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Conference offers different approaches to Holy Week liturgies
By Dennis Delman
2002-023
1/30/2002
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[Episcopal News Service]
'We have two seasons at St. Gregory's: Easter and Easter Coming,' the Rev. Richard Fabian told the opening session of 'Good News for Holy Week,' a week-long conference on planning liturgies for mission and spiritual growth, based upon that parish's Holy Week experience.
Held January 10 to 15 at St. Gregory of Nyssa in San Francisco, the six-day conference drew about 30 organists, rectors, seminarians and lay liturgists in dioceses from Northern California and Oregon to Massachusetts, Newark, and the Church of England's diocese of Canterbury. Participants were given the theological and historical underpinnings of St. Gregory's Holy Week liturgies, as well as practical walk-throughs of each service.
Additionally, they participated in a regular Sunday 10 a.m. Eucharist and Baptism, and in the church's annual Mourning our Children, based partially on the Good Friday Service. Both Fabian and co-rector the Rev. Donald Schell emphasized that their intent was not to transfer St. Gregory's Holy Week to conference participants' churches but to 'share in a way that is most powerful for other congregations.'
Remembering, not re-enacting
Keynoting the conference, Fabian said that 'the standard western Holy Week was not handed down for the millennia,' but is 'a confection cooked up a century ago or less, combining reconstructions of medieval use with reconstructions of ancient use.'
Fabian and Schell advanced three theological principles that guide the parish's unique liturgical observances, especially those in Holy Week.
Liturgies are about remembering events, rather than re-enacting them.
Pastoral adaptation is based on careful rationale developed from studying tradition.
Because services today incorporate a mixture of religious experience and differing faiths, pastoral and missionary choices need to serve the whole community.
'Holy Week functions as our camp meeting revival,' claimed Fabian, 'when the entire community pitches in to create an experience for everyone: ourselves and our visitors.' Cranmer made liturgy like a classroom where 'everyone watches one teacher.' Today's famous church growth congregations 'do worship more like a variety show - but still with one M.C. Our model is more like a dinner party or annual village fiesta: both are natural and organic,' he said.
Discussing the Holy Week lectionary, Fabian noted that the gospels describe events and the meaning of those events, but not when they occurred in Jesus' life, acknowledging that 'even the connection of Jesus' passion with Jewish Passover is debated today.' Opting for simplicity, St. Gregory's focuses each service on one 'event' or aspect of Jesus' death and resurrection.
'The true tradition of Holy Week is the Scriptures,' Fabian argued. 'The lectionary calendar handed down to us is meant to serve Scripture.' The conference was 'about ways to make that work in our time, for our communities...so they can receive the Word of God, which is the only thing that matters in the lectionary.'
Did we do it well?
Schell, relating his experience as a rector in a conservative Idaho parish, explained that making liturgical changes is more easily accomplished in midweek services, and Holy Week offered even more opportunities to experiment, 'if I kept certain local customs.' It's not 'that we have to get it right to appease God,' said Schell. At St. Gregory's, he said, 'we ask, 'Did we do it well?', not 'Did we do it right?''
When asked to describe their own Holy Week services, participants mixed words like 'paltry,' 'somber,' 'backward,' 'taxing,' 'minimal,' and 'outdated' with 'surpassing,' 'loving,' 'awesome,' 'energizing,' and 'liminal.' Asked what they would like to change or grow brought responses like 'participation,' 'relevance,' 'lay leadership,' 'missional agitation,' 'movement,' and 'connection to ministry.' One wanted 'community to enhance the individual journey,' another the 'courage to get rid of the Passion (reading) on Palm Sunday,' and a third, 'the missionary intent of liturgy.'
Schell described the momentum at St. Gregory's after Holy Week as 'some of the best of our year. Good Friday, which is 'a Gospel Service - not racked with guilt,' draws 275 people, because parishioners bring their friends. Responding to a question, Schell said 'this congregation regards itself at its heart a missionary enterprise. For every stranger who walks through our door, we say 'thank God' and try to build a relationship.'
A singing parish, St. Gregory's is also renowned for having parishioners dance. Conference participants rehearsed the tripudium--two steps forward, one back--around the altar, practiced the sung prayers and the three-part sung Palm Sunday Gospel (The passion reading at St. Gregory's was transferred to a sung Good Friday Passion. The congregation takes the role of Christ.) Much of the music is composed by choir director Sanford Dole and some members of the choir.
Also transferred is Maundy Thursday to a Maundy Tuesday Feast of Friends. Fabian suggests that, based on historical research, Tuesday is most likely the real night of the Last Supper. More pragmatically, Schell explained that St. Gregory's grew on Tuesday night dinners, besides which the congregation gets a day off between Holy Week observances.
Designed as the most intimate of the Holy Week observances, Maundy Tuesday is not publicly announced. Any Holy Week baptism is done that evening rather than the Easter Vigil. The change also increased attendance at the Good Friday Service, which both Fabian and Schell say is the second most attended service after the Easter Vigil.
Practicum
Throughout their six days, conferees experienced different parts of the Holy Week liturgies, such as the Palm Sunday procession, the Maundy Tuesday Liturgy of Lamplighting, as well as the Feast of Friends, singing the Passion and the Children's Good Friday Service.
On the final night of the conference, participants experienced the church's annual Service for Mourning Our Children, for people who lost children by death or any other reason. The next morning, some conferees recalled as most moving for them, the many and varied stories of individual loss. No less poignant was the altar with the icon of Mary leaning over Jesus, along with pictures and mementos of young people lost. For others, it was the prayers read aloud. (A card was given each person to write a prayer. They were then collected, redistributed and read aloud).
Year long planning
Concluding the conference presentations, parishioner Margaret Simpson explained the year-long preparation that begins by debriefing clergy and lay leadership immediately after each Holy Week. The designated 'co-czarina' balanced a thick binder on her lap as she described the reports, service outlines and directions contained in the Holy Week handbook.
'Seventy-five to one hundred people are involved in mounting Holy Week,' she said, with Schell adding that they were not simply 'an army of ants.' Each service has its own committee and each person has a responsibility in the evaluation, planning and preparation of Holy Week liturgies.
Asked what they could take back to their own churches from their week long experience, participants identified 'shared responsibility,' increased singing that included chanting of psalms and the prayers of the people, remove pews for more liturgical movement, and one person (noting the vibrant colors of St. Gregory's interior) who wanted to introduce more color.
All was not liturgical workshops during the conference. On Friday, participants helped set up and work with other volunteers in St. Gregory's weekly food pantry. Little more than a year old, the pantry provides free groceries to about 250 people each week. Conferees also visited Mission Dolores, took in a Coro Hispanic concert and toured San Francisco's historic Anchor Brewery across the street from St. Gregory's.
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