Let Us Keep the Feast: Celebrating Lent, Holy Week, and Easter

A.J. Pell is rector of Christ Church in Hope, B.C., and lecturer in the
Anglican Studies Programme at Regent College in Vancouver.

“Easter is the central festival of the Church Year,” says the
introduction to the liturgical calendar in the Book of Alternative
Services. Kevin Flynn and his fellow authors have taken this basic
principle to heart; their book, Let Us Keep the Feast, is an attempt to
bring new life to Anglican worship from Ash Wednesday to the eve of
Pentecost. That time span is divided into four periods; Lent, Holy Week,
The Triduum, and The Great Fifty Days of Easter. The key worship events
in these periods are not only explained, but also broken down into their
constituent parts, from items needed for each service to appropriate
actions by specific participants.

The book is intended to help groups of people in a parish work together
with their priest to make their worship spiritually focused and widely
participatory. What makes this book different from the usual how-to
books on liturgy is its presentation. The writing is so clear and simple
that liturgical training is not necessary to understand the text. Laity
are further aided by a good glossary that roots technical terms in
practical language. A parish that uses this book as a foundation for
planning its worship will discover new meanings in old practices and
deeper meaning through new possibilities.