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    • Strategic Plan 2019-2023 >
      • Strategic Plan Update 1 - AFF
      • Strategic Plan Update 2 - FF
      • Strategic Plan Update 3 - ST
  • WORSHIP
    • Mass Times >
      • Lent and Holy Week 2021
      • Video Archive >
        • Archive: Online Mass
        • Archive: Friar Prayers and Messages
        • Archive: Other Online Devotions
    • Liturgy
    • Readings / Daily Devotional
    • Sacraments & Funerals
    • Prayer Requests
  • FAITH FORMATION
    • CGS
    • CLOW
    • Youth Ministry
    • Young Adults
    • Adult Faith Formation >
      • Women's Retreat
  • SERVICE
    • Committees & Ministries >
      • Parish Council
    • Social Action >
      • Community Partners
      • Racial Justice
      • ACTION Alert
  • GIVING
    • Financial Update
    • Ways to Give >
      • Setting Up Online Giving
      • Setting Up Text To Give
    • Bishop's Annual Appeal
    • Contributions
    • Gifts in Honor or Memory
    • Love Fund
    • Matching Gifts
    • Planned Giving
    • Stewardship Renewal
  • RESOURCES
    • COVID-19 Parish Response >
      • Public Presence at Parish Guidlines
      • Resources during COVID-19 outbreak
      • Praying together from home
    • Safe Environment
    • Being Franciscan / Vocations
    • Bulletin
    • Parish & Community Events >
      • Upcoming Events
      • Past Events
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Praying together from Home 

We are not alone.




And as we seek to pray from the safety of our homes, we are invited




to find new ways to participate in the celebration of our sacred liturgies




and the remembrance of Jesus' passion and resurrection. 






Here are resources and ideas for how to prayerfully




enter into these Holy Days

All Holy Week and Sunday liturgies will be available to watch live through our parish Youtube channel.
You are invited to join us,! We encourage you to subscribe to the channel and to comment during the livestream, adding your prayers and "Amens!"
As this America Magazine Article Suggests, we can find new ways to participate more fully as we watch Mass being streamed. 
  • Incarnate the gestures of the Mass by sitting, standing and kneeling
  • Making a spiritual communion
  • Create a church-like atmosphere in one’s own home by lighting candles, displaying icons or crucifixes and displaying a Bible.
    • ​Check out our Catechesis of the Good Shepherd material on how to make a prayer table at home.


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Celebrating the Eucharist --  Missalette for Holy Week


Palm Sunday 

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"Perhaps the most memorable part of the Palm Sunday liturgy is the Commemoration of the Lord’s Entrance into Jerusalem. To help us celebrate, the church invites us to carry palm branches as we gather for prayer today. Even so, we remember that liturgy is not a recreation of a past events. Rather, it is an anamnesis, an active remembering of the past so that we may live those realities today."


In order to actively remember - you might look for a branch or leaves that you find and put them on the door of your house. It can be any green branch that you can find!


A short procession around the house (inside or outside!) would be appropriate, with all responding, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” Children may wish to make banners or streamers to wave in the procession and play tambourines or other percussion instruments. You can use palms from last year that you might still have, other tree leaves, or even homemade crafted leaves.

​(From "Holy Week at Home, Liturgical Press") 



Holy Thursday

While we will not celebrate the Mandatum, or Washing of the Feet in the absence of a gathering of the faithful, this is a time to have a home foot washing, if you share a household with others. You can each take a turn washing one another's feet while praying together on Holy Thursday .

If you want to share a picture of a home foot-washing before Holy Thursday, we would incorporate images into our Livestreamed Liturgy.  Please send to Carolina by Wednesday, April 8th.​

Good Friday

At our Parish Mission earlier this Lent, one of the final times we were able to gather in person -- we made our own crosses, brought them to the altar where they were blessed, and we each picked up one to continue praying with this Lent -- carrying with us a reminder of the mission's message "Jesus Loves you, He gave his live to save you, and he lives by your side every day to strengthen, encourage and free you."   

We picked up one another's crosses to pray for what we each are carrying.

Our crosses might feel heavier now -- burdened with the weight of this pandemic, the suffering it causes.

We'd invite you to think of making your own cross this Good Friday, and bring to it whatever it is that is weighing you down. 

A twig or two and a bit of twine is all it takes... 
Picture

Holy Saturday 

On this, your night of grace, O holy Father,
accept this candle, a solemn offering,
the work of bees and of your servants’ hands,
an evening sacrifice of praise,

this gift from your most holy Church.
​- The Exsultet


As you prepare a space for prayer, consider lighting candles in your home or if you're able to light a fire outside. If you or anyone in your household has their baptismal candle, include it! 

You can proclaim exsultet and read aloud each of the readings for the Vigil. 

If you have younger children, you could share the video from our candlemakers at Melkin and check out this article, where they speak about bees and how integral their work is for bringing us our Paschal Candle, ad the beehive as a powerful metaphor for life in Christian community. 

Pray for the elect, all those who are preparing to enter the church and eagerly awaiting baptism. 

Below is a resource from Liturgical Press "Praying Holy Week At Home"




You can also access it for free at this link. It includes simple liturgies





to pray in the domestic church, particularly if you are unable to join us via




​ livestream.





​
IMMACULATE CONCEPTION CATHOLIC CHURCH   |  810 W CHAPEL HILL STREET, DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA 27701  |  919-682-3449


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