Holy Week Altar

Dear Friends:

Holy week is the most sacred week of the Christian calendar. This year we find ourselves in an unsettling time, as a global pandemic surrounds our community. We are exiled from public gatherings, only able to connect with one another over the internet or the phone. Most of us will be marking Holy Week, not in church, but instead in our own homes.This week, I am inviting you to the spiritual practice of building a home altar to help mark this week.

Holy Week invites us to step into God’s story more deeply, to experience how God has worked in ages past and through the person of Jesus, to help us see and know how God is working now. To know that the crisis of the present moment is very real, and God’s reality is also so much larger than what we are experiencing at the present moment. The story of Holy Week unfolds across the days of the week. Building your home altar is an invitation to experience more deeply with actions of the week. Each of the items I suggest will also be used as part of our livestreamed Holy Week services this year. We placed ours next to the TV where we connect with livestreamed services (when I am not leading them).

1. A cloth or covering to help mark the space. The color for Holy Week is red, though any color would be fine. This cloth will be removed on Maundy Thursday, when the altar is stripped.
2. A bowl and a hand towel. This will be used on Maundy Thursday to wash your hands or feet.
3. A cup and a plate. To represent the sharing of bread and wine.
4. A cross. You can find one in your house or make one yourself from sticks in the yard and string.
5. A candle. To light during worship and prayer, and to be blessed at the Easter Vigil.
6. Prayer books, prayer cards, or other items of meaning. We placed our branches from Palm Sunday on our altar. We also found a bell, that can be rung at the Easter Vigil.

Below, you can see a picture of ours. This is an expression of your own faith – spend time reflecting on what you are called to put on your altar. You can take a picture of it and share it in the St. Paul’s Facebook group (here) and tell others what you decided to place in your altar.

In this email you will find a schedule of all our Holy Week services. There are ways to sign up to participate in the all-night Maundy Thursday to Good Friday vigil, and share your prayers for Good Friday. There will be an email on each day with a bulletin and some other instructions on how to mark each of these days in our own homes connected across the internet.

My office hours this week are today from 2-4PM. Laura’s are Wednesday from 2-4PM. You can call us at the church, 412-531-7153. Know that you are in my prayers this week, and please continue to pray for the leadership and staff of the parish and me at this time. Please know we are here for you.

Peace,

Noah
The Reverend Noah H. Evans, Rector

noah@stpaulspgh.org