Liturgical Traditions and Worship
Our principal Sunday worship is sung Rite II Eucharist with incense. We also offer a said Rite II Eucharist on Tuesdays and Thursdays, with special prayers for healing on Thursdays. Noonday services are held on most Feast Days and Confessions are heard during the Penitential seasons of Advent and Lent.
There are three Eucharistic services each Sunday:
8:00am
Said Eucharist, Rite II
10:00am
Sung Eucharist, Rite II, with full choir (September through June)
During July and August we have a Rite II Eucharist with hymns
12:30pm
The Rite II Eucharist with music in Spanish.
For special occasions, a bilingual service is held.
Advent and Christmas traditions include Lessons and Carols, a children’s pageant, and a Candlelight Christmas Eve Solemn High Eucharist.
Three well-attended services are offered on Ash Wednesday. Bi-lingual Stations of the Cross are said (alternating stations in Spanish and English) on Wednesday evenings during Lent, followed by a Lenten supper and study series. The following services are offered during Holy Week: Maundy Thursday followed by an all-night Watch at the Altar of Repose, a three-hour Good Friday service with Solemn Collects and a Holy Saturday Easter Vigil. Easter morning is celebrated with festive music and a sung, High Eucharist.
We have a long tradition of excellent music and regard music as integral to our worship. The church has an exceptional 42 stop tracker action Pipe Organ built and installed by Guibault-Therien of Canada in 1989.
Vigorous congregational singing is supported and enhanced by the Adult, St. Nicholas Children and Inter-generational Choirs. Our service of Advent Lessons and Carols is well established and widely appreciated. Many members of the parish are liturgically trained and participate in the liturgy as acolytes, thurifers, lay readers, ushers, intercessors and Lay Eucharistic Ministers who regularly take the Sacrament to hospitalized and homebound members on Sundays, a ministry organized through the Pastoral Care Committee. Grace Church / La Gracia have a non-stipendiary, vocational deacon.
