palm Sunday procession with the donkey, or the washing of feet during the Eucharist on Maundy Thursday? Perhaps it’s following the Stations of the Cross, or maybe the moment in the Good Friday Liturgy when the Cross is brought into church with the words ‘This is the wood of the cross, on which hung the Saviour of the world. Come, let us worship’. On the other hand it might be that you are most moved by the lighting of the Pascal Candle early on Easter morning at St Tudno or by the joyful singing of ‘Jesus Christ is risen today’ in a crowded Holy Trinity Church later in the day. It would be interesting to hear which moment (or moments) in the liturgies of this special time make the most impression on you.

I don’t think I have a ‘favourite moment’ in Holy Week or Easter – and to tell you the truth I’m usually so concerned with making sure that all the services go well that I don’t always fully appreciate the significance of these special moments. As the person who has to make them happen (together with lots of other people of course: organists and choir, fellow clergy. wardens, sacristan, readers etc. etc.) I find the whole experience totally exhausting - physically, mentally and spiritually. At the beginning of Holy Week it would be easy for me to see the week ahead as little more than a series of major events to get through rather than a spiritual sharing in the mystery of Our Lord’s Passion, Death and Resurrection.

And yet strangely this very experience of challenge and exhaustion, during which I sometimes find it hard to ‘enjoy’ the drama of the special moments in the story of Holy Week and Easter helps me to feel close to Our Lord. Of course I can’t compare for one moment my experience of the challenges of making Holy Week and Easter happen properly in the parish with Our Lord’s sufferings and triumphs. How could I? But in just trying day by day to ensure that all goes well – and especially when I look back on it afterwards - I do feel that I have been close to the Lord all the way through and in some little way able to appreciate what it all meant to him.

I think that it’s the whole experience of keeping Holy Week and Easter that actually has the impact rather than any individual moment. In fact as we progress through Holy Week with one special liturgy after another, all the various special moments build up to help us understand the significance of what happened to Our Lord all those centuries ago in Jerusalem – and what it should mean for our lives today.

My invitation to the parish is to be as deeply involved in the whole of this special time as you possibly can. Of course the demands of normal life don’t just stop. Few people can come to everything. But if you try your best to be at as many of the services of Holy Week and Easter as you can it won’t be just special moments that matter but the whole experience of living with the passion, death and resurrection of the Lord. Most of the liturgies we use are adaptions of the ancient liturgies of the Church which are designed to build up – day by day – the experience of sharing in these – the most important events in human history. Come along and be part of it all, your life will never be the same again!

Fr. John

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Previous letters:

January 2014 February 2014 March 2014
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