Parish Profile - Calvary Episcopal Church

Calvary ministers to a number of homebound parishioners, by blessing and sending lay Eucharistic ministers todeliver the sacrament to an average of 5 parishioners each month who are unable to worship at the church due toextended illness or incapacity.In addition to the Eucharist services, Calvary periodically offers choral evensong on Sunday afternoons, featuringCalvary’s choirs singing the music of the Anglican tradition that typically characterizes this service.Calvary employs the full richness of our liturgy to mark the church year, whether in the simplicity of the spokenEucharists, offered at 8 a.m. on Sunday and during the week, or at the larger services on Sunday mornings.Holy days are especially great occasions at Calvary. Easter Day, Christmas Day, the Day of Pentecost, All Saints’ Day,and the Sunday nearest the Feast of St. Michael & All Angels, our patronal festival, are celebrated with particularfanfare by adding a solemn procession and special music at the principal services.Advent and Christmas at Calvary attract a large number of parishioners and manyfrom the greater community. A candlelight service of Nine Lessons & Carols for Advent,featuring the music of Calvary’s choirs, beautifully introduces us to this season ofexpectation. On the last Sunday of Advent, the 11 o’clock service takes place in thecontext of a Christmas pageant featuring the youth of the parish. Many eagerlyanticipate the pageant, replete with live animals – always a donkey, several sheepand sometimes a camel.Christmas is marked by two large, festive services on Christmas Eve at4 o’clock in the afternoon and at 11 o’clock in the evening, eachimmediately preceded by seasonal music from the choir, typically joinedby a professional brass ensemble. Attendance at these services totals morethan 1,000 people each year. On Christmas Day, the Eucharist is offeredagain at 9:30 in the morning in a more intimate setting.Lent begins with the Imposition of Ashes on Ash Wednesday; four servicesare offered throughout that day. The evening Ash Wednesday service, thelast of the day, adds organ and choir. Reminiscent of the ancient “beatingthe bounds,” the Great Litany is sung in procession around the nave onthe first Sunday in Lent.Holy Week is marked by the Blessing of the Palms and a solemn procession on Palm Sunday, the washing of feetand stripping of the altar on Maundy Thursday and a three-hour service of solemn prayer, music and meditation onGood Friday. By long tradition, a concert of suitable sacred choral music takes place on Good Friday evening, oftenwith orchestra. On Easter Eve, the parish gathers to celebrate the first Eucharist of Eastertide and Holy Baptism atthe Great Vigil of Easter, which has grown considerably over the past fifteen years, and again on Easter Day, attractingon average 544 communicants to the Easter services held that day.On the Day of Pentecost, at the announcing of the Gospel, congregants are invited to read the appointed gospel invarious languages simultaneously from their pews before it is read in English. This exercise not only recalls thePentecostal miracle told in the Acts of the Apostles, it celebrates the linguistic skills of Calvary parishioners, as wedecipher the cacophony of French, German and Spanish at once being read next to Chinese, Japanese, Greek orLatin and any of the languages Calvary’s polyglots speak.-8-