Welcome to All Saints’ Episcopal Church

 

PLEASE JOIN US FOR A VIRTUAL SERVICE BELOW
LATE SPRING WORSHIP SCHEDULE
FOR THE HEALTH AND SAFETY OF THE COMMUNITY, OUR BUILDING WILL REMAIN CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE
JOIN US FOR ZOOM FELLOWSHIP HOUR!  11:00am – Link in Sunday email
STATIONS OF THE CROSS PRESENTED BY OUR UPPER CHURCH SCHOOL
Weekly Order of Services
               

Past Online Worship Videos & Sermons

                    

10 Billerica Road
Chelmsford, MA 01824
Phone: 978-256-5673 (LORD)

Click here for the All Saints’ Calendar

  • New stone lighting - part of Living Stones projects

We are a welcoming community that seeks to follow Jesus Christ with all that we are and all that we have. Through worship, fellowship, education, and outreach we open ourselves to God and our neighbor.

Our Sunday Schedule:
8 AM + Holy Communion
10 AM + Holy Communion with music and nursery.
Lower Church School gathers at 9:45 AM
Upper Church School sits together in worship; classes begin at 11:20 AM

Whoever you are, wherever you are on your journey of faith: we invite you to join us!

Easter Sunday 4-18-21: Disbelieving and Still Wondering

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. As Luke explains the growth of Jesus’ followers in their faith in the resurrection: the risen Jesus asks them, “Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts?” In a striking phrase, Luke describes how “in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering.” The gospels are full of stories of how Jesus’ earliest followers day-by-day worked their way towards an understanding of the resurrection, where death would never be the final word for them ever again.

It can seem, however, like common sense to believe in death’s victory over life rather than life’s victory over death. Continue reading →

Easter Sunday 4-04-21: Jesus’ Resurrection and Ours

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Last Easter Sunday, we could hardly believe that we couldn’t celebrate Easter together. I encouraged you to lean into the Easter experience, hard, to get through the unknown number of weeks that the pandemic would go on. I imagined with you that our first fully regathered service together might be as far off as fall of 2020, but that that would be an Easter service beginning with “Alleluia, Christ is Risen.” And you would respond, “The Lord is Risen indeed, Alleluia.” It was a good plan.

So it is with mixed feeling that a year later, on another Easter Sunday, we seemingly find ourselves here again. But it is not the same. We are not the same. I’m proud of us. Who knew as we leaned into the Easter message last year that it could carry us this far for so long? Continue reading →

Given the Temp predictions…you can stay in your car tonight at the Vigil

Dear Friends-

I hope you are coming to tonight’s Easter Vigil service at 300 Apollo Dr. ( the same parking lot as at Christmas Eve.) Plan to arrive between 7:15-7:30pm. The service starts at 7:30pm.

We will be set up a little differently tonight. Instead of hanging the screen on the building- which was significantly complicated- we have rented a big truck to hang the screen on. We were originally planning on most parishioners sitting in staggered parking lot spaces- but given the temp predictions for a cold night- you can also choose to stay in your car, and be parked behind the sitters.

This might be a good option if you are either concerned about covid contact or just want to stay warm. When you pull into the lot, the usher will ask you which you would like to do- sit in a space or stay in your car. If you want to be sitting outside- dress for the cold and have fun doing it. ;- )

Masks are required. And don’t forget to bring bells to ring, an Easter donation to give if you can, and an open heart ready to worship.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Best,

Laura

Morning Prayer During Holy Week

You are all invited to join us for Morning Prayer in Zoom each day during Holy Week. The link is in your Sunday email from All Saints, or you can contact the office to have it sent to you. 978-256-5673 or aschurch@allsaintschelmsford.org

The service room opens at 7:45am and the service starts at 8am. The service lasts approx. 20 minutes. Here are the order of services:

 

MPr-for-Tuesday-in-Holy-Week-2021Download
MP-for-Wednesday-in-Holy-Week-2021Download
MPr-for-Maundy-Thursday-2021Download
MP-for-Good-Friday-2021Download
MPr-for-Holy-Saturday-2021Download

The Stations of the Cross at All Saints 2021

A Prayer Walk Around the Outside of the Parish

The prayers and readings for each station can be found in a booklet that is available in the Cloisters. Or, you can use the audio files we have created to take a “guided” tour of the prayer stations. You can access the files from your data phone by visiting this site and clicking on this button.

GO TO THE STATIONS OF THE CROSS AUDIO FILES

This year at All Saints’ we are using The Way of the Cross to pray the Stations of the Cross during Holy Week. Ten Stations have been set up outside of the church buildings, in an easy walk around. At each Station there is a “meditation box” that has been created by a parishioner for you to look at as you pray.

You can also pray the Stations at home, using these audio files. We hope these Stations of the Cross help you to enter into the mystery of Holy Week and Easter.

If you would like a copy of the booklet, you can download the pdf here:

WAYOFTHECROSS-ASC-2021_onlineversionDownload

If you do visit the Stations at the church we ask that you wear a mask and practice safe social distancing. Thank you.

This Week’s Music

Prelude: Voluntary # 4 in G Minor – William Boyce (1711-1779)
Mr. Boyce was a Choirboy at St. Paul’s London, and eventually became Master of the King’s Music. He wrote lots of really fine choir music, and in his old age edited Cathedral Music, a collection of English church music that is still in wide use today. His success meant that he ate and drank a little too well, and he thus died of gout.
Offertory: Hymn 145 “Now quit your care” Quittez Pasteurs
If you attended the Ash Wednesday service, you heard this hymn once already. René, the music director at Trinity Lutheran in Chelmsford is the singer.  She and I collaborated on this and hope to work together again on a couple of Easter hymns. This tune is actually a French Noel, with Lenten text by the most excellent English Socialist priest Percy Dearmer (1867-1936), that exhorts us to focus on that which is truly important, rather than outward signs of repentance – a sort of “rend your hearts and not your garments” type message. Dearmer is perhaps best known for editing the English Hymnal with Ralph Vaughan Williams, but also for writing The Parson’s Handbook, a manual for clergy.
Variations on a Bass – Henry Coleman (1888-1965)
We had a technical glitch this past Sunday, so I’m repeating this piece as the postlude this week. It took 4 or 5 hours to get it polished and to achieve a good recording, and it’s worth hearing every note. It is a passacaglia (or one could call it a ground bass, or a chaconne, or a “canon” – as in the mislabeled “Pachelbel canon”) by English composer R. Henry Coleman. The ground bass, repeated over and over throughout the piece, is a descending G-Minor scale. The bass is stated all alone in the pedal at the outset, and each variation adds a little something more. At the halfway point the volume is throttled back and chromatic passing tones are added to the bass line for three variations. Another build-up then carries us to the end, with the bass line stated for the final time in the left hand on the “solo tuba”.  J. S. Bach’s Passacaglia in C Minor, with its 33 variations (signifying the life of Christ of course) is the supreme example of the form. I have a priest friend who listens to one of the many available YouTube recordings of the Bach Passacaglia every single night just before he goes to bed.
Musically yours,
Carl

The Third Sunday in Lent 3-07-21: Jesus Cleansing the Temple and the Dynamics of Guilt and Shame

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Jesus made a whip out of cords, walked into the outer courts of the Jerusalem temple, and drove out the merchants and money changers yelling “Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!” He also poured out the coins of the money changers, overturned their tables, chased away the sheep and the cattle. Our Jesus was pretty upset. It is hard to find any other story quite like this one about Jesus. What was it that would make this nonviolent man so desperate that he would shout and turn over tables in the national temple during the feast of the Passover? He may well have provided a clue in the well-known story of him welcoming the children as the adults were pushing them away. Immediately after saying, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me,” he sternly warns, “If any of you put a stumbling-block before one of these little ones…. it would be better for you if a great millstone were fastened around your neck and you were drowned in the depth of the sea” (Matt. 18:6).

Jesus pulls out the whip because the temple he saw was not what it was supposed to be for the people. They needed the temple to be the temple. Continue reading →