St. Joe's Dispatch | April 16th, 2025
I. From the Desk of the Vicar
Dearests -
Evening; midnight; then cockcrow, dawn — the story we tell during Holy Week is, among other things, a story that frequently turns our attention to the less-than-fully-wakeful hours. Jesus gathers his friends at night for a farewell dinner. He then prays in a nighttime garden — and is arrested in the darkest of late night. The crucifixion itself plays with time, light, and dark. Then Gospel of John tells us “it was about noon” that Pilate “handed him over to be crucified,” and then Luke tells us
It was now about the sixth hour [that is, noon], and there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour, while the sun’s light failed; and the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Then Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said, ‘Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit!’ And having said this he breathed his last.
A candlelit dinner; the unfamiliar soundscape of the late night hours; and high noon turning dark.
Appropriately, our community’s observances of Holy Week invite us into the hours of darkness. Beginning tonight, we’ll gather for evening worship, night after night. Near the end of our Thursday service, we’ll carry consecrated bread and wine to a gardenlike corner of the church. You are invited to keep watch, awake, with the eucharistic body of Jesus through the night. (If you wish to sign up for an hour, you may do so here, but you may certainly come to church any time late Thursday or early Friday without having signed up ahead of time, and you may sign up for an hour even if two people already have.) There will be booklets on hand to guide you in prayer and psalm; avail yourself of those prayer-suggestions, or ignore them, as you are led. Talk to Jesus, or sit in inner quiet, or sit with inner restlessness, or knit. One year, I ran out of things to say to Jesus after about 10 minutes and sat in His company reading a novel for the rest of my hour (that said, the lights are low). Isaac Lund, our sexton, will be at church all night keeping an eye on the property. I’ll be there from 3 to 4. This is one of my favorite hours of the year. Listen for the wind chimes. Let your mind wander and let the eucharist, in its monstrance, hold your gaze.
Most of our evening services are at 6, but on Saturday, we’ll gather for the Great Vigil of Easter at 9 pm. This long, rich, unusual service is our first celebration of Easter’s great fifty days. We begin the Vigil by lighting a fire outdoors, and during the service, we read a chain of Scriptures that tells the story of salvation; we will baptize Izzy; we will pray to “Christ, the Morning Star who knows no setting.” We will proclaim, and celebrate, the Resurrection. (And after the Vigil, we’ll have a late-night dessert potluck. Please email CJ Surbaugh to let him know what you’ll bring, or that you are available to help set up or clean after.)
That our attentions are drawn repeatedly to dusk, to deep night, to midnight, toward dawn — this is one of the things I love most about Holy Week. Night’s hours are often thought to haunt, and even to harm; Holy Week, and our devotions during Holy Week, sacralize those hours, and prayer deep in the night holds possibilities hard to find in daylight prayer. I think of children, learning to pray for comfort and protection in the midst of nighttime fears. I think of Meister Eckhart’s suggestion that “Where knowledge and desire end, there is darkness, and there God shines.” I think of Thomas Merton, keeping fire watch at his monastery in the 1952: “The night, O my Lord, is a time of freedom,” he wrote. “You have seen the morning and the night, and the night was better. In the night, all things began, and in the night the end of all things has come before me.” I think of Mary Magdalene, in this painting by Georges de La Tour — pondering death? pondering penitence? simply captivated by the flame? I hope for her quality of attention tonight, tomorrow night, and all through this Holy Week.
With love from
Vicar Lauren
II. Holy Week at St. Joe’s
Community Breakfast every weekday morning beginning at 7:00 am in the Parish Hall. Morning Prayer every weekday beginning at 8:15 am in the church.
Family Service: Wednesday, April 16, 5:15 PM, Parish House
Tenebrae: Wednesday, April 16, 6:00 PM, church
Maundy Thursday: Thursday, April 17, 6:00 PM, church
Night Watch: Thursday, April 17 beginning at 7:00 pm- Friday, April 18 concluding at 8:15 am before Morning Prayer, church. Sign up here.
Good Friday Liturgy: Friday, April 18, 6:00 PM, church
Holy Saturday: Saturday, April 19, 10:30 AM, church
The Great Vigil of Easter: Saturday, April 19, 9:00 PM, church
Dessert social in the Parish House following the Easter Vigil. Email CJ Surbaugh to sign-up.
Easter Sunday: Sunday, April 20, 10:30 AM & 6:00 PM, church
III. Announcements
Parish Potluck lunch * Sunday, April 27, immediately following the 10:30 am service outside (or, in the parish house if weather is terrible). If your last name starts A-I bring: salad/veggies; if J-R: cold cuts/cheese slices; if S-Z: dessert. Drinks and bread/rolls will be provided. Questions? Email Jan Krause. (Please note - there is no May potluck; it has been replaced by the newcomers’ soiree.)
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Fellowship Opportunity for Folks 40 & Older * Newcomers and others! If you're 40+, please join us at our first monthly St. Joe's “Food & Fellowship” lunch! We will gather at The Refectory Cafe at 11:45 am on Wednesday, April 30, to enjoy each other's company and welcome newcomers into the weave of St. Joe's parish life. Questions? Please email Julia Hoyle or Frances Dowell.
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Newcomers Soiree * Friday, May 2, 5:00-7:00 pm at Vicar Lauren’s home. RSVP here. Questions? Email Lauren Norton. We hope anyone is new or newish to St. Joe’s will join us, and we also hope many who are not so new will join — exactly so that newer folks can meet some people who have been part of St. Joe’s a bit longer. All are welcome!
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Spring Family event * Tuesday, May 6, 4:30-6:00 pm at the Barton-Philips home. All families with young children are invited to a time of fellowship, play, breaking bread, and conversation about children’s ministry. RSVP to Deacon Kelly.
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Casserole bake * Wednesday, May 7, 6:30 pm in the Parish House. Questions? Email Fr. Lachlan.
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Prison Visitation, North Carolina Correctional Institution for Women * Friday, May 9, 10:35-12:45 pm. Interested in learning more about how St. Joe’s is involved in prision ministries? Email Deacon Jan.
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Parish Workday * Saturday, May 24, 10:00 am-2:00 pm at the church. Questions? Email Isaac Lund.
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Three-part discussion of Spiritual Practices for Resilience and Resistance * at the vicar’s house, May 26, June 5, and June 16, from 7:00 to 8:30 pm.
Weeping. Praying for those in peril. Lamenting. These are practices that Christians have taken up, especially in times of violence or political unrest, for centuries — and they are practices that many of us have been moved toward in recent months. This May and June, the Vicar will lead three conversations about spiritual practices that connect us and our concerns to God, that nourish us to endure long seasons of disquiet, and that empower us to be agents of resistance in the world. We’ll consider what the deep tradition of Christian fasting has to say about how we manage our news intake. We’ll consider what the psalmist shows us about weeping, lamenting, and praying about our enemies. And throughout all these discussions, we’ll be trying to thread connections between practices of social and political resistance and more interior practices of Godward attention.
Only three sessions have been designated for this discussion, but it is the Vicar’s hope that these three sessions will deepen relationships among us so that some core group of people may find itself coalescing around the questions “How, then, do we want to continue in a path of deeper spiritual practice?” and “To what practices of resistance in the world might God be calling us as a community?” and “How can we support one another in a season when resilience feels scarce and exhaustion threatens?”
You are welcome to join into one, two or all three sessions in May and June. Questions? Email Vicar Lauren.
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Migrant God book conversation with Isaac Villegas * Tuesday, June 10, 7:00-8:30 pm at Vicar Lauren’s home. Questions? Email Vicar Lauren.
IV. Art
V. Community Events
Queer Ecologies for Community conversation * Friday, April 25 from 10:00 am-12:00 pm at the North Carolina Botanical Garden. The session will be led by Kati Henderson, University Partnerships and Community Engagement Program Coordinator for the Sarah P. Duke Gardens, will explore the diversity of gender, sexuality, and community in the living world to strengthen our own work & lives. Learn more here.