Holy Week 2025

There are two sung services during Holy Week  –  on Maundy Thursday (17th April) at 7.30pm, and on Good Friday (18th) at 1.30pm.

On Thursday, we remember the Last Supper on the night before Jesus died.  At the end of supper with his disciples, Jesus gave to bread and wine a symbolic meaning, representing his body and blood.  Each time we share Holy Communion, we do this in remembrance of him.  We also re-enact Jesus’ washing of the disciples’ feet, traditionally the work of a servant, while the meal was being served, a sign that we too should serve each other.  The altars are stripped bare, signifying the stripping of Christ before the crucifixion, and we keep watch as the disciples were asked to do in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Thursday  28th March: Maundy Thursday
7.30pm The Eucharist of the Last Supper with the Washing of Feet, the Stripping of the Altars
and the Watch of the Passion
Celebrant: The Revd Joanna Naish. Preacher:  Canon Judy Anderson 
Communion Setting: Leighton in D
439i omit* Praise to the Holiest in the height
Psalm 116: 1, 10 – 17.
304 There is a green hill far away
During washing of feet Drop drop slow tears Orlando Gibbons arr David Blackwell
I give you a new commandment Peter Nardone
302 O thou who at thy Eucharist didst pray
Tantum ergo sacramentum de Séverac
During stripping of altar 305 Soul of my Saviour, sanctify my breast
Procession to St Andrew’s Chapel 307 Sweet sacrament divine
Sung in St Andrew’s Chapel Psalm 22

Friday 7th:  Good Friday
1.30pm A Devotional Service for Good Friday
Led by the Revd Mark Hayter
This service which includes appropriate music and prayers, centres around the reading of the Passion of according to St John. During the service a wooden cross is brought into the church and placed at the altar.

Music included the opening movement of Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater; a lament by Jesus’s mother Mary at the foot of the cross. We will also sing two chorales taken from the St John Passion by JS Bach.

Once the service is over, you will be welcome to kneel at the Cross, and to view Stations of the Cross which are arranged clockwise around the church, starting in the South Aisle.

Introit sung in the St Andrew’s Chapel: God so loved the world (from The Crucifixion) John Stainer
84. It is a thing most wonderful
62. Ah holy Jesus, how hast thou offended (from  St John Passion JS Bach)
Stabat Mater dolorosa  Giovanni Battista Pergolesi
90 omit v2.  O sacred head sore wounded
The Proclamation of the Cross and Reproaches Malcolm Archer
86 My song is love unknown
O Lord hear my prayer  (chant from the Taizé Community, France)
Ah Lord, when my last end is come (from  St John Passion JS Bach)
Stay with me   (chant from the Taizé Community, France)