Today we’re celebrating Palm Sunday, the beginning of Holy Week. Look for the twofold theme throughout of Jesus being our King and Saviour, whose crown is of thorns and whose throne is a cross, and who saves us by pouring out his life for us in love. Norman is officiating. Our Virtual Choir is leading us in singing our Palm Sunday Hymns, and the anthem “Ride on, King Jesus” during our Offertory. Our Service begins with the Liturgy of the Palms, including the blessing of palm crosses. After this, we share together a portion of Psalm 118, one of the traditional Passover Processional Psalms, which Jesus and his disciples would have shared together, and which is alluded to in several locations in the Passion. Dinah is on tape sharing what may be one of the earliest Christian confessions of faith we possess, the famous kenosis (“emptying”) passage from Philippians 2. Following this, we’re sharing the presentation of the Passion of Our Lord according to St. Mark. This year, we’re using Zoom to share a dramatic rendering of the Passion with 8 different speakers. The script is available in the same location as the Order of Service (see below). The congregation is saying all the group parts (marked “Congregation”), and so we invite you to print off a copy of the script so that you can participate by saying these parts out loud. After the presentation of the Passion, Fergus leads us in a short Reflection. After this, Dinah on tape leads us in a Palm Sunday Litany and a Prayer in Response to COVID-19 penned by our Primate on Mar. 11, on the occasion of the one year anniversary of COVID-19 being declared a global pandemic by the World Health Organization. Our Service then continues with Spiritual Communion, in which we’re feeding by faith with thanksgiving on the One who laid down his life for us, so that we may have his life within us always. Then, as our Liturgy ends, the service begins: we go in peace to love and serve the Lord, sharing Good News of this love in all we say and do.
Today’s Service of Holy Eucharist will be livestreamed on our main Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/stpaulscalgary) at 9:30 am. Following the service, the video will be posted on our YouTube Channel, and a link to the service will be added here. Please download the Order of Service if you would like to follow along.
Permission to reprint, podcast, and/or stream the music in this service obtained from:
(a) ONE LICENSE with license # A-713985, and/or
(b) CCLI with Streaming License # 20351479.
All rights reserved.