St. Paul's 2021

  Triduum 2022 at St. Paul's This week we call Holy Week . It is holy in part because it has a theme of its own, and because it builds to the most solemn day of the church year. The theme generally has to do with the last week of Jesus life. In that sense it is about Jesus passion, focusing day by day on different aspects Jesus death on the cross. From the earliest days, literally from the earliest documents we have in the New Testament, namely Paul's letters, we see emphasized the centrality of the experience of the earliest Christians related to Jesus death. On the one hand it was experienced as a devastating conclusion to a ministry that had fired people up. Within days however there was a solemn sacred reversal that was understood to be the resurrection of the same one who had days before been executed. So in the church services of the week we see unfolding before us a retelling of a narrative of Jesus final days and an anticipation of the celebration of the overcomin...

  Dear friends in Christ, Dear friends in Christ, The Bishop of North Carolina has given permission for us to resume distributing the wine of the Eucharist in a common cup. For many if not most of us that is an integral part of our experience as Episcopalians. So it is with gladness that we receive the news. The bishops have also expressed a strong encouragement for several things to accompany this resumption of the common cup. One is that we ought to provide a method of intinction (dipping the wafer into the wine) for those who are uncomfortable with sipping from a common chalice. The other is a strong encouragement that we not allow intinction from the chalice by individuals. If you prefer to receive the wine by intinction you should do that at the intinction station. As a result of these directions, at the Easter Vigil this year we will resume distributing communion with the common cup (chalice). We will provide two stations for receiving the wine. One will be from a c...