|
|
||
New
This Week News Letters Resources World Anglicanism Dioceses
and Parishes Vacancies
Centre Add a site
or link to AO About Anglicans
Online
|
Hallo again to all. For most active Christians, Holy Week is a Busy Week.
It is safe to say that most people reading this essay will be exhausted by the end of Good Friday, if they aren't already today after a full round of Palm Sunday observances. If our experience is any guide, it is grace and not just human energy that carries us each year through to Holy Saturday, the Great Vigil and on to the resurrection joy of Easter morning.
See you next week. Last
updated: 9 April 2006 (Click for an update on Cynthia's cancer) |
 This web site is independent. It is not official in any way. Our editorial staff is private and unaffiliated. Please contact editor@anglicansonline.org about information on this page. ©2006 Society of Archbishop Justus |
For
bishops, priests and deacons, there are all of the usual duties of
pastoral life in addition to planning for some of the most intricate
services of the church year, writing extra sermons, acolyte practice,
finding the crotalus, hearing confessions, preparing leaflets and rehearsing
the Exultet one more time. For servers, ushers, vergers, greeters,
webmasters, flower arrangers, secretaries, organists, singers, sextons,
caterers and worshippers of all kinds, the key word this week is More.
Until then,
in place of the More that so many of us will be encountering this
week, for our part we would like to urge some effort at Less
over the next seven days. Less time at keyboard-and-monitor, less television,
fewer text messages, less noise and less internet discussion with all
its politicks and knavish tricks. We are far from advocating a complete
tuning-out from the web and mass media. (This would be impossible for
starters given our day-jobs, but we learn and gain so much of religious
value on the web in any case that a complete turn-off would surely
constitute an interruption of our lives instead of an enrichment.)
Rather
we hope that by engaging in a bit less of these things we will be able
to turn down the barrage of information that generally meets our senses.
Such a momentary cutting-back should not be difficult, but we suspect
it will be. It will allow us to meet the scriptures, liturgies, hymns
and ceremonies of Holy Week in sharper contrast against the usual sounds
and meanings of our lives. We hope it will enable us to better
enter with joy upon the contemplation of those mighty acts of God we
will relive this week. Join us if you can in saying Less to some things
while so much More is taking place, the more carefully to do all things
well and in godliness.
