CHURCH EVENTS FOR WEDNESDAY 4/16

• No Worship Service

Special Announcements

St. Mark Inclusivity Statement

"We are a community that values and celebrates diversity in order to fulfill the work of the Holy Trinity.  Examples of now existing diversity in our congregation, which we intend to nurture, grow, and celebrate include, but are not limited to, persons of varying: race, national and ethnic origin, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, economic circumstance, mental/physical health, political persuasion, and theological perspective.  As a congregation, we pledge to demonstrate not only through words, but our actions that when we say all are welcome, we really mean it.”

Easter

The Easter Triduum consists of Good Friday, Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday.  Each of these days begins liturgically not with the morning but with the preceding evening.

The triduum begins on the evening before Good Friday with Mass of the Lord's Supper, celebrated with white vestments, and often includes a ritual of ceremonial footwashing.  It is customary on this night for a vigil involving private prayer to take place, beginning after the evening service and continuing until midnight.  This vigil is occasionally renewed at dawn, continuing until the Good Friday liturgy.

During the day of Good Friday, Mass is not celebrated in the Catholic Church.  Instead a Celebration of the Passion of the Lord is held in the afternoon or evening.  It consists of three parts: a Liturgy of the Word that includes the reading of the account of the Passion by John the Evangelist and concludes with a solemn Universal Prayer.  Other churches also have their Good Friday commemoration of the Passion.

The color of vestments varies: no color, red, or black are used in different traditions.  Colored hangings may be removed.  Lutheran churches often either remove colorful adornments and icons, or veil them with drab cloth.  The service is usually plain with somber music ending with the congregation leaving in silence.  In the Roman Catholic, some Lutheran, and High Anglican rites, a crucifix (not necessarily the one which stands on or near the altar on other days of the year) is ceremoniously unveiled.  Other crucifixes are unveiled, without ceremony, after the service.

Holy Saturday commemorates the day during which Christ lay in the tomb.  In the Roman Catholic Church, there is no Mass on this day; the Easter Vigil Mass, which, though celebrated properly at the following midnight, is often celebrated in the evening, is an Easter Mass.  With no liturgical celebration, there is no question of a liturgical color.

The Easter Vigil is held in the night between Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday, to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus.  See also Paschal candle.  The liturgical color is white, often together with gold.  In the Roman Rite, during the "Gloria in Excelsis Deo" the organ and bells are used in the liturgy for the first time in 2 days, and the statues, which have been veiled during Passiontide (at least in the Roman Rite through the 1962 version), are unveiled.  In Lutheran churches, colors and icons are re-displayed as well.