What is Holy Week?
The Chaplain writes:
Love would never leave us alone.
Everything in Holy Week speaks of love.
The liturgies, which run from Palm Sunday on March 25 through Easter Sunday on April 1, are often long, for example, because love endures; the liturgies are sensual, because love depends on bodily intimacies (touch, smell, sight, sound); the liturgies are sorrowful, because every day love is violated; the services are mysteriously joyful, because no violation of love exhausts love’s mercy. Indeed, the Holy Week journey that recounts day by day the story of Christ’s death and so seems nothing if not tragic is, properly understood, from beginning to end the story of a wedding—everything speaks of love.
View this year’s Holy Week Card and read the Chaplain’s full description of how Bob Marley’s words guide us into Holy Week.
This year, we are honoured to welcome the Right Rev’d Mark MacDonald, National Indigenous Bishop of the Anglican Church of Canada as our 2018 Holy Week Missioner. Bp. MacDonald will deliver a sermon each day in the Chapel beginning on Holy Monday, with his final sermon on Maundy Thursday. All are welcome to come and hear his words. (See below for a full bio of Bp. MacDonald).
Holy Week Service Schedule
All services in the King’s Chapel unless otherwise specified.
Full music list and other details.
Palm Sunday
11:00am Sung Eucharist
Procession with Donkey in the King’s Quad
7:00pm ‘Salve Regina’ (King’s Chorus)
For the Feast of the Annunciation and Palm Sunday
**At All Saints’ Cathedral, 1330 Cathedral Ln
Holy Monday
8:00 am Sung Mattins
4:45pm Sung Evensong
5:00pm Choral Eucharist (Chapel Choir)
sermon by Bp. MacDonald
9:30pm Sung Compline (Women’s Choir)
Holy Tuesday
8:00 am Sung Mattins
4:45pm Sung Evensong
5:00pm Choral Eucharist (Capella Regalis)
sermon by Bp. MacDonald
9:30pm Sung Compline (Men’s Choir)
Holy Wednesday
8:00 am Sung Mattins
4:45pm Sung Evensong
5:00pm Choral Eucharist (Women of Chapel Choir)
sermon by Bp. MacDonald
Featuring the 8th Century ‘Hymn of Kassia’
9:00pm Tenebrae (Contemplative, candlelit, sung by Chapel Choir)
**At All Saints Cathedral, 1330 Cathedral Ln
Featuring Thomas Tallis’ Lamentations of Jeremiah
Maundy Thursday
8:00 am Sung Mattins
4:45pm Sung Evensong
5:00pm Footwashing
5:15pm The Last Supper
sermon by Bp. MacDonald
** Followed by All-Night Vigil before the Altar of Repose, 7:00pm-7:00am**
Good Friday
7:00am Morning Prayer
7:15am Said Holy Communion
10:00am Veneration of the Cross
homily by Alan Hall of St. Thomas University
Holy Saturday
11:00pm The Great Vigil and First Mass of Easter
Easter Sunday
11:00am Sung Eucharist
Easter Monday
5:00pm Said Holy Communion
9:30pm Sung Compline (Women’s Choir)
About our Holy Week Missioner
The Right Rev’d Mark MacDonald is the National Indigenous Bishop of the Anglican Church of Canada. He holds an MA in Divinity from Wycliffe College and a BA in Religious Studies and Psychology from the College of St. Scholastica in Duluth, Minnesota. Bp. MacDonald served for 10 years as Bishop of the US Episcopal Diocese of Alaska. He was appointed National Indigenous Bishop in 2007, when the position was created in response to an urgent need for forums within the church structure to address issues particular to Indigenous Anglicans.
In a 2016 interview, Bp. MacDonald said, “We could say that stories make us. I heard an elder once say that all the wisdom that you know comes to you in the stories they tell you when you’re a child. I think that story is an approach to truth that is more biblical and more Christian, but different from an academic treatment of doctrine. Stories allow for depths of understanding and layers of meaning.” It is a great honour to have Bp. MacDonald here to guide us into the immeasurable depths of the stories and images of Holy Week.
