Worship

Readings for Sunday

 

All are welcome to join and participate in any of the worship services held at Christ Church. Our worship services blend tradition and innovation, warmth and formality. Every Sunday there are three services at which the Holy Eucharist is celebrated. Descriptions of our regularly scheduled services can be found below.  Special liturgies take place on selected feast days and during Holy Week, and approximately every six weeks we turn our principal worship service over to our young people to experience more fully their joyful presence and special gifts.

Worship Times Our Sunday 8:00 AM Holy Eucharist on Sunday mornings is a quiet, traditional language liturgy with no music. It meets in the Lady Chapel.

Our Sunday 10:00 AM Choral Family Eucharist is Christ Church at its most splendid and most lively. This service is characterized by extraordinary music from some, or all, of our five choirs, active congregational singing, the presence of every generation, the very beautiful Sarum Rite as it is expressed in Bronxville, and a wonderful intergenerational family feel.  Professional Nursery Care and a full Children’s Church School program are available at this service.

Our Sunday 5:00 PM service is a contemplative Holy Eucharist set in the tradition of the Taizé Monastery. It is a quiet service with repetitive, simple music and an informal, intimate feeling.

Our Wednesday 7:00 AM Holy Eucharist, Rite II (in the chapel) is a 30-minute traditional language service which includes a homily and Holy Communion. This is a quiet, reverent service that is entirely spoken; there is no music.

What is the Sarum Use? The Sarum Use is an elaborate and beautiful worship ceremonial that started at Salisbury Cathedral in England. Sarum is Latin for Salisbury. This is a truly English liturgical style and was brought to Christ Church in the 1930’s by Father Harold Hohly and Canon Morton Stone. Since that time Christ Church has been widely known as an exponent of the Sarum Use (we call it the English usage). Although the Sarum Use at Christ Church has been revised quite a bit over time, to reflect changes in liturgical understanding and to best fit the architecture of Christ Church, the importance of this carefully lived liturgy remains the same – to create an atmosphere through which the Divine might be encountered in a lasting, reverent, and deeply meaningful way. No gesture in the Sarum Use is without meaning. It all points to the necessity and beauty of our relationship with God and with one another.

Facing East From very early on in our faith’s liturgical life the orientation of the church (the people, the Body of Christ) was symbolic of our expectation and belief that Christ will come again to gather us and bring us home. We symbolize the unity of that heavenly community through our unity of direction in prayer – congregation, choir and clergy all face east (defined as toward the altar in churches that don’t meet the geographical requirements).