We would be honoured
to have you join us for the
Holy Week Liturgies
live online in
the SYCBaps Cyber Chapel
Scroll down for video recordings of the most recent Holy Week liturgies. The schedule of SYCBaps worship and prayer online for Holy Week 2024 is as follows:
Palm Sunday, 24 March 2024
5:00pm The Palm/Passion Sunday Liturgy
Holy Week opens by placing us among the crowd who cheered Jesus’s arrival in Jerusalem and were soon caught up in the drama of his passion. The service includes a reading of the extended passion narrative as darkness overtakes us. We share bread and wine at the Lord’s Table, but in a briefer form than usual.
Monday – Wednesday
8:00am Matins (Morning prayer and share)
5:00pm Vespers (Early evening prayer and share)
This week Vespers is about 5mins longer than usual, because there are special additional Holy Week scripture readings
9:30pm Compline (Nighttime prayer and share)
Maundy Thursday, 28 March 2024
8:00am Matins (Morning prayer and share)
7:30pm The Maundy Thursday Liturgy
This is a major liturgy, the first part of the great three day liturgy. This one focuses on the story of Jesus’s last supper with his followers before his arrest and trial, and in particular on the story of the call to servanthood symbolised in foot washing. We also share bread and wine at the Lord’s table. by placing us among the crowd who cheered Jesus’s arrival in Jerusalem and were soon caught up in the drama of his passion. The service includes a reading of the extended passion narrative as darkness overtakes us. We share bread and wine at the Lord’s Table, but in a briefer form than usual.
Special Preparations: For a full experience of this liturgy, it is recommended that in addition to preparing your bread and wine, that attend in bare feet and have a bowl or bucket of water that you can immerse your feet it, and a towel to dry them.
Good Friday, 29 March 2024
5:00pm The Great Friday Liturgy
The second part of the great three day liturgy. This one focuses on the story of the cross, Jesus’s execution.
Special Preparations: You don’t need bread and wine for this liturgy, but we recommend having some sort of wooden cross that you can touch. It could be a small as a pocket size holding cross that you simply hold in the palm of your hand, or it could be a full sized cross improvised from two pieces of wood and laid on your floor.
Holy Saturday, 30 March 2024
8:00am A special Matins known as the Prayers for the Day of Nothingness
7:30pm The Great Paschal Vigil
The third part of the great three day liturgy. Our biggest and most spectacular liturgy of the year, focussing around the resurrection of the Light of the World, our baptism into the life and body of Christ, and the Resurrection Eucharist.
Special Preparations: In addition to preparing your bread and wine, please have small amount of water available with which to anoint yourself (or those with you) as we celebrate our common baptismal life.
Resurrection Sunday, 31 March 2024
9:00am Resurrection Morning Liturgy
Because the Great Paschal Vigil, held the night before, is our biggest and most important celebration of the resurrection of Jesus, this liturgy is much smaller and lighter. It originated as something we did outdoors around a Sunday morning brunch, and it still references that in the online imagery.
10:30am Resurrection Day Brunch
This is a physically gathered event for those in Melbourne and does not have an online component.
5:00pm Resurrection Evening Vespers (Early evening prayer and share)
About 5mins longer than our usual Vespers, because there are special additional Easter scripture readings, but much shorter than our usual Sunday service.
If you would like to attend any of our online liturgies live, we would be delighted to welcome you in the Cyber Chapel. You can connect directly to the major liturgies by clicking on the button above. For details on how to set up your screen for the best experience, scroll to the bottom of this page and watch the brief final video. The smaller Monday to Thursday morning liturgies (Matins, Vespers and Compline) have different connection details, so contact us using the form below if you want to connect to any of them.
A few things to know before you enter the Cyber Chapel
Our liturgies are celebrated in a style we call bapto-catholic, or ancient-future worship, but you don’t have to know what that means to enjoy it! They include spoken and sung prayers, Bible readings, preaching, prayerful silence, and usually a celebration of the Lord’s Table. We believe that the risen Jesus offers himself freely to everyone in the bread and wine that we share at his Table, so if you are ready to receive him in that way, please come prepared with a piece of bread, and a cup or glass of wine or water. It is also perfectly okay to abstain.
You will see that most of the regular participants have parts of the liturgy that they lead, but this is not expected of visitors or first-timers, so no need to try to work out when it is supposed to be your turn!
We are committed to doing everything we can to ensure that our Cyber Chapel is a safe environment for everyone present, and for that reason, visitors who are not yet known to us will have their microphones muted during the liturgy and will not be able send private chat messages to other individual participants.
At the end of some liturgies, we do a few rounds of breaking into small groups for chat. Some people even eat their dinner while doing this, since that’s how we did it in our physical gatherings back in the old days. If you are able to stay and chat, that would be great. If you are not yet known to us, the first round may place you with someone (possibly the pastor) who is able to welcome you properly, and answer any questions you might have.
Please watch the following short video for our guidelines and recommendations on the best simple settings and screen layout options to use for a full experience of the liturgy. If you are joining from a phone or a tablet device, some of these options will not be available to you, but we are sure you will still find it to be a rich experience.
If you have any questions, please use the contact form below and we’ll be in touch as soon as possible. Don’t forget to hit the “Send” button after typing your message.