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“Holy Week is walking with Jesus … a journey with Jesus through this last week" of the Lenten season, Trinity's pastor, the Rev. Peggy Hodgkins, told the Daily Voice on Tuesday.
As Hodgkins described it, Holy Week is a powerful and emotional one, filled with pageantry with the excitement of Palm Sunday though the sorrow of the death of Jesus on the cross on Good Friday before rejoicing on Easter Sunday with his resurrection.
In Southport’s Trinity Episcopal Church, Hodgkins described a week of ritual and sacrament dedicated to the most important week of the year for the church.
“It’s very moving pageantry,” she said. “I keep asking my parish, 'Is it the suffering that makes this week holy or the love [Jesus] showed humankind by making this sacrifice?'”
On Holy Thursday, the day Christians recognize as the night of the Last Supper for Jesus, parishioners of Trinity are preparing a Middle Eastern meal for about 50. They will immerse themselves in the faith by eating the food eaten at the Last Supper. After this meal, Hodgkins said, a 7:30 p.m. Mass is celebrated that is “open to the whole world” in which the final Eucharist before Easter Sunday will be shared.
Christian churches follow different traditions. But at Trinity after the Holy Thursday service, the parish will strip the altar clean and take the sacrament into the chapel, where they will “keep watch,” for God and Jesus.
At noon on Good Friday, the Stations of the Cross will begin, following the persecution of the faith’s savior, and liturgy will follow at 1 p.m. On Saturday, a “great fire” will be set outside of Trinity, and the flame will be brought into light sacred candles, she said.
“The main thing is the story and how you tell it,” Hodgkins said, speaking on the variations between churches and Christian denominations. “Holy Week is about the power of transformation. … It’s a week of devotion to walk with Jesus through his trials and remember our own abandonment of our friends in their times of need. Participants need to remember that they are in the same story.”
For Trinity, the story is more than just a metaphor. According to Hodgkins, Trinity was devastated by Superstorm Sandy, when it hit the Connecticut coast in October 2012.
The parish "went through their own trials and tribulations,” Hodgkins said, noting this will be her first Easter with Trinity.
“We had a lot of flooding… it took a huge huge effort to clean up,” she said. “It really a core group of really dedicated folks who hung in there.”
Hodgkins added that she is excited to celebrate a “unique Holy Week.”
“We have a lot to celebrate,” she said, “and we want to welcome everyone.”
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