Grace Episcopal
Church

Mt. Meigs, Alabama

Fall-Winter Worship Schedule
(Beginning August 15)

• 8:00 a.m. Holy Eucharist (Church)
• 9:00 a.m. Nursery (Downstairs Keith Hall)
• 9:15 a.m. Christian Education for All Ages (Beginning Sept. 12)
• 10:30 a.m. Holy Eucharist with Hymns (Church)
• After the Services - Fellowship & Refreshments (Parish Hall)
  

Occasional services offered throughout the liturgical year include:

 Blessing of the Animals on the Sunday of the annual observance of the Feast Day of St. Francis of Assisi (the first Sunday in October). The time is announced in the monthly newsletter and all parishioners and members of the surrounding community are invited to participate in this heart-warming outdoor celebration of music and fellowship with the other creatures in God’s kingdom.

  The Feast of the Nativity (Christmas Eve) features a late afternoon service designed around families with small children and includes traditional Christmas music from the 1982 Hymnal, the Children’s Pageant, and Holy Communion. A later service includes special choral arrangements and traditional hymns from the 1982 Hymnal and Holy Communion.

  Shrove Tuesday and Mardi Gras (“Fat” Tuesday) is an opportunity to join in fellowship and feasting before entering into a season of contrition and repentance. Grace Church hosts its annual Pancake Supper or Jambalaya Dinner & Concert and customarily uses this opportunity to highlight one of the parish’s outreach service projects, such as Rebuilding Together or the Jubilee Community Center, or missions to Haiti and Honduras.

  Ash Wednesday opens our Lenten penitential season with the seven o’clock service of prayer, reflection, Holy Eucharist, and the Imposition of Ashes.

Holy Week Observances

The Sunday of the Passion:  Palm Sunday celebrates Jesus' truimphal entry into Jerusalem when the man hailed as king is betrayed, tortured, and finally crucified.  The service includes the traditional Blessing of the Palms and the reading of the Passion narrative.

Maundy Thursday at seven o’clock in the evening includes Holy Communion, ceremonial foot-washing, and the stripping of the Altar and is followed by an all-night prayer vigil in the Gardens with one-hour prayer opportunities for parishioners concluding on Good Friday morning with Morning Prayer.

Good Friday service at seven o’clock includes solemn prayer petitions and is the one day in our liturgical year when the Eucharist is not customarily celebrated.

The Great Easter Vigil is the primary service that heralds the Resurrection of our Lord and begins the great Fifty Days of Easter. It begins at sundown on the eve of Holy Saturday and includes triumphal music, chanting of the Exsultet, the lighting of the Paschal Candle, and the retelling of the scriptural account of the creation and fall of mankind and our redemption through the death and glorious resurrection of Jesus, the Christ. It is one of the four times in the liturgical year where customarily baptisms and renewals of faith commitments take place.

Pentecost (“Fifty”) marks the conclusion of the great Fifty Days of Easter and is the Church’s Birthday according to the Acts of the Apostles. We celebrate the occasion of the coming of the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, into the world by a special worship service on the first Sunday in Pentecost featuring celebratory liturgy and music.