Holy Week and Easter at St Mary's
Join us virtually at St Mary’s as we journey once more with Jesus through Holy Week, to the joyful dawn of Easter.
Worship Opportunities in Holy Week and Easter
- Maundy Thursday Prayer Vigil, with our neighbours at the Emmaus Community and AbbeyChurch, Thursday, April 1, starting 7 pm
- Good Friday Stations of the Cross, through the tears of Creation: a collaboration among nine communities in our diocese, Friday, April 2, any time
- Good Friday Service at our own Christ Church Cathedral, streamed at 12noon
- Holy Saturday: The Great Easter Vigil, live streamed, led by our Bishop Anna Greenwood-Lee and including parishes all up and down the islands and inlets, Saturday, April 3, 8:30 pm
- Easter Sunday, April 4: Easter Sunday Worship, live streamed at 10 am from St Mary’s
The glory of Easter is the heart of the ‘Good News’ for Christians. It is, quite literally, the centre of the Church’s faith and worship. Indeed, almost from the beginning days of the Church, the ‘season of Easter’ lasts for a full 50 days from Easter Sunday—seven weeks of celebrating what it means for us today that Christ is risen from dead. That’s some party!
But road to the joy runs through darkness—a darkness that we can recognise from our own experience. And so, as early as the fourth century, Christians set aside the week before Easter to walk with Jesus, along with those earliest followers, through the events immediately preceding the Easter sunrise.
Christians would recall the final meal Jesus had with his disciples and his institution of the sacrament of the eucharist. On the Friday they would commemorate Christ’s agony and death on the cross. On Saturday night they would gather for the reading of the scripture, for prayers, for the baptism of their new converts, and then, as the day of the resurrection dawned, for the joyful celebration of Easter. The week before Easter became known as Holy Week.
Each year, this special time gives us another opportunity to discover what it means to be loved and companioned by God, even and especially through the dark shadows. Come, join us as we mark and celebrate the love of God in Jesus Christ.