Pohick Church offers the Lenten equivalent of a ‘Carol Service’ on Good Friday. The service will begin at 7:00PM and conclude within an hour.
The tradition of marking important feasts with vigils of prayers and hymns reaches back to the ancient church. Echoes of this practice are found in the monastic midnight Office of Matins, with its nocturns of psalms, lessons, and responsories (short anthems). In 1918, Eric Milner-White, Dean of King’s College, Cambridge, introduced A Festival of Nine Lessons & Carols for Christmas Eve as modern variant, followed, in 1934, by A Procession with Carols upon Advent Sunday. Milner-White’s services use nine independent lessons which provide a continuing narrative illuminating the season in question.
Our music director ,David Leahey, has constructed the Passiontide service over many years. David’s thought was to use the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary: the Agony in the Garden, the Scourging at the Pillar, the Crowning with Thorns, the Carrying of the Cross, and finally the Crucifixion. This sequence of lessons encapsulates Jesus’ journey through Holy Week. As Lenten carols are quite rare, the service substitutes anthems of a more somber nature. We hope to provide you with a suitably contemplative but powerful expereience for this last period of Lent.