Click on the links below to watch our live streamed services over Holy Week and Easter.
A PDF order of service for all the services taking place over Holy Week and Easter is available by clicking here
Whilst it is a wonder and a joy to be able to gather for public worship once again, we do so still under many restrictions.
Symptoms If you display any of these symptoms please do not enter our building and return home immediately – • persistent coughing • high temperature • loss of taste or smell
Face coverings You are required to wear a face covering when in our building (unless you cannot do so for medical reasons)
Contact details We will ask for your name and contact details to support The NHS’s Test and Protect System.
Moving around Available seats have been clearly marked, and a one way system is in operation
Hand hygiene Please wash hands regularly and use hand sanitiser when entering or exiting our building
Physical contact Please avoid physical contact with people outside of your own household
Distancing Please maintain appropriate physical distancing based on current guidelines
Touching Please do not touch anything others may have touched
Cleaning The building will be cleaned thoroughly between each service
The number of people allowed in the church building is limited to 40
Under lockdown restrictions mixing with others in church or the churchyard is not permitted
Contents
Palm Sunday 10 a.m. p. 3
Maundy Thursday 7 p.m. p. 6
The Watch p. 10
Good Friday 2 p.m. p. 10
Easter Day 10 a.m. p. 15
THESE SERVICES ARE BEING LIVESTREAMED OVER FACEBOOK AND POSTED ON OUR YOUTUBE CHANNEL
CCLI Licence Number: 616120 Livestreaming Licence Number: 294312
Once again this year, Covid-19 restrictions have impacted upon our journey through the Triduum. As we walk alongside Our Lord through our commemoration of His Passion, Death and Resurrection, every day has the feel of Holy Saturday’s desolation and holy waiting as we anticipate the joy of the Resurrection on Easter Day.
This booklet contains the revised liturgies we find ourselves having to use. We will record and post these services on the website for those unable to be with us in person at this time.
*** A NOTE ON GOOD FRIDAY ***
This year, we are unable to venerate the cross in the traditional way with a kiss. Those attending the service are invited to venerate in a different way. You may wish to bring a nail from home to lay at the foot of the cross as a symbol of sorrow for Our Lord’s suffering. Or if you wish, you could write a prayer and place this there. Please be assured that no one will read what you write, and Father Owain will destroy all pieces of paper following the service.
Introduction to the Season
It is still uncertain when Christians first began to make an annual (as opposed to a weekly) memorial of the death and resurrection of Christ. This Pascha (a word derived indirectly from pesach, Hebrew ‘Passover’) was at first a night-long vigil, followed by the celebration of the Eucharist at cock-crow, and all the great themes of redemption were included within it: incarnation, suffering, death, resurrection, glorification. Over time, the Pascha developed into the articulated structure of Holy Week and Easter. Through participation in the whole sequence of services, the Christian shares in Christ’s own journey, from the triumphal entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday to the empty tomb on Easter morning. The procession with palms, which was already observed in Jerusalem in the fourth century, is accompanied by the reading or singing of the Passion Narrative, in which the whole story of the week is anticipated. Maundy Thursday (from mandatum, ‘commandment’, because of the use of John 13.34 in the Antiphon) contains a rich complex of themes: humble Christian service expressed through Christ’s washing of his disciples’ feet, the institution of the Eucharist, the perfection of Christ’s loving obedience through the agony of Gethsemane.
After keeping vigil (‘Could you not watch with me one hour?’) Thursday passes into Good Friday with its two characteristic episodes. The veneration of the Cross is older; the sequence of meditations and music known as the Three Hours’ Devotion was introduced into the Church of England in the nineteenth century. The first is now sometimes incorporated into the structure of the second. It is a widespread custom for there not to be a celebration of the Eucharist on Good Friday, but for the consecrated bread and wine remaining from the Maundy Thursday Eucharist to be given in communion. The church remains stripped of all decoration. It continues bare and empty through the following day, which is a day without a liturgy: there can be no adequate way of recalling the being dead of the Son of God, other than silence and desolation. But within the silence there grows a sense of peace and completion, and then rising excitement as the Easter Vigil draws near.
This solemn season preserves some of the oldest texts still in current use, and rehearses the deepest and most fundamental Christian memories. At the same time, the services and ceremonies of Holy Week have in the course of Christian history been the occasion of, or have actively encouraged, hostility towards the Jews. The ‘Ioudaioi’ of St John’s Gospel have all too easily been identified with ‘the Jews’ as a whole, or more specifically those Jews who were neighbours of a Christian church. This places a double responsibility on those who lead the keeping of Holy Week today: to be faithful to the act of collective memory, but also to be sensitive to the ways in which an unreflecting use of traditional texts (like the Reproaches) can perpetuate a strain of Christian anti-Semitism.
Palm Sunday
Maundy Thursday
Good Friday
Easter Day
Personal Prayers
Written by Bev Mason, Bishop of Warrington
INVITATION TO PRAYER COVID-19: LOCKDOWN
For those unsure of their faith.
I call you God.
Are you my God?
I speak!
Do you hear?
Are my words of any worth to you? Do they make a difference?
I have accepted the invitation to pray And so here I am.
The world feels a mess.
The pandemic instils fear and anxiety. It causes sickness and death.
It strickens our NHS.
It causes division among family and friends. It’s wrecking our economy.
It’s driving the poorest into the dust.
Please
hear me.
Please come to our help.
Give us what we need to see this through.
And at its ending, may it mark a new beginning Of friendship,
Peace and kindness;
Of generosity, hope and faith. Amen.
For the Parent of a Student
Lord
When they left home my heart broke a little.
I have done my best to prepare them for adulthood
They were as ready as they might be.
Under this pandemic,
The letting go has been too hard.
I have tried to trust in systems and processes and in others. Lord, I am worried for my child at so many levels.
Please keep my child safe.
Please keep our young people safe.
Please keep safe their places of learning:
Bless the principals, faculties, chaplains and staff
as they navigate their way through these uncharted waters. Guide them and guard them.
Let not this pandemic steal their youth, their life, their freedom. Amen.
For our Children
O God
It is so important for our children to socialise,
to make friends and be friends;
to play.
To be curious, to have their imagination teased; to learn; To be safe.
Yet from one day to the next
we do not know how this will look;
how it will work out; or
what the long-term effects are going to be.
We are worried for our children.
Lord, you are the Good Father to us all.
Please hear our prayer
And let our cry come to you for our little ones. Lord in your mercy, hear our prayer.
A Prayer of Repentance
Lord
We turn to you for help.
We humble our heart before you.
In this time of global crisis,
We acknowledge our need of you.
O God,
We do not come with clean hands and a clean heart. We have choked the earth;
We have dishonoured life;
We have harmed fauna and flora.
We have walked passed our neighbor
We have not welcomed the stranger;
We have closed the door of our heart to you.
Forgive us.
Have mercy on us.
Remove from us its grip.
Restore us once again, as your people.
And give us life.
In Jesus’ name.
Amen.
For our Government
Lord
The leaders of our nation bear the hefty weight of office
as they lead us through this pandemic.
So many voices speak to steer the course of travel
Yet there are many considerations.
Enable our Leaders to stay on the course you have set for them. Be their wisdom and good counsel.
Help them to distil the voices.
Shine the light of your presence upon
our Prime Minister, our Government
and all who advise them.
Please take their yoke and shoulder the weight of responsibility. and lead us safely through this pandemic.
In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Prayers for the Poorer Nations
Lord,
These days of pandemic are so challenging in very many ways, Yet even so, I am mindful of the blessings I enjoy.
I pray for the people of this world
who this day do not have clean water,
Food;
Primary healthcare
A safe place to lay their head.
I pray for all who are unable to distance;
For all unable to keep themselves and loved ones safe. In these fearful days, I can only imagine their fear. Please hear their cries.
Please do something.
Please help them.
Amen.
For the NHS & Carers & Front Line Workers
Lord,
We came out once and applauded our NHS, carers and key workers
We are so thankful for all who put themselves on the frontline for us;
We are so thankful for those who go unseen
yet our lives would be impoverished without them.
We painted rainbows as a sign of thanks and solidarity, without knowing that the rainbow is a sign you have given us
of your presence, your promise and your love.
O God,
Be with us all.
Do not forget your promise.
Fill us with your love
And enable each of us to love abundantly
In Jesus’ name.
Amen.
A prayer for the scientists
Lord,
We thank you for the intelligence, the enquiry and learning of our scientists,
and all who are working around the clock
for a cure and vaccine against Covid-19.
Please strengthen the bonds of closer cooperation,
and mutual learning;
and lead them to the healing of the nations.
For your name’s sake, we pray,
Even Jesus our Lord.
Amen
A prayer for those with Dementia
Lord
Many of our loved ones are journeying through the fog of forgetfulness. They do not know what it means to be living through a pandemic;
They do not understand why we are denied access to them.
An ever widening chasm separates us from them.
Their loneliness and confusion increase;
We are desperate to be near them, to hold them and love them.
We are in turmoil.
May your peace come down upon them.
May your love enfold them and
May your friendship sustain them.
Please bless all whose cognition fails them
And all who care in our absence.
Lord, in your mercy,
Hear our prayer.
A prayer for our mental health
Lord,
It sometimes feels like the walls of my mind
are contracting and expanding
with every new data and media round.
I am frightened for myself.
I am frightened for the people I love.
I do not know when this will end.
I do not know what it is doing to me.
My world feels dark, isolating and lonely.
I have learned a new type of busy-ness;
I can spend all day in front of a screen,
Looking into the faces of others.
A cacophony of words fill my head.
Yet I am alone.
Let your light break into my world;
Let your love touch me, help me breathe, clear my head, open my eyes and let me live.
Lord in your mercy,
Hear our prayer.
Christmas is Coming
Christmas is coming, Lord,
Yet little cause for cheer.
Is there any point in tinsel and glitter?
Will there be any coming together?
What of the funny foibles and quirkiness that drive us to distraction; the silly jokes and games;
the overspend, overfeed, over-indulged
that have made Christmas, Christmas.
With so much stripped away,
bring us back to the heart of Christmas when love became incarnate.
May the flame of the Christmas lantern illuminate my mind; And the love that came down at Christmas, fill my heart; May the angels’ song of peace and goodwill
Bless again the earth.
Give to each one cup of kindness,
One measure of joy
and stir up in us good Christmas cheer
For the love of the him who gave Christmas its name: Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.
A Prayer to keep our Loved Ones safe
I am worried, Lord,
every time my precious one leaves the house.
Will others wear their mask, keep their distance, wash their hands? Will others respect and keep them safe?
Keep them safe, Lord.
Please, keep them safe.
Amen.
A Prayer of Repentance
Lord
We turn to you for help.
We humble our heart before you.
In this time of global crisis,
We acknowledge our need of you.
O God,
We do not come with clean hands and a clean heart. We have choked the earth;
We have dishonoured life;
We have harmed fauna and flora.
We have walked pass our neighbour
We have not welcomed the stranger;
We have closed the door of our heart to you.
Forgive us.
Have mercy on us.
Please cast this virus off the face of the earth. Restore us once again, as your people.
And give us life.
In Jesus’ name.
Amen.
A prayer for the scientists
Lord,
We thank you for the intelligence, the enquiry and learning of our scientists,
and all who are working around the clock
for a cure and vaccine against Covid-19.
Please strengthen the bonds of closer cooperation,
and mutual learning;
and lead them to the healing of the nations.
For your name’s sake, we pray,
Even Jesus our Lord.
Amen
For those worried about pre-existing health concerns
Lord
I am unwell.
I do not have COVID-19.
But I am in need of medical intervention.
A thousand miles seems to divide us.
I feel abandoned,
like nobody cares.
I don’t want to worry my loved ones.
I have nobody to talk to.
I am alone.
Please hear me.
Please help me.
Please help me see that with you by my side, I can walk this path
and confront my worst fears.
For your love casts out all fear.
Amen
A Student’s prayer
Lord
We students are carrying blame for the spread of covid-19.
Don’t people realise how hard it is for us?
Don’t people know how worried we are for ourselves, our friends and our families?
Do people really think we don’t care?
Please help us find our routines and rhythms of learning,
Help us develop and grow, and make good friendships.
Help us to see beyond the narrow horizon of this pandemic to a world full of possibilities.
Help us find our place.
Companion us through the joys and sorrows
And help us build a better, kinder and more compassionate world.
Amen.
Prayers for the Very Young
(Tune: Frere Jacques)
Turn your torches on for Jesus He is Lord. He is Lord
Lighten up the darkness
Shine his light among us
He is Lord. He is Lord.
Praying with our Torches
Dear Jesus
We shine our torches at our windows,
As you shine your light at the window of our heart. May our light be as your light
Bringing hope and blessing to all.
Amen.
A prayer of Centring
Lord,
My heart races, my head pounds Help me to be still,
Help me find peace.
In this place,
Reconnect me to my self
My breathing
In and out
the breath in my nose on my tongue.
Help me feel my body,
my toes, my fingers, my neck,
the blood coursing my veins,
The beat of my heart.
Then reconnect me to You.
Stir my senses to your presence.
Help me feel your breath, your warmth, your touch Help me hear the song of my heart
Reconnect me, Lord,
And give me your peace.
Amen.
A Prayer for those who have Lost Loved Ones
Lord
The Coronavirus came like a thief in the night, Unseen and silent,
it stole the life of my loved one.
It steals the lives of so many.
There are so many hurting people.
The shards of a broken heart course my veins. You promise to comfort the broken hearted. Please comfort this broken heart
Please comfort all whose hearts are broken. Lord in your mercy:
Hear our prayer.
A Prayer for all who continue unwell with CVD-19
Dear Lord
(Please add name)
has been so poorly with this terrible virus. It seems to go on and on.
We are so worried for them.
Please be near them,
Place your loving arms around about them, Please speak words of healing and
Please bless those who care for them Thank you, Lord. Amen