The Meaning of
Lent
Historically, Lent is a 40-day period of Christ-centered devotion between Ash Wednesday and Easter Sunday.
The practice of Lent has been observed by Christians around the world since the early centuries of the church. It is a season of spiritual preparation in which we remember Christ's temptation, suffering, and death.
To practice Lent is to draw near, and better understand, Jesus Christ. Lent is a season of intentional discipleship under Christ, and with Christ. We also practice Lent to bond more closely with fellow Christians who are on the same journey - not only with those at Christ Episcopal Church, but also with all those around the world. Along the way, our sin and habits are put to death, and we learn to internalize and share in Christ’s resurrection power.
In the Western church, the forty days of Lent extend from Ash Wednesday through Holy Saturday, omitting Sundays. The last three days of Lent are the sacred Triduum of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday. Today, Lent has reacquired its significance as the final preparation of candidates for baptism. Joining with them, all Christians are invited "to the observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God's holy Word" (Book of Common Prayer, p. 265).
As is our custom here at Christ Episcopal Church, during the season of Lent we will celebrate Holy Eucharist using the Rite I liturgy from our Book of Common Prayer. We will first use Rite I at the Eucharistic part of the Ash Wednesday liturgy, and return to Rite II at the Easter Vigil.
Our Lenten
Services and Gatherings
Below are some of the services and gatherings that will be held at Christ Church during this 2025 Lenten season. More information can be found in our Sunday service leaflets, our weekly Christ Church Gatherings email that's sent on Thursdays, and other documents located in the Narthex of New Brick.
You are always welcome at Christ Episcopal Church,
and we hope that you will join us often.
Daily Lenten Meditations
Every weekday between Ash Wednesday and Holy Saturday
The 2025 Christ Church Lenten Meditation Book contains parishioner submissions of prayers, songs, poems, and personal reflections. It also includes our favorite inspirational pieces by various writers and theologians, particularly focusing on our Spiritual Life theme this year, Reaching Out in Faith. Be sure to check back each weekday, as daily meditations will be posted here on our website and our social media pages throughout the Lenten season. Printed copies of our LMB are also available in the church's Narthex beginning March 2nd.
You can view every previous Lenten Meditation post below.
Shrove Tuesday Pancake Supper
March 4 @ 6:00 p.m. in New Brick Lower Level
The incredible youth of Christ Church will once again host our annual Shrove Tuesday/Mardi Gras Pancake Supper on March 4th, so join us in the Great Hall of New Brick for this traditional start to the Lenten season. Serving begins at around 6:30 p.m., so please sign up here so we know how much to buy. Service will be available until approximately 7:30 p.m. Tickets for this event are $15. for an individual and $25. for a family, and you can pay using cash at the door, or by using our online giving form (choose “Shrove Tuesday Dinner” in the FUND dropdown menu). Tickets are also available if you come to church on a Sunday. This event has flavorful pancakes, fun Afrobeat music with DJ Edgar, and fantastic fellowship for everyone. What a way to begin the Lenten season - don't miss it!
Ash Wednesday
March 5
Ashes to Go from 6-7:00 a.m.
7:00 a.m. service in Old Brick
12 noon & 7:00 p.m. services in New Brick
Ash Wednesday reminds us of our mortality and of what we are made of. To get our thoughts and ourselves ready and prepared for Lent, Christ Church offers worship with the Imposition of Ashes on Wednesday, March 5th at 7:00 a.m. in Old Brick, and then at 12 noon and 7:00 p.m. in the New Brick Sanctuary. We‘ll also livestream the 7:30 p.m. worship on our website, YouTube, and Facebook pages.
Weather permitting, we'll also offer Ashes to Go, a brief stop at Christ Church that takes place for those working commuters, students, and early risers to stop by and receive Ashes as they start their day. We will offer a short prayer and administer them to those who cannot be with us in worship that morning, but who desire the Ashes nonetheless. Simply follow the Ashes to Go signs on the lawns, and stop by beginning at 6 a.m.
Center for Spiritual Nourishment
Saturday, March 8
8:30 a.m. to 12 noon throughout campus
The Center for Spiritual Nourishment at Christ Church is coming up on a full year of existence, and it could be argues that the season of Lent might be the time we need spiritual nourishment more than ever. Join seekers of a deeper relationship with the Divine on the second Saturday of every month, as we offer experiences that engage the mind, body, and spirit by offering safe spaces to explore an array of opportunities for spiritual growth. The CSN is for anyone interested in spiritual nourishment, regardless of religious affiliation or spiritual beliefs, and offers an array of experiences that engage the mind, body, and spirit in a safe, communal environment. We're tending to our souls in community! Come for one session or the entire morning.
Learn more at www.christchurchcolumbia.org/spiritual-nourishment
Lenten Reflection Day
Saturday, March 15 @ 8:30 a.m. in Old Brick
Christ Church’s Spiritual Life Commission presents Lenten Reflection Day on Saturday, March 15th - a very special half-day retreat to help us begin the season of Lent. This year, we are very blessed to have Sister Teresa Irene lead us in prayer and meditation as we examine our 2025 theme, Reaching Out in Faith, and share her experience in Carmelite Spirituality.
Lenten Reflection Day includes a light breakfast at 8:30 a.m., is followed by the day’s program, and then wraps up around noon with an informal Eucharist. We hope that you'll find time to join us for this exceptional and inspirational start to the Lenten season.
Sunday Mornings at Christ Church
8:00 a.m. in Old Brick
Family Worship at 9:00 a.m. in New Brick
Holy Eucharist with Music and Choir at 10:30 a.m. in New Brick
Except for Easter Sunday, Christ Church's Sunday morning schedule remains the same as always, with three worship services and many formation and fellowship gatherings for all ages. You can learn more about the Sunday schedule on our website's Sunday Mornings at Christ Church page and can receive more details each week in our Christ Church Gatherings email.
Adult Forum: Sunday Circle
Sunday mornings in Old Brick from 9:30-10:15 a.m.
Lent is a period where we prepare ourselves with prayer, fasting, repentance, spiritual discipline, and self-denial. During the 2025 season of Lent, Sunday Circle will explore a few of the different faces of evil that we have experienced in the world. In doing so, we at Christ Church will reflect and try to learn how we can take inventory and better manage ourselves as we encounter such individuals. We invite everyone to join us for this powerful and insightful series.
Session One: Evil in Scripture
Session Two: Evil of Jim Crow
Session Three: Evil of Holocaust
Session Four: Evil of Genocide
We also have Parenting Groups and other Adult Formation gatherings every Sunday morning. You can learn more about those here.
Weekday Morning and Evening Prayer
Monday - Friday mornings at 7:00 a.m.
Friday evenings at 7:00 p.m.
on the main page of our website and Facebook
A wide range of dedicated and extraordinary Christ Church parishioners continue to host Morning and Evening Prayer worship throughout the season of Lent. You can join us every weekday morning, and also on Friday evenings. This brief service livestream helps to re-center us as we begin and conclude our days.
Centering Prayer
Monday evenings at 7:00 p.m. on Zoom
Centering Prayer is a special evening gathering that helps us be present and open to God. The practice of this prayer could lead to a more intimate union with God and a more powerful experience of God’s presence in our lives. This active presence heals, transforms, and offers freedom and peace. Join us in Old Brick at 7:00 on Monday evenings, but you can also take part virtually from wherever you are. You'll find the Zoom details in our weekly emails or Sunday bulletin, or you can email centering@christchurchcolumbia.org and we'll send them to you. It's a restorative experience, so come and be a part of this gathering of reflection.
Wednesday Evening Lenten Supper Series
Wednesday evenings at 6:30 p.m. in the Great Hall of New Brick
One of the most cherished traditions at Christ Church during the season of Lent is the Wednesday Evening Lenten Supper Series, one of the most enriching Lenten experiences of the season. We are always thankful to the members of the Spiritual Life Commission, who work so hard to put this event together. This series offers five weeks of insightful and life-transforming seminars on our theme for this year, Reaching Out in Faith.
The clergy presenters for this year are:
March 12: The Right Reverend Robert Ihloff
March 19: The Reverend Marcia Davenport
March 26: The Reverend Kirk Kubicek
April 2: The Reverend Richard Ginnever
April 9: The Reverend Emmanuel Ato Mercer
We begin each evening at 6:30 p.m. with a communal supper in the Great Hall - each week, a different ministry will provide the potluck meal - followed by our guest presenter. The evening then concludes with a brief, informal Eucharist. Quite frankly, there's no other series like this at Christ church throughout the year, and we highly encourage you to gather with us for fellowship and discussion each Wednesday.
Lenten Healing Eucharist
Thursdays at 12:00 noon in Old Brick
Beginning March 6th and taking place each Thursday during Lent, Christ Church offers a midday Healing Eucharist in Old Brick. This service includes readings, prayers, a litany for healing, and the Holy Eucharist. Parishioners and community members are all welcome to join in a prayerful time in the presence of God, and to share in the wonderful mystery of God’s love whilst we seek healing for ourselves and our loved ones. Please come in to reflect, pray, and participate in a service held in our beautiful, historic chapel.
Christ Church Book Club
Friday evenings at 7:30 p.m. on Zoom
The CECBC returns during Lent with a new book, The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life by David Brooks. Learn more here, and if you'd like to join us, Ellen will scan the first few chapters to get you started if you email her. We read a few chapters each week, and then gather virtually for an hour or so on Fridays at 7:30 p.m. to share thoughts and have lively conversations. Just jump on Zoom and join us. The Zoom link is in every week's email newsletter, Christ Church Gatherings.
Lenten Taizé Vespers
Every Sunday during Lent at 6:00 p.m. in the New Brick Sanctuary
Vespers is a liturgy of Evening Prayer that combines scripture readings, prayer, silent meditation, and rich music. Each Sunday evening, Christ Church offers a service of contemplative prayer and music in the tradition of the Taizé community of France. It offers this special service each Sunday evening during this Lenten season with the hope of offering different opportunities for prayer, music, and reflection.
The founder of the Taizé community, Brother Roger, explains: "What we usually call 'worship' the Taizé community simply calls 'Prayer.' Taizé Prayer consists of 'short chants, repeated again and again, giving them a meditative character. Using just a few words, they express a basic reality of faith, quickly grasped by the mind. As the words are sung over many times, this reality gradually penetrates the whole being. Meditative singing thus becomes a way of listening to God."
This community promotes peace and justice through prayer and meditation. Our Taizé Vespers service mirrors Taizé-style attention to silence, holy words, prayer, and singing and offers a chance to meditate and reflect on God's love and presence in one's life, to offer prayer for oneself and others, and to share in a supportive community of fellow pilgrims on the way.
Baptism Class
Saturday, March 22 at 9:00 a.m. in New Brick
Christ Church will offer a Baptism class on Saturday, March 22nd at 9:00 a.m. for all those who are interested in receiving the sacrament of Baptism at the Easter Vigil service. Please contact the church office if you are interested in participating in this class.
Schedule subject to change
Holy Week
at Christ Episcopal Church
This year, Palm Sunday is on April 13th and is followed by Holy Week, the most sacred period of our Christian faith. This is when the foundational story of Christianity – Jesus’ suffering, death, and resurrection – is remembered and retold, both in words and in ritual actions, at services throughout the week. We gather together as a community of faith to journey with Jesus to Jerusalem, to stand with him before his accusers, to walk to Golgotha, and to stand at the foot of his cross. Finally, on Easter Sunday, we will joyously celebrate the resurrection of Christ, lifting our voices in praise of the hope that is ours and the world’s.
From earliest times, Christians have observed the week before Easter as a time of special devotion. The heart of Holy Week observance is the three holy days, or Triduum, of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday, and Christ Church has services on each of these days.
Join us for all of it, if you can, remembering that without the journey of Holy Week, Easter loses its deep meaning.
Holy Week Services
Palm Sunday
Sunday, April 13
Holy Eucharist at 8:00, 9:00, & 10:30 a.m.
Liturgy of Palms begins at Old Brick (weather permitting).
The holiest of weeks begins with Palm Sunday, also called Passion Sunday. Here the triumphant entry of Jesus into Jerusalem is recalled, and yet, the liturgy quickly shifts to the events of the week that lead Jesus to his arrest, trial, and death on the cross. The congregation gathers in Old Brick, processes to New Brick with blessed palm leaves, and joins in the reading of the Gospel narrative in parts. The liturgy ends in quietness; a stark contrast to the joy of the procession. And with this, our Holy Week journey begins.
Meditations on the Passion
Sunday, April 13
at 6:00 p.m. in New Brick
This Palm Sunday evening, Christ Church will present Meditations on the Passion, a special service of poems, readings, dance (courtesy of our Lumen Christi liturgical dance ministry), song, and prayer. Join us at 6:00 p.m. in the New Brick Sanctuary as we contemplate the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ in a way that makes us realize the immense love He has for each one of us, a love that is capable of suffering and death in order to free us from our sins.
Tenebrae
Wednesday, April 16
7:00 p.m. in New Brick
As Jesus draws ever closer to the events of Good Friday, the church readies itself by reading the service of Tenebrae, taken from the monastic tradition. In this Wednesday evening service, a candelabrum with fifteen candles is used, and one by one the candles are extinguished, until the only light remaining symbolizes the light of Christ. This light is taken and hidden for a moment, as Christ was laid in the tomb. Then, as a loud noise resembling that of the earthquake is heard, the light is returned to its stand. In silence, and by the light of only that single candle, the congregation exits.
Maundy Thursday
Thursday, April 17
5:00 p.m. Seder meal in New Brick
7:00 p.m. Eucharist in New Brick, with foot-washing and stripping of Altar
9:00 p.m. Vigil in Old Brick
On this evening of Maundy Thursday, we gather together to bring into remembrance the Last Supper of our Lord and the Institution of the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. We hear and remember the words of Jesus as he states, “Do this in remembrance of me.” As the service concludes, the altar is stripped of all of its appointments, so that the focus of all can be upon the cross alone on the following day, Good Friday. We then hear of the Agony in the Garden, as Jesus is arrested. The Watch then takes place through the night, as in response to our Lord’s question: “Could you not watch with me for one hour?”
Good Friday
Friday, April 18
12:00 noon and 7:00 p.m. Veneration of the Cross and Eucharist in New Brick
Christians throughout the world recall Good Friday as the day upon which Jesus died. As it remembers the great sinfulness of man, it also points to the glory and love of God. It is most somber in its offering, and includes the Veneration of the Cross, another ancient custom of the Church. A plain wooden cross is carried into the church and is held before us. The congregation is then invited to come forward in reverence of the cross - by touching the wood, a simple bow, a genuflection, or the act of kissing the wood of the cross.
The noonday service lasts one hour and draws our attention to the extraordinary love that God has for each of us in giving His son to die on the cross. The evening service is slightly longer, as we also receive communion from the Sacrament Reserved. Church tradition prohibits the celebration of the Eucharist on this day.
Holy Saturday
Easter Vigil and Eucharist, Lighting of the New Fire, and Baptisms
Saturday, April 19
7:00 p.m. in New Brick
As the church awaits the glory of the resurrection, Holy Saturday is a day of preparation. As the sun sets, bringing with it the end of the Lenten season, one of the most beautiful services of the entire church year is held. We begin in utter darkness, signifying Christ in the tomb, and then a new fire is lit & blessed, and with it the Paschal Candle symbolizing Christ. As the Paschal Candle is carried into the church, the light is passed to parishioners, who each hold a candle. As the church is illumined by just candlelight, the ancient hymn The Exsultet is sung. Then, within that light, lessons are read which remind us of God’s desire for man’s salvation. The Sacrament of Holy Baptism takes central focus on the priesthood of all believers and then we celebrate the first Eucharist of Easter. The darkness is now full light!
This year, Christ Church will provide Holy Baptism for all interested individuals. Baptism class will take place on Saturday, March 22nd, and individuals and families who are interested in Holy Baptism at this service are invited to let us know. We will then give you more information.
Easter Sunday
Sunday, April 20
8:00 a.m., in Old Brick
9:00 a.m. and 11:00 a.m. with music and choir in New Brick
We have now reached Easter Day – a day of joy, celebration, and the gift of life to God’s people.
There are three services this morning, and you are welcome to be with us at 8:00, 9:00, and 11:00 a.m.
At the 9:00 and 11:00 services, a full choir and procession with all of the rituals appointed for the day help us celebrate and express our joy. The Easter sermon is given; the choir anthems are spectacular, and the glory of the day radiates from our worship into the community.
Celebrations on this day include the annual Easter Egg Hunt, as well as the Flowering of the Cross. These are beloved celebrations for the youngest among us, and the rest of us ensure a safe and fun time for all. Please be sure to bring your basket or bag for the egg hunt! Flowers will be provided.