Deepening our Participation in the Broadcast Celebration

Before the broadcast begins:

• Gather with other members of your household, if you can.
• Place a cross on a table or in a sacred space, if you have one in the home, together with an unlit candle. If you don’t have a cross, you may be able to make a simple cross with something from the garden.

  During the broadcast look out for the following:

• The liturgy begins in silence with the minister kneeling before the altar. During this time, you may wish to kneel or bow your head in prayerful reverence.
• The Readings of the day present us with stark and profound images, from the suffering servant of Isaiah to the account of Jesus’ passion. ‘Ours were the sufferings he bore, ours the sorrows he carried.’ What are the sufferings and sorrows you wish to bring to him as you listen to God speaking to you in these readings?
• The broadness of the Solemn Intercessions are a powerful reminder that God’s merciful love has no borders or limits. Nothing and no one is beyond the love of God. As with last year, we will pray a particular intercession in light of the Covid-19 Pandemic.
• ‘Behold the wood of the Cross, on which hung the saviour of the world; come let us worship’. This refrain during the Adoration of the Cross invites us to contemplate and adore Christ. The cross points to the Risen Lord. As you share in a broadcast liturgy, you and household members are invited to make a gesture of adoration towards the cross in your home. This might be a bow or a genuflection or other form of adoration. You may wish to hold the cross for a moment of contemplation. After you make your gesture of adoration, light the candle as a reminder that the risen Lord is with us and with our world in this time of trial.

• At Communion time take some time to welcome Christ’s sacrificial love to enter into your life and into our world at this present time, bringing God’s healing and peace.