Categories: uncategorized
Date: 03 April 2010 20:00:34
This year it was a very special and meaningful Holy Week. Compline is always a wonderful way to end the day - I love walking out of church in silence, not speaking to anyone! - and singing the 'Gloria' on Maundy Thursday for the first time since the beginning of Lent is also special. We sang 'A new commandment I give unto you' (Shephard) during the administration and then watched as the church was stripped bare and the clergy and congregation began the Watch at the altar of repose, replete with greenery and lit with six candles. It was a squeeze to get into the choir vestry afterwards, with all the additional clobber. We entered church in silence to begin the last hour on Good Friday. My favourite part of the service was when we sang 'O saviour of the world' (Goss) as the cross was processed up the aisle. Then we knelt to sing the hymn 'When I survey the wondrous cross'. Once we had taken communion kneeling on the bare stone (ouch!) and had sung 'God so loved the world' (Stainer) we again left in silence, emerging from the church blinking into the Bank Holiday busyness of the town.