In Lessons and Carols format, this liturgy challenges us to shed our doctrinal and intellectual armor, to resist the apathy of well-worn narratives, and to risk stepping outside of our comfortable, tastefully domesticated liturgical routines to stand at the foot of the cross – neither rationalizing or recoiling, but looking Christ squarely in the eyes – as we contemplate the paradoxical beauty of his suffering and death.

Writings of B.H. Fairchild, R.S. Thomas, Flannery O’Connor, Thomas Schmidt, and Michael Coffey, with music of Edward Bairstow, Monte Mason, P.I. Tchaikovsky, Larry Fleming, Trond Kverno, and Sergei Rachmaninoff will be offered amidst incense, long shadows, and deep silence. The liturgy will last 75 minutes, and childcare will be available.

Please join us as God draws near to us through the scandalous beauty of the Son’s death.

Natalia serves as the Treble II Lay Clark at St. Paul’s Episcopal. She will also be performing Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Vocalise.