Word of the Week

The most significant week of the church year, beginning on Palm Sunday with a procession and blessing of palms, and ending on Easter Day. The earliest Holy Week services seem to have taken place in Jerusalem in the Sanctuaries o the holy places, as recorded by the fourth-century pilgrim Egeria. The Book of Common prayer provides special services for most of these days and special readings for all of them. The service of Tenebrae may be used on Wednesday evening in Holy Week as a focused meditation in preparation for the remembrance of Christ’s passion. Tenebrae is followed by Maundy Thursday (often a service of footwashing), Good Friday, and Holy Saturday. The whole week’s liturgical activities lead to the Great Vigil of Easter, with its lighting of the new fire and paschal candle, reading of salvation history, changing of the Exsultet,, baptisms, and celebration of the Easter eucharist.

The season of preparation for Easter and a time of fasting, penitence, almsgiving, prayer, and study. In the early church, sinners who had been publicly excommunicated from the church began a 40-day period of penitential discipline at the beginning of Lent so that they could be readmitted to communion on Easter Day.

This custom lies at the root of congregational Lenten observance today, and most Episcopal churches keep the season of Lent with special programs, reading groups, midweek services, and prayer groups. Lent’s climax is in the baptismal liturgy and renewal of baptismal vows at Easter. Many festal elements of the liturgy are missing from the church during the Lenten season, such as the alleluias and the Gloria in excelsis, and the church furnishings also reflect this austerity. The liturgical colors are purple or unbleached linen.

Day of atonement, fasting, and penitence that marks the beginning of Lent. The name Ash Wednesday derives from the traditional rite in which the celebrant makes the sign of the cross in ashes on the foreheads of worshipers; the practice has its roots in the Hebrew Bible, where sackcloth and ashes are a sign of mourning and repentance. In the early church public sinners who had been excommunicated from the church began a forty-day period of penitential discipline on this day so that they could be readmitted to communion on Easter Day; this custom is at the root of congregational Lenten observance today. The ashes themselves often come from the burning of palms from the previous Palm Sunday.

Term used primarily in the Roman Catholic church to designate the parts of the liturgical year that are not included in the major seasons, namely, the Sundays after the Epiphany and the Sundays after Pentecost. While it does not appear in The Book of Common Prayer, Episcopalians sometimes use this term informally to refer to those seasons in which green is the appropriate liturgical color.

Traditional term for the altar book, derived from the Latin word missa, meaning “mass”. A missal stand is used to support it.

From the Latin: Adventus: "Coming." Advent is the first season of the Church year. Advent begins four Sundays before Christmas and ends on Christmas day. The color of Advent is traditionally purple, marking the preparational aspects of the season. In Advent we prepare for our Lord's coming in three ways: at Christmas; for his coming into our hearts; and for his coming again at the end of time.

From Latin purus (pure) and facare (to make). A purificator is a small piece of white linen used at Communion to cleanse the chalice, by wiping the rim of the chalice with the purificator

From the Greek words anti, meaning "against," and phone, meaning "sound." An antiphon is literally a song sung back and forth by two choirs, or by one choir divided into two sections. In the Episcopal Church, the Kyrie and the Sursum Corda are two examples of antiphons. The familiar exchange "The Lord be with you" - "And also with you" (Rite I: "And with thy spirit") is also an antiphon.

November 1st — a day we commemorate all the saints of the Church and those we know who've joined the saints in worship at the heavenly banquet table. Originally known as "All
Hallows Day," and followed "all hallows eve" (Halloween).

The main part of a church building; the place where the congregation sits. Probably derived from the Latin word navis, meaning "ship." (As in Noah's ark) In medieval England the derogatory term "knave" (commoner) developed from nave, because the nave is the area of the building where the "common" people sit.

The foyer or anteroom of the church, the space between the front door and the nave of the church (see a future “St. Anne’s Word of the Week”!). As in, “The children will gather in the Narthex for the liturgy of the word. They will return to us at the peace.”

From the Latin sacer: sacred, set apart. The sacristy is a room adjoining a church or chapel in which the Eucharistic vessels, the altar hangings, and various ceremonial objects are kept. If there is enough space, there are also cupboards for the clergy’s vestments; if not, the vestments are hung in another room close by, called the vestry. St. Anne’s has both a sacristy and a vestry.