ST. CHAD’S, LICHFIELD 5th Sunday of Lent 21st March, 2021—PASSIONTIDE Welcome to our Bulletin in this weeks issue: Notices p2-3 Pastoral Care and Healing Ministry p4 Holy Week and Easter p5 Passiontide p6 Occasional Offices p8 Prayer Matters p9 Contacts p10 Worship Every Sunday from St Chad’s 9.30am Service of the Word (Streamed on Facebook) Mid-Week Holy Communion Wednesday 10.00am Holy Communion (streamed on Facebook) Daily Prayer 8.30am Streamed on Facebook Monday-Friday The Church is currently closed for services and visitors—but please note our plans to reopen during Holy Week (see inside) Notices Face Masks – Fundraiser We all need face masks. Why not invest in one or more which will have the St Chad’s logo and church name on it? For £5.50 you can have a distinctive addi- tion to your wardrobe! The church will benefit by £3.50 per sale. Contact Caro- line Fellows to place your order. Marmalade Val is taking orders for New Season’s Marmalade on 256185. The prices have increased slightly this year. Profit to St. Chad’s A Word of Thanks As part of our giving we recently decided to support Friends of the Holy Land and have now received a thank you email from the organisation. ‘Friends of the Holy Land would like to thank all parishioners who donated to the annual planned giving monies, raising £721.50 for Christians in the Holy Land. Conditions are extremely challenging there currently, especially as they face another Easter season without pilgrims. Please continue to remember FHL and those we support in your prayers.’ If you have not come across our Lenten book ‘Holy Week Voices from the Holy Land’, I would commend it for your attention and perhaps you could recom- mend it to your parishioners? It is a beautifully presented book of poems, scripture passages and reflections from voices in the Holy Land. For more in- formation, please visit www.friendsoftheholyland.org.uk/lenten-book” The PCC of St Chad’s regards supporting other Christian agencies working with disadvantaged communities in different places around the world as being a very important part of our membership of the one Body of Christ. Even at a time when our own finances are challenged it helps us call to mind and prayer other areas where there is great pressure. 2 Lenten Giving Sadly, it has not proved possible to go ahead with an on-line Lent lunch. It is still possible to fast privately and give support to a worthy cause. You may well have your own preferences but here are some websites you can look at if you want to find some thought provoking stories, some pointers to prayer and some op- portunities to give. Christian Aid – www.christianaid.org.uk/lent Tear Fund – www.tearfund.org/campaigns/lent-appeal Childrens’ Society - www.childrenssociety.org.uk YMCA – www.ymca.org.uk Church Action Against Poverty – www.church-poverty.org.uk Christians Against Poverty – www.cap.org.uk Please share if you have come across other sites and good causes you want to bring to our attention. Pastoral Care Do contact us if you feel you need some pastoral support. Our pastoral care team is currently unable to function in its usual way but I – and some others - am able to visit, subject to safety and distancing so please ask if you’d like a chat. Don’t think there needs to be a major issue at stake – sometimes we all need a little informal conversation to help us forward, especially in these diffi- cult days. Rev Rod A Word in Season It’s still not too late to join our Zoom based weekly Bible Study – each Wednes- day from 7.30 till 9.00. Let the Rector know and the link for the meeting will be sent to you. 3 Refreshing Pastoral Care and Growing the Healing Ministry We are currently reviewing our approaches to pastoral care and healing. Look out over the next weeks for more information about this. Later in the year we will be offering an Introduction to Pastoral Care course. The PCC recently com- mitted itself to the church becoming a ’Healthy Healing Hub’ - which is a pro- ject of the Guild of Health and St Raphael. For further information about this please look at www.gohealth.org.uk or search for the Guild of Health facebook page. We have signed up to a Good Practice Charter—if you’d like to see a copy please contact us. As part of our journey we have access to various training modules– the first of these being a three session short course ‘Introduction to Christian Healing’ which will be delivered by Revd Dr Gillian Straine from the Guild of Health on three Wednesday mornings in June—starting on 9th June. If you’re interested and able to take part please let us know. 4 Holy Week and Easter Palm Sunday—there will be a short gathering at St Chad’s well at 12noon to bless Palm Crosses and mark the triumphal entry of Jesus into his own city at the start of the first Holy Week. Good Friday— from 1.00 to 4.00 Three Hours devotion at the Cross—an oppor- tunity to drop in for a few minutes for personal prayer at the Cross. Holy Saturday—from 12noon till 200pm Remembering Loved Ones —an op- portunity to drop in to reflect and light a candle for a loved one. Easter Day—services of Holy Communion and Renewal of Baptism at 8.00am and 10.30am. The church will be open each day in Holy Week from 10.30 till 12.30. All activi- ties will be subject to current regulations about distancing, hygiene and num- bers. We also intend to continue streaming services and prayer on Facebook throughout the week, including the 10.30 service directly from church 5 Passiontide Passiontide (in the Christian liturgical year) is a name for the last two weeks of Lent, beginning on the Fifth Sunday of Lent, long celebrated as Passion Sun- day, and ending on Holy Saturday. History "Passiontide" refers to the last two weeks of Lent. According to Cyril of Scyth- opolis, during this time the monks of the East, who had chosen the desert for a severer mode of life, returned to their monasteries. [1] In certain countries, such as Brazil and Italy, it is seen as the beginning of the Holy Week observances. The Viernes de Dolores (Friday of Sorrows). [2] is a sol- emn pious remembrance of the sorrowful Blessed Virgin Mary on the Friday be- fore Palm Sunday held in the fifth week of Lent. In the Orthodox Church, the Fifth Saturday of Great Lent is known as the Satur- day of the Akathist, when the "Akathist to the Theotokos" is sung at Compline. Observance In the Roman Catholic Church, Western Rite Orthodoxy, Lutheranism, and in Anglo-Catholic churches, all crucifixes and images may be covered in veils (usually violet, the colour of vestments in Lent) starting on Passion Sunday: "The practice of covering crosses and images in the church may be observed, if the episcopal conference decides. The crosses are to be covered until the end of the celebration of the Lord's passion on Good Friday. Statues and images are to remain covered until the beginning of the Easter Vigil." [3] [4] (Specifically, those veils are removed during the singing of the Gloria .) The veiling was asso- ciated with Passion Sunday's Gospel (John 8:46–59), in which Jesus "hid him- self" from the people. [1] In the Tridentine Mass, Psalm 42 (43) is omitted at ferial Masses untilHoly Thursday inclusive, as is the short doxology ( Gloria Patri ) at the Introit and the Psalm Lavabo at Mass. It is likewise omitted in Psalm 94 at Matins, and the re- sponds at Matins, Prime, Terce, Sext, None, and Compline. Also in the ferial Mass, the Preface for Lent gives way to the Preface of the Cross. 6 In the 1955 Holy Week revisions, Passion Sunday was formally renamed from Dominica Passionis or Dominica de Passione ("Sunday of the Passion") to Domi- nica I Passionis, "First Sunday of the Passion" or "First Sunday of Passiontide". Palm Sunday, formerly Dominica in Palmis ("Sunday in Palms") became Domini- ca II Passionis seu in Palmis ("II Sunday of the Passion or in Palms"). Since the revision of the General Roman Calendar in 1969, the name "Passiontide" is no longer used for the last two weeks of Lent, although the for- mer usage is somewhat preserved in the formal name for the Sunday before Easter, "Palm Sunday of the Lord's Passion". However, the Preface called that of the Passion of the Lord I (The Power of the Cross) is used in the fifth week of Lent and the Preface of the Passion of the Lord II (The Victory of the Passion) is used on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of Holy Week. Passiontide is observed in many provinces of the Anglican Communion, for ex- ample in the Church of England. In the Common Worship liturgy, material prop- er to Passiontide is used from Evening Prayer on the Eve of the Fifth Sunday of Lent to the evening of Easter Eve. Such "proper material" includes prefaces to the Eucharistic Prayer, special orders for Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer, and seasonal material for Night Prayer and Prayer During the Day. Although the Sarum Use used crimson as the liturgical colour for the whole of Passiontide, Common Worship recommends continuing in purple (or Lenten array) through- out the fifth week of Lent, changing to red for Holy Week.