wfn.org | Conference offers different approaches to Holy Week liturgies

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2002-023

Conference offers different approaches to Holy Week liturgies

by Dennis Delman 

     (ENS) "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 communitiesso 
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. 

--Dennis Delman is editor of the Pacific Church News.