AIDS Healing Service Listen to the 2007 service
An annual tradition at Calvary Church, established in 1989, the “Memphis Community HIV/AIDS Healing Service,” otherwise known as the AIDS Healing Service, brings together clergy and parishioners from numerous denominations across the city, non-profit organizations, families, friends, doctors, nurses, social workers, caregivers, and concerned citizens that support HIV/AIDS patients. The purpose is to lift up the continuing reality of HIV/AIDS to the city, affirm the ministry of caregivers in Memphis, and offer special music, compassionate preaching, nourishing prayer for healing, and hospitality to all who attend. During the service, beams of light shine through the cutouts, representing and honoring those living with AIDS, in the brilliant fabric sculpture designed by a Calvary parishioner and draped along the length of the church.
All Saint’s Sunday, the Sunday closest to All Saints Day, is the day we remember the saints departed and celebrate our lives as living members of Christ’s body. Intercessions for those parishioners who have died in the previous year remind us that we too will die. Beautiful flowers, gorgeous music, and a Children’s Parade of Saints, combine to enable all of us to celebrate the saint living within each of us.
A highlight of the season of Advent is the Children’s Pageant. Children ages 3 years through the 5th grade dress in hand-made costumes as Shepherds, Angels, Stars, and Sheep to help to tell the story of our journey towards Christmas.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Service
For the past three years, the parishes of Featherstone CME in Frayser and Calvary Episcopal Church downtown have joined together to celebrate the life and ministry of Dr. King at a joint service on MLK Day. In 2007, the service was held at Collins Chapel CME, also located downtown.
For over 80 years, Calvary has hosted a noonday Lenten Preaching Series that features the very best in local, national, and international preaching voices in the pulpit of Calvary Church. The six-week series, weekdays during Lent, draws hundreds of parishioners and others from the downtown and larger Memphis community to Calvary for half an hour of hymns, prayers, and homilies. The series offers all of God’s people an opportunity to pause in the midst of busy, daily lives to meditate together on God’s Holy Word.
A highlight of the Advent Season is the Festival Service of Lessons and Carols, an enriching service that combines the Word of God with musical commentary. The Word helps us to understand why God sent His only Son. The Advent carols, hymns, and anthems prepare us for the coming of the Christmas season.
A Calvary tradition for over 25 years, the annual procession to City Hall Plaza for Prayers for the City is a highlight of Palm Sunday. Following the brief service of the Blessing of the Palms on the front steps of the church, the parish re-enacts Christ’s entry into and blessing of the city of Jerusalem by marching to the front doors of City Hall with palms waving. Recently, we have been joined by other downtown churches in our march and prayers, including the parishes of St. Peter Catholic, First Methodist, and First Presbyterian.
Since 2002, Calvary has held an annual Holocaust Commemoration Service as part of the national Days of Remembrance. The interfaith community gathers together for prayer and reflection near the day of Yom HaShoah (Day of Destruction), which commemorates the deaths of six million Jews and five million others. The tower bell of Calvary tolls eleven times at the beginning of the service, one time for each million that died in the Holocaust.