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BEAUT Y Vicar’s Blog
You’ll notice the change. Our festival throughout Passiontide, Holy Week and Easter goes through a gradual metamorphosis. Last week, alongside the warmth and hospitality of our Abbey Kitchen, the ancient texts, colour and creativity of The Garden Labyrinth allowed many to go on a spiritual journey while travelling nowhere at all. One of my favourite sights was parents walking the labyrinth with their children and ending at the foot of the Cross, together. I also rather liked the problem we hit on Tuesday evening when we had a considerable queue of people waiting to pray. Queues for prayer, I love it! We’ll need bouncers next year. As I write, on Friday morning, the Labyrinth is no more, sob, and the
Abbey Kitchen team have transformed the Abbey into a café ready for hospitality, laughter, nachos, jazz, a couple of singers called Archer, silent cinema and Café Church on Sunday. (Please bring cakes if you can.) And in our South Aisle Malmesbury School have again installed an impressive Stations of the Cross art exhibition. But I adore the change of gear that happens next Tuesday when the theatre, music and liturgy start to draw us inexorably to the Cross, as a community. Crosslight from Riding Lights will be powerful, don’t miss it, but a string quartet from the Royal Academy of Music playing music by Bach, MacMillan, Pärt and Taverner – this is heaven to me. James MacMillan’s Memento, a Gaelic lament for the death of a friend. Arvo Pärt’s Summa,
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A B B E Y D I A RY THIS SUNDAY: Palm Sunday 9am BCP Communion 10.30am Holy Communion 4pm Café Church & Junior Church – bring a cake or sandwiches
originally written as a setting of the creed, I believe in one God. John Taverner’s Hidden Treasure of which the composer says ‘the steps of the Passion and Resurrection of Christ are suggested throughout.’ And JS Bach, Ich ruf zu dir, I call to you, Lord Jesus. Four composers, profoundly influenced by their Christian faith, crafting beauty that we might draw closer, ever closer, to God. Yes, heaven. Jesus revealed in beauty. EASTER AT THE ABBEY Brochure online at issuu.com/malmesburyabbey
THIS WEEK EACH DAY 9am Morning Prayer MON 21st 7.30pm Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde nd TUES 22 7.30pm Riding Lights WED 23rd 10.30am Communion 7.30pm The Royal Academy of Music MAUNDY THURSDAY 7.30pm Sung Eucharist GOOD FRIDAY 10.30am Service of the Cross 12 noon CTiM March of Witness 6.30pm Devotional Concert 8pm Service of the Tomb EASTER EVE 6.30pm BBC WILTSHIRE’s Easter at the Abbey EASTER DAY 9am BCP Communion 10.30am Holy Communion 4pm Family Celebration 6pm Choral Evensong
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After Jesus had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. 29 As he approached Bethphage and Bethany at the hill called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples, saying to them, 30 ‘Go to the village ahead of you, and as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here. 31 If anyone asks you, “Why are you untying it?” say, “The Lord needs it.”’ 32
Those who were sent ahead went and found it just as he had told them. 33 As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, ‘Why are you untying the colt?’ 34 They replied, ‘The Lord needs it.’ 35
They brought it to Jesus, threw their cloaks on the colt and put Jesus on it. 36 As he went along, people spread their cloaks on the road. 37 When he came near the place where the road goes down the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of disciples began joyfully to praise God in loud voices for all the miracles they had seen: 38
‘Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!’ ‘Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!’ 39
Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, ‘Teacher, rebuke your disciples!’ 40 ‘I tell you,’ he replied, ‘if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.’ Additional Reading: Zechariah 9:9-12
DISCIPLESHIP 1. Share together what inspired you in our worship together this weekend and any insight from our teaching that has remained with you? 2. Read the Luke 19 passage. Then also read Zechariah 9:9-12 and Psalm 118:19-29. How do these Old Testament passages inform the Luke 19 passage? Who do the crowd think is riding into Jerusalem and to do what? 3. Jesus begins a week riding a donkey that has never been ridden and ends it laying in a tomb that had never been laid in. (Luke 23:52) In what way is this significant? 4. How would Rome and the Pharisees view this event? 5. The joyous celebration of the crowd, the sharing of bread and wine, intercessory prayer, devotion at the Cross and the silence of the Tomb all come the way of the disciples in that first Holy Week. Considering all five, where are you most alive spiritually?
D A I LY R E A D I N G S Monday Psalm 41 Lamentations 1:1-12a Luke 22:1-23 Tuesday Psalm 27 Lamentations 3:1-18 Luke 22:49-53 Wednesday Psalm 102 Jeremiah 11:18-20 Luke 22:54-end Maundy Thursday Psalm 42, 43 Leviticus 16:2-24 Luke 23:1-25 Good Friday Psalm 69 Genesis 22:1-18 Hebrews 10:1-10
REGULAR GIVING If you would like to give regularly to the mission and ministry of the Abbey as part of your discipleship, please e-mail alan@malmesburyabbey.com. m
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On Maundy Thursday at 7.30pm Neill and the Abbey Choir will lead us in a Sung Eucharist – a reflective service of Holy Communion (a Last Supper) of great beauty, where a large part of the service is sung by the minister and the choir. All are very welcome. The service will last about one hour and will conclude with the stripping of the Sanctuary in preparation for Good Friday.
A day of gathering together as the global church remembers the death of Christ. At the Abbey after Morning Prayer at 9am we have our Service of the Cross at 10.30am, a reflective hour, based around John 19, for all ages. This is followed by a Churches Together March of Witness at Noon. Then our day concludes with a devotional concert of Victoria & Handel from the Abbey Choir at 6.30pm and finally the Service of the Tomb (Night Prayer) at 8pm.
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BBC Wiltshire would particularly like to invite regular members of the Abbey congregations to come along at 6.30pm on Easter eve for Easter at the Abbey. The service is recorded as live and then broadcast on Easter Day at 8am and then again on the Bank Holiday Monday. It is really, really important to have a couple of hundred people there to belt out the great Easter hymns and bless those listening at home.
On Easter Day you might like to begin by putting your clock forward by an hour, if you haven’t already done it. Then join us for shouted Alleluias at 9am (BCP Holy Communion), 10.30am (Holy Communion), 4pm (Family Celebration) and 6.30pm (Choral Evensong). After a day of joyous celebration together many of us will gather at the Whole Hog at 8pm in the evening. All are very welcome.
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NOTICEBOARD CROSSLIGHT The disciple chosen to lead, is in pieces. Caught in the crosslight of the flickering candles at the last supper, the torches of Gethsemane, the firelight in the courtyard, by the searching gaze of his Lord, Simon ‘the rock’ is shattered. As he hangs from the cross, Jesus is surrounded by a jeering crowd, laughing at his claim to be the Son of God. A small group of family and friends stands by until the agony ends. But the great friend who, more than any other, has stood by Jesus throughout the story is conspicuous by his absence. One man is missing – one who knows the truth. Crosslight draws us into the dramatic events of Christ’s Passion and into the experience of one disciple who failed, despite everything he believed so passionately… A communal experience of theatre and worship, brought by Riding Lights Theatre Company to Malmesbury Abbey. Crosslight, this Tuesday at 7.30pm. Tickets £10, Student/Under 18 £5. Available on the door.
DR JEKYLL & MR HYDE Arrive early on Monday for perhaps the most unusual moment in our Holy Week & Easter Festival. After packing the Abbey for The Phantom of the Opera and The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Anthony Hammond is back to improvise in the darkness on the Abbey’s amazing organ as John Barrymore’s silent film is projected onto the East Wall. Not suitable for young children.
HO LY W EEK & E ASTER AT T HE ABBEY 2 016 EVERY DAY
9am Morning Prayer in St Aldhelm’s Chapel
Mon 14th March Wed 16th March Thurs 17th March Fri 18th March
12pm The Garden Labyrinth opens 9pm Late Night Glory! Praise & Prayer until 10pm 4pm The Garden Labyrinth closes 7.30pm Mark Palmer Comedy with Grace Archer (voice) & Mexican Café 10am Meet the Artists (Stations of the Cross) 7.30pm The Ben Holder Quartet with Rosie Archer (voice) & Mexican Café
Sat 19th March
Sun 20th March
PALM SUNDAY 9am Holy Communion 10.30am Outdoor Holy Communion 4pm Café Church & Junior Church
Mon 21st March Tues 22nd March Wed 23rd March Maundy Thurs
7.30pm Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde, with Anthony Hammond (Organ) 7.30pm Riding Lights Theatre Company - CROSSLIGHT 7.30pm The Royal Academy of Music 9am Morning Prayer 7.30pm Sung Eucharist, with music by Victoria & Morales
Fri 25th March
GOOD FRIDAY 9am Morning Prayer in St Aldhelm’s Chapel 10.30am Service of the Cross - for all ages 12 pm Churches Together March of Witness 6.30pm Devotional Concert – Tomas Luis de Victoria & Handel 8pm Service of the Tomb – Night Prayer
Sat 26th March
7pm BBC Wiltshire’s Easter at the Abbey
Sun 27th March
EASTER DAY 9am BCP Holy Communion (Said) 10.30m Easter Holy Communion (Choral) 4pm Family Celebration (Contemporary) 6.30pm Easter Choral Evensong
Enquiries 01666 826666 // Box Office 01666 824339 office@malmesburyabbey.com www.malmesburyabbey.com issuu.com/malmesburyabbey