.jpg)
SERVICES
We're not meeting for weekly services yet, but we'd love to share with you about the shape of our worship in the Episcopal tradition and what you might expect at Incarnation. We are meeting for study, prayer, retreat and occasional worship throughout 2025, with the goal of gathering weekly for Eucharist by spring of 2026.
HOLY EUCHARIST
Holy Eucharist, also called the Lord's Supper or Communion, is the principle act of Christian worship on Sundays and all other major feast days. In every service of Holy Eucharist, we listen to the Scriptures read, we hear the Word proclaimed, we declare what we believe, we sing praise, we give thanks, we pray for the needs of the world, we confess our sins, we receive Christ's absolution, and—as the natural climax of all that comes before it—we celebrate the Eucharistic feast. We recall Christ's promise to offer his body and blood for us, we remember the fulfillment of this promise in his passion and death, and we partake of the bread and wine which has become for us the "true food and true drink" (Jn 6:55) of Christ's real presence. In the Holy Eucharist, we receive into our bodies Christ's body, and by this mystery we become Christ's body in the world. At Incarnation, we will celebrate Holy Eucharist every weekly service and on other fast and feast days, following the order of worship found in the Book of Common Prayer.
THE DAILY OFFICE
The Daily Office is a pattern of morning, noonday, evening, and nighttime prayer which first emerged in the context of Jewish life in the Old Testament and reemerged as a Christian practice within the monastic tradition. Through the Daily Office, which can be prayed communally or in solitude, we steep ourselves in the faith, rehearsing what is good and true and beautiful even when our days are filled with trouble or toil. In praying the Daily Office, we realize it is possible to "be joyful in the Lord" in the morning, even when we are tired or sad, and to cling to Jesus in the evening even when we are filled with doubt, and to confess our sins and smallness at night and be comforted, not condemned, in the act. The Daily Office will play an important part in the life of Incarnation, positioning us to join in the unceasing prayers of the saints, which we see as one of our foundational pillars.
FAST AND FEAST DAYS
Like many Christian traditions, the Episcopal Church observes the Church Year. Oriented around the observance of Christ's passion and death in Holy Week and the celebration of Christ's resurrection on Easter Sunday, the Church Year invites us to order our lives and worship around the seasons of God's revelation in Christ Jesus: the anticipation of Jesus' coming in Advent, the celebration of the incarnation in Christmas, the revelation of Jesus' divinity in Epiphany, and so on. Fasting and feasting have played an essential part in the life of God's people since God called Israel out of slavery in Egypt, and they continue to be one of the ways we remember the work God has done in our midst. We mark different days throughout the Church Year as fast days or feast days, believing that our bodies are an essential part of the spiritual life! At Incarnation, we will observe fast and feast days communally by special services of worship.