As we do each year, we invite you to participate in the entire Easter experience during Holy Week:

• Maundy Thursday (7:30 pm, March 20) recalls several events of that night: Christ’s humility in washing his disciples’ feet; the institution of the Lord’s Supper; Jesus’ Great Commandment to love one another as he loved them; and his arrest and imprisonment.

• The Vigil that extends from the end of that service until 9:00 am the next morning (Good Friday) runs hour by hour through the night in the Vestry House, where the Reserve Sacrament will be kept, along with devotional materials. Sign-up for one of the hours (which can also be done by anyone at home) on the board in the Common Room.

• Good Friday commemorations run from 12:00 noon to 3:00 pm that day (March 21), marking the period that Jesus hung on the cross. Liturgically, we spend that time reading and reflecting upon Scripture - including meditative homilies a dramatic reading of the Passion from John’s Gospel - walking the fourteen Stations of the Cross, and partaking in the adoration of the cross in the Good Friday liturgy. Prayers and hymns are interspersed throughout. Come and join in as much as your work-schedule will allow!

• Holy Saturday (March 22) is when we welcome new members into the body of Christ through baptism, which we administer at a service at 4:00 pm.

• The Great Vigil of Easter is liturgically continuous with Holy Saturday, as it symbolizes the dawning of the new light of resurrection at the break of Easter Day. At Pohick, we observe ancient custom by receiving the Paschal flame from the National Cathedral on Holy Saturday. Members then meet in the Pohick parking lot at 3:30 am to be shuttled to the Walker Gate on the Mt. Vernon Parkway. An entourage processes the flame through Ft. Belvoir under military escort. They arrive at Pohick at 5:30 am (where others have gathered) for the lighting of the Paschal Candle, its procession into the Church, and a brief service of the Great Vigil. Members of the Brotherhood of St. Andrew prepare scones and hot cross buns for this first celebration feast of Easter day. Come and join in any or all of this wonderful commemoration!

Our Easter services themselves are, of course, the culmination of all these observances. In keeping with the joy of this day, there is music at all three services (7:45, 9:15 and 11:15 am), including brass at the later two. Frances Sessums and the Sunday school oversee an Easter Egg hunt for the children at about 10:30 am outside (weather permitting)

Get there early for a good seat! And do so not only for Easter, but also for the other services of Holy Week!