We are a small Episcopal Church on the banks of the Rappahannock in Port Royal, Virginia. We acknowledge that we gather on the traditional land of the first people of Port Royal, the Nandtaughtacund, who are still here, and we honor with gratitude the land itself and the life of the Rappahannock Tribe. Our mission statement is to do God’s Will in all that we do.

Sunday’s Links, March 31, 2024

Easter Sunday, March 31.

  • Web site
  • YouTube St. Peter’s Page for viewing services
  • Facebook St. Peter’s Page
  • Location – 823 Water Street, P. O. Box 399, Port Royal, Virginia 22535
  • Wed., March 27, Ecumenical Bible Study, Parish House, 10am-12pm  Reading Lectionary for Easter
  • Wed., March 27, Tenebrae service, 7pm
    Lector: Elizabeth Heimbach
  • Thurs., March 28, Maundy Thursday, 7pm
    Lector: Cookie Davis
    Chalice Bearer: Alice Hughes
    Altar Clean up: Jan Saylor
  • Fri., March 29, Good Friday, 7pm
    Lector: Ben Hicks
  • Sun., March 31 Easter Sunday, 11:00am.
  • Servers, Easter Sunday, March 31, 11am
    Lector: Johnny Davis
    Acolyte: Arthur Duke
    Chalice Bearer:Johnny Davis
    Altar Clean up: Andrea Pogue
  • Coming up!

  • Portland Guitar Duo, April 19, 7pm

    1. The concert
    2. Help us advertise

  • March., 2024 newsletter
  • All articles for Sunday, March 31, 2024
  • Recent Articles, March 31, 2024

    From the Palm Sunday service, March 24
    God’s Garden
    Photos
    Videos
    Sermon
    Bulletin

    Holy Week
    Holy Week services
    Holy Week introduction
    Summary of the days
    Time Table
    Holy Week links
    Why was Jesus killed?
    Holy Week Day by Day
    Tenebrae, March 27
    Digging into Tenebrae
    Maundy Thursday, March 28
    Another Last Supper painting
    Good Friday, March 29
    Good Friday is essential
    Stations of the Cross
    Stations in our graveyard
    Easter Sunday
    Easter Voices, Year B
    Easter Year B
    Easter Commentary

    Ministries
    Portland Guitar Duo at St. Peter’s
    Help us advertise the concert!
    Past Concerts at St. Peter’s


    Village Harvest, March, 2024
    Village Harvest, Feb., 2024


    Creed Class, March 20 – Conclusion
    Creeds class, March 13 – Holy Spirit
    Creeds class, March 6 – Jesus
    Creeds class, Feb. 28- God
    Creeds class, Feb. 21
    Lenten Study – The Creeds


    God’s Garden – Palm Sunday to Easter
    God’s Garden- “Resurrection Eggs”
    God’s Garden – Holy Week
    God’s Garden – “Let the Children come to me”
    God’s Garden – Making pretzels
    God’s Garden- Learning the Lord’s Prayer
    God’s Garden – The Alleluia Banner, Part 2
    The Alleluia Banner, Part 1


    Discretionary Fund donations Feb. 11


    Sacred Ground, Jan., 2024
    Sacred Ground, Feb., 2024

    Holy Week Introduction

    Various Holy Week links

    Holy Week Summary

    Holy Week between Palm Sunday and Easter is the most sacred time of year.. The purpose of Holy Week is to reenact, relive, and participate in the passion of Jesus Christ, his triumph, suffering and resurrection. Ultimately it’s about ours. From our Baptism liturgy- “We thank you, Father, for the water of Baptism. In it we are buried with Christ in his death. By it we share in his resurrection. Through it we are reborn by the Holy Spirit.” Every Sunday is an Easter.

    From early times, Christians have observed the week before Easter as a time of special prayer and devotion. As the pilgrim Egeria recorded in the late fourth century, numerous pilgrims to the holy city of Jerusalem followed the path of Jesus in his last days. They formed processions, worshipped where Christ suffered and died, and venerated sacred sites and relics. The pilgrims took the customs home with them. Holy week observances spread to Spain by the fifth century, to Gaul and England by the early seventh century. They didn’t spread to Rome until the twelfth century. From this beginning evolved the practices we observe today on Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday.

    Read more

    Holy Week – Day by Day

    Holy Week – summary of the days

    Source

    Palm Sunday

    • Jesus, at the Mount of Olives, sends two disciples to secure a donkey and a colt; makes his “triumphal entry” into Jerusalem; weeps over Jerusalem.
    • Jesus enters the temple area, then returns to Bethany.

    Monday

    • On Monday morning Jesus and the Twelve leave Bethany to return to Jerusalem, and along the way Jesus curses the fig tree.
    • Jesus enters Jerusalem and clears the temple.
    • In the evening Jesus and the Twelve leave Jerusalem (returning to Bethany).

    Tuesday

    • Jesus’ disciples see the withered fig tree on their return to Jerusalem from Bethany.
    • Jesus engages in conflict with the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem.
    • The Disciples marvel at the Temple.
    • Jesus delivers the Olivet Discourse (in which he predicts the future) on their return to Bethany from Jerusalem.

    Read more

    Holy Week Services, 2024

    Services online

    Sunday, March 24, Palm Sunday, 10:50AM, Liturgy of the Palms, 11AM Eucharist

    The St Peter’s congregation commemorates this triumphal entry into Jerusalem by gathering behind the church for the blessing of the palms and then processing to the front of the church, all the while shouting, ”Hosanna, Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord” and making a celebratory racket with various noise makers.

    The service that follows carries the congregation on a whirlwind trip through the events of Holy Week, a summary of Jesus’ last days before being crucified.  The gospel ends with Jesus having been crucified and placed in a tomb which Pilate’s soldiers seal with a stone. 

    Read more

    Tenebrae, 2024

    Tenebrae is the opening of the Holy Week services for the church.

    Links:
    1. The bulletin is here.
    2. The description of this day in Holy Week with the Bible readings and commentaries is here. 
    3. The background of the service is here.  
    4. Digging into Tenebrae
    5. A photo gallery of the day from 2019 can be found here.
    6. A photo gallery from 2024 can be found here.
    7. The video stream of the service in 2024 is here

    This was our introduction to the service in 2019:

    The service requires both a good acolyte and reader. There are 15 candles to extinguish and creating a sense of drama as the service progress. The service is 100% scripture so the reader has a challenge.

    Selective extinguishing the candles in 2024:

    Unlike the other Easter services, Tenebrae doesn’t relate to a specific Holy Week event as Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter.

    “Tenebrae” is Latin for shadows. The purpose of the service is to recreate the emotional aspects of the passion story. This is an unusual service with its own Liturgy. There is no music – the readings carry the service. And it’s not from the traditional Gospel readings.

    It sets a mood and brings you through the Holy Week story through a set of “shadows”. The shadows move through the agony of last week- Betrayal, Agony of the Spirit, Denial, Accusation, Crucifixion, Death and Burial – symbolized by the lighted candles.

    Read more

    Digging into Tenebrae, Holy Week

    This article is based on St. Peter’s Tenebrae service which is here. It is taken from the Episcopal Book of Occasional Services. Tenebrae is an ancient service the goes back to the medieval service (9th century).

    Tenebrae is divided into 3 nocturns or sections and 9 lessons within them. Antiphons are excerpts from psalms said before the lesson.  Responsory are responses said after a lesson.

    Read more

    Good Friday Service 2024

    This service continues our worship through the Triduum, the last three days of Holy Week. Friday was the day of the execution of Jesus . Good Friday is “good” because the death of Christ, as terrible as it was, led to the Resurrection on Easter Sunday, which brought new life to those who believe.

    The Good Friday service is under the section in the Prayer Book “Proper Liturgies for Special Days” which contain key services in Lent – Ash Wednesday,  Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, the Great Vigil.  Good Friday is good because the death of Christ, as terrible as it was, led to the Resurrection on Easter Sunday, which brought new life to those who believe. 

    The service has 6 parts:
    1.  an entrance in silence,  
    2. readings which include Isaiah, the ever present Psalm 22 and the John 18:1-19:42 Passion reading,
    3. the Solemn Collects,
    4. The Entrance of the Cross, the Veneration of the Cross,
    5. Musical Meditations and
    6. Conclusion. 

    The first reading is from Isaiah, the ever present Psalm 22, Hebrews, and John Passion Gospel reading, John 18:1-19:42.

    Read more

    Good Friday is an Essential Service

    From “Good Friday” – Right Rev Brian Burgess. From the Anglican Digest, Spring, 2024

    A childhood friend reached out to Burgess close to a weekend.  The friend was serving as a sheriff.  At the time the friend was 2 hours away. He asked if the priest could get away for the weekend to catch up.  It was not the usual weekend, however.  It was the Triduum, the last days of Easter. The priest could not slip away. So his friend came to his church. Although not part of any church, he came to the priest’s Good Friday service. The priests reflected in an article about Good Friday.

    He described the church as “tomb-like in an intentional way”. What my friend experienced was the church – “stripped, cold, and bare.” “It was a place where death goes in order to be prepared for the resurrected glory in Christ.” The priest wrote that Good Friday is the one service essential for those unchurched. “I believe we lose sight of the essence of Easter when we have no concept of what it is we are being saved from. We can become distracted from the cross of Christ. To merely survive is to shoot too low.”

    “The goal of our Christian lives is our death and resurrection in Jesus Christ.” He noted the sheriff has “experienced the worst of the worst when it comes to the human condition, and who by default has been given secular responsibility for broken and fractured lives.”  On Good Friday, “the very worst of our secular lives is turned into sacred”  “Eternal life begins now.”

    With Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter “are an expression of God that demands to be told as well as experienced, in one, complete, ongoing story.” “Our dying in Christ while being stretched out on the hardwood of the cross is integral to that story.”

    Stations of the Cross in our graveyard

    The Stations of the Cross began as the practice of pious pilgrims to Jerusalem who would retrace the final journey of Jesus Christ to Calvary.

    Later, for the many who wanted to pass along the same route, but could not make the trip to Jerusalem, a practice developed that eventually took the form of the fourteen stations currently found in almost every church. This allowed people to follow the way in their hearts as they meditated on the last hours of Jesus’ life.

    Our Stations features 14 paintings of our talented parishioner Mary Peterman and the work of Creative Color in Fredericksburg to create the posters. They are hung outside in our graveyard to increase visibility.

    This video features photos taken by Catherine on the actual day they went up combined with the haunting Adagio of Tomaso Albinoni. If you are in the area, come by and walk the stations.

    The stations can be walked in a small group or in solitude. Meditating on the words for each station, and on Mary’s watercolors, will be a spiritual experience that will deepen your relationship to Jesus and your faith.

    Walking the stations of the cross also remind us that Jesus lived and died as one of us, and knew horrible suffering. As we travel with him through his last hours, we come to know that Jesus travels with us in our hours of greatest need.