I think Alex hit on an important axiom of Byzantine Biblical-Liturgical logic, an axiom that demonstrates how the Bible and Liturgy are connected. I will quote what Alex stated on another thread:

“THE EASTERN CHURCH, BY NATURE, PREFERS SCRIPTURAL AND PATRISTIC SOURCES FOR ITS FEASTS.”

I believe that if anyone wishes to see with Byzantine Eyes, one should consider this axiom. Let me explain why this can help: Many have submitted litmus tests to Byzantine Catholics challenging their "Catholicism' with questions about us accepting the Latin dogmas of the Immaculate Conception and Assumption. Much ink has been spilled over this issue when maybe it was all un-necessary if we considered the above axiom.

Consider how despite the proclamation of such Marian dogmas the Byzantine Catholics still maintained the more Scripture-based feasts of the St. Anne's Conception and the Falling Asleep of the Theotokos. Both, I repeat both, are not even documented in our canonical Gospels! This doesn't mean that Byzantine Catholics reject such dogmas or consider them heresy; it just means that our Church prefers to preserve such feasts within a biblical context, albeit non-canonical ones(!), and how it relates to salvation and not primarily as ontologies of Mary's person.

May I make another observation? The two Marian dogmas mentioned above deal with events that are recorded in sources that are not in our current New Testament besides being ontologies of Mary's person. Byzantines know Mary as Theotokos and Ever-Virgin, the Mother of God. With only canonical sources to go on, that is WHO she is. It does us no one any good to challenge or debate over these sort of issues if one fails to see through Byzantine Eyes.

Do you see differently?


Cantor Joe Thur
Deacon-student

[ 04-05-2002: Message edited by: J Thur ]

I totally agree--
The basis for our liturgical services has already been established, and, as stated, they are biblically-based. When "outside" sources: novenas, etc., are brought into our community/parish services, they "feel" out-of-place--and they are--because they do not flow with what has been established and practiced throughout our many years of Tradition. Pastors who add novenas to our services confuse parishioners with comments like: "Oh, this has been accepted by the Pope for the Universal Church." And, as a result, our parish services become a patchwork of different types of additions to our liturgical proceedings!
We should stay with what we have, lop off what has been attached, and leave these extraneous devotions to be practiced by individuals who are so inclined to practice them.

Dear Cantor Joe,

Just a note to thank you for your kind words about my words!

You are the first scriptural teacher I've come across who has made direct reference to the Gospel of Nicodemus and the other noncanonical scriptures that have had such a profound influence in the life of our Apostolic Church.

Your approach is really what true Orthodoxy is all about.

To think with the mind of the scriptures is to obey the Mind of God and truly experience His inspiration in our lives.

I honestly hope you do become a Priest. We up here will take you any time!!

Alex

"Pastors who add novenas to our services confuse parishioners..."


Absolutely. But again, this doesn't mean that novenas are bad. What is worrisome is when the liturgical services we DO have are totally ignored, not taught, or even mentioned, especially when they are "in the books." The wealth of our liturgies are valueless if they remain closed books in a closet.

I never learned so much about my faith until my current pastor introduced everything form that treasure chest of tradition. I began to understand the proverbial wisdom in learning the faith via the liturgy; they didn't mean just the Divine Liturgy or listening to sermons, but the tomes of theological instruction one can benefit from simply attending our liturgies.

We are well-versed (maybe not) in the meaning of the "rock" in the NT, but do we know what our Pentectostarion means by it? We are well-versed (maybe not) in the meaning of the Immaculate Conception dogma, but do we know how our Church celebrates the Feast of St. Anne's Conception? We are well-versed in being believers of the Pope, but do we actually read what he writes and teaches and instructs? We are good at finding all the answers in the CCC, but have we ever turned a page or sang a sticheron from the Festal Menaion? the Lenten Triodion? the Pentecostarion? the Bible? We are experts in proving how these "inorganic" traditions are our history and right, but become mute or unintelligible in our lexicon of "organic" faith traditions. It is not what is said, but what is NOT said that tells me more about one's character.

We bent a bar on the cross to prove a point. We dressed up like people from other churches to prove a point. We slapped our logo on the theologies of other valid church traditions to prove a point. We closed the texts of our ancient and venerable liturgies and stichera to prove another point ... that we are excellent in killing our "melody of faith." We didn't swap or exchange Marian devotions with another church; we simply dumped our equally valid services like we were performing some sort of infanticide. All in all we DID prove a point: we were irresponsible, neglectful, and acted stupidly. It is not so much as what we borrowed from others but what we tossed out. Our actions were a sad commentary on a people who knew how to throw out the baby with the bathwater. We killed our own life.

Let the "melody of faith" be sung!


Cantor Joe Thur

Dear Cantor Joe,

Bravo! Bravo!!

One of the most important posts ever!

Alex

Dittos!!
Excellent post!
If we are to be true to ourselves, then we must practice what we have been given!

I'm sorry if I went on what may seem to be a tirade, but I couldn't help it. I remember once discussing a particular author with a friend and he got into a hissy-fit about what the author promotes. After some time discussing the various points that made him upset, I realized that this person NEVER read anything the author wrote. It was all hearsay and a heavily biased opinion. It wasn't a true or serious discussion; it was a waste of time. This is why it is bothersome to engage in senseless and fruitless debate (read: polemics) when there is a total failure to understand the other's system of theology.

How can we come to understand what it means to see with Byzantine eyes if we never open them? What is so wrong with opening our own liturgical books instead of someone else's for a change? The Scriptures are proclaimed and the Psalms are sung throughout our liturgies. What a wonderful opportunity to learn the Mind of the Church simply by showing up for liturgy and offering our praises to God.

There are many studies out there that are written about the 'Bible in the Liturgy' and the 'Liturgy in the Bible.' They are a twosome. Biblical studies have advanced greatly when it was realized that the Scriptures were truly inter-connected with Liturgy. It is no wonder why many Eastern Christian theologians and bishops speak of only ONE Source of Tradition instead of arbitrarily divorcing Scripture from Tradition and then further dividing Tradition into 'T'radition and 't'radition. We love to compartmentalize to make it easier to comprehend, but then the beauty disappears. There is a true beauty in our liturgies and in how they amplify the Scriptures. I know no other Church that loves Scripture so much as to compose its main Liturgical Service with at least 200 Bible verses (Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom); and that doesn't even include the Bible readings!

I mentioned once how my late paternal Baba knew her scripture even though she never learned how to read. How did she manage to do this? Simply by attending our Church services. Is it no wonder why many in our Church opt for in-organic liturgical services and theologies from other traditions? When one doesn't know or celebrate our own 'lex orandi' one will never learn to speak of our 'lex credendi.' Our services not only proclaim the Gospels and the entire Bible but also instruct us in theology, a truer theology, one of prayer-theology and not simply text-book academics.

I can speak only for myself: I grew up in what was the most Latinized parish in our eparchy. How did I come to appreciate our Byzantine faith? Simply, by attending our liturgies, but mostly by cantoring them. When I am confused or fail to understand a particular point in theology or teaching I turn to our prayer books first to see what our Church celebrates; they've become a Second Bible. This is true when we realize the Alexian Axiom that, “THE EASTERN CHURCH, BY NATURE, PREFERS SCRIPTURAL AND PATRISTIC SOURCES FOR ITS FEASTS.”

Cantor Joe Thur
Deacon-student

[ 04-06-2002: Message edited by: J Thur ]

Mr. Thur,

That is one of the many things I love about this Church. The way it celebrates it's Feast Days.For example, the feasts of the Theotokos celebrates her but doesn't detract from the Eucharist.There is always such a balance. I see the Molebens & Akathists as this Church's Novenas & Litanies if you will.Are they something to be promoted as a private devotion? Also if lay people wanted to recite them in Church is it necessary for the Priest to be present or Cantor?
When I was young the statue of the Blessed Mother travelled through out our neighborhood. People would gather at each others houses(mostly women with kids in tow)recite the rosary and then have dessert afterwards and the kids would go play outside. Is that something that can be done with the Icon for Vocations and the Moleben that accompanies it? Vocations are something we desperately need to promote in our Church.

And Alex quit trying to steal our people.If he going to be a Priest it will be in our Church.

Still working on 20/20 Byzantine vision.


Nicky's Baba

[ 04-06-2002: Message edited by: Nicky's Baba ]

J Thur,

I think to be fair to anyones religion or rite or denomination (if your Protestant) you have to first view their expression of their religion/rite/denomination and theology through their eyes. Otherwise you are simply being unfair in your *assessment* of *them*.

I find Protestants do this all the time to Buddhism and Islam and Catholicism, and I find myself defending those two other religions from the deformity the Protestants turn Buddhist and Islamic theology into. Not that I'm an expert on my faith or any other, but I know enough to know that simply saying that the Buddhist worship statutes and don't believe we are here is a gross over simplification of their theology.

And not to bring up bad past issues, but in a recent thread a Orthodox member charged that the Byzantine Catholics relation to the Pope is the same as the Latin Catholics. This was unfair to me because it was a gross over simplification of the relation of the BC to the Papacy. While both our relations are similar or exact in some ways, overall the BC relation is very much different than that of us Latin Pappist to the Pope of Rome. One has to view the relation of the Papal chair to the BC through the eyes of the Byzantine Catholic to be fair to ones assessment of that relation.

"I think to be fair to anyones religion or rite or denomination (if your Protestant) you have to first view their expression of their religion/rite/denomination and theology through their eyes. Otherwise you are simply being unfair in your *assessment* of *them*."


Maximus,

You are correct. Byzantine Catholicism has the extra burden of those within the community who wish not to learn their own Church's expression of theology for various reasons. Would that problem have been avoided if we simply celebrated our own liturgies and sung our own hymns rather than shopping for other expressions? It is not so much the lack of understanding of Eastern Catholicism 'outside' the fold, but the lack of understanding of Eastern Catholicism 'inside' the fold. We spend too much time trying to convert the converted; preaching too much to an uncooperative choir. How did this all happen? It began when we severed ourselves from the sources and celebrations of our faith.

Joe

Cantor Joe,
!Cristo ha resucitado!
Christos Anesti!
Christ is risen!

"Let the melody of faith be sung!"

Yes to all you have posted! I remember when some one asked our pastor about "Byzantine Catechism books", he replied "All the theology you will need to know is contained in the Liturgical services, listen to and meditate upon the prayers and hymns." We need to know the treasure of faith contained in the Triodion, Pentecostarion, Menaion, etc.

Let the melody of faith be sung and let it be heard!

John the always-burnt (when temps are over 100)

Cantor Joe-

This is a most lovely post. You are well spoken and 100 percent correct. If the future of our church is in the hands of the many Byzantines on this forum, then we will have a most glorious future.

For over a year, my spiritual father has been stressing that the theology is in the prayers of the Church. When I came to him, I wanted Eastern Catholic Catechism 101 and his answer was to come to church.

Tonight was the Vespers of St. Thomas Sunday. The imagery was beautiful. The hand that goes into the side of Christ . . . expecting that as grass is burned in the fire . . .

Beautiful and telling. And as my Abouna tells me, next year we do it all over again to reinforce the message. So if you did'nt get it this time, there is always next year.

Now in this regard I am also taught that Liturgy is work, not a "feel good" session. Liturgia, literally the work of the people. A reason why every effort to remove pews from our church should be made. To teach our people to stand before the Awesome and all knowing God with confidence and without condemnation and pray to Him, give glory to Him, to beseech Him, and to worship Him.

Amin!
Ality

Thank you for this discussion.

"Now in this regard I am also taught that Liturgy is work, not a "feel good" session. Liturgia, literally the work of the people."


Ality,

Etymologically speaking, "Liturgy" is actually a compound word meaning:

'laos' (people) + 'ergon' (work) = work of the people

Though originally meaning public works or state projects, now in the Church it means the work of the people together as a community worshipping God.

As a cantor I have found one of the best ways the people can participate doing a common work: singing the melody of faith. At vespers, our clergy can 'take a break' and pray for a change during the stichera at Psalm 140 ... while the cantors and schola can get exhausted. This is the coolest thing: the faith is taught by the people (singing) to the people as a form of catechesis. Let me quote Fr. Taft:

"... the office of the Church's own school of prayer, a novitiate in which she teaches her age-old ways of how to glorify God in Christ as Church, together as one body, in union with and after the example of her head. No other form of prayer is so rooted in the mysteries of salvation history as they are unfolded day by day in the Church's annual cycle. Through this constant diet of Scripture not only does God speak his Word to us, not only do we contemplate over and over again the central mysteries of salvation, but our own lives are gradually attuned to this rhythym, and we meditate again and again on this history of Israel, recapitulated in Jesus, that is also the saga of our own spiritual odyssey. The march of Israel across the horizon of history is a metaphor for the spiritual pilgrimage of us all." (Taft, Robert F. "The Church's School of Prayer." In 'The Liturgy of the Hours East and West.' p. 369)

Taft goes on to make a point I tried to bring out above:

"This gives balance and objective comprehensiveness to the Church's prayer that is a sure remedy for the one-sided excess and exaggerations of a subjective devotionalism that puts all its emphasis on only those aspects of the life of prayer that happen to have personal appeal to the individual at some given moment, often for less than ideal reasons." (Ibid.)

And again:

"... prayer according to the common offices of the Church is an unending school of prayer that constantly pulls us out of whatever bourgeois sentimentalism and inverted egoism there may be in our "private" devotions, and draws us inexhorably in to the objective spiritual values of a life lived according to the mystery that is Christ." (Ibid.)

Need I say more?

Fr. Taft uses a few 'blunt' terms in his assessment of those who cannot or will not grasp the beauty of that school of prayer:

subjective devotionalism

bourgeois sentimentalism

inverted egoism

This defines it all, no? Words like 'subjective,' 'sentimentalism,' and 'egoism' are terms that refer to ourselves, not God. The former Latinizations of the past (and still happening in some areas today) are actually caterings to people's selfish needs. I've seen it all. There is no desire to learn our beautiful and equally valid expression of faith with these people, including those who pander to those selfish needs. There is no desire to attend the school of prayer, to learn the melody of faith, or to pass it down to the next generation. We have to call it for what it is. It is a rejection of God just as contemporary music and movies can say a whole lot about nothing, especially as serving as distractions to our one goal: theosis. It is sad when I hear folks abhor the thought of doing our own Vespers and Matins; when the axe of minimalism cuts out our stichera or psalmody (one verse please!); when those responsible will absolutely refuse to admit we even have a 'school of prayer.' How can this happen? I call it Liturgical Infanticide.

Let me add one more quote from Fr. Taft with the Scriptures in mind:

"... to profit from the hours as a true spirituality, a school of prayer, one must be a person who prays and whose life is penetrated with the Scriptures. The offices of the Church can be lived fully only by one whose life is permeated by such a 'lectio divina' of the Bible. Contemporary biblical scholarship is rightly interested in the 'Sitz im Leben' on what is recounted in the biblical text. But in the life of the Church there is also a 'Sitz im Gottesdient,' and in the spiritual life there is a 'Sitz im meimem Leben.'

Personally, my biblical studies outside of the deacon-program is very heavyily focused in the 'Sitz im Leben.' That Scripture comes alive when it becomes our melody of faith at liturgy (the work of the people). It is the people's book, not just the privelege of academic scholars tooting their theories and hypotheses. Just take a look at the following web page to see how far advanced biblical scholarship got in their theorizing:

http://www.mindspring.com/~scarlson/synopt/

Everything is now clear as mud thanks to the Church of Academia. Do you want to get published? Think up another Synoptic Theory derivative.


"We need to know the treasure of faith contained in the Triodion, Pentecostarion, Menaion, etc."

Si! There is so much to learn. It will keep us from the anals of un-enlightened theories.


Cantor Joe Thur
Deacon-student

[ 04-07-2002: Message edited by: J Thur ]

This has definitely been a rewarding ncounter.
I have never gone to this section of the post before.

I am begining as a seminarian in August at Holy Spirit Ukr. Cath. seminary in Ottawa.

I look forward to emersing myself in a daily retinue of prayer (public) and learing of the faith.

Christ is Risen!
Ality

Dear Cantor Joe,

Would you please tell Nicky's Baba that I'm not trying to steal you? (Babtsiu, you can read the Akathists as a private devotion - the Eastern Church prescribes an evening Rule of three Canons and two Akathists and more daily for everyone.)

And if I were, what's wrong with that? Such attempted "theft" would be a blessing to our Church up here and I'm sure that St Dismas, the Good Thief, would assist me in the endeavour .

All I'm saying is if Youz Guyz down there don't grab Cantor Joe and keep him close, I fear that his may be the experience of St Augustine, who was tied up while visiting a Church one day and brought to serve in it by force . . .

And, Cantor Joe, if you are apologizing for whatever in your previous excellent post, I'd be very much afraid of reading one of your posts when you feel you are more "composed" shall we say . . .

In that case, I'd have to call my wife or father-in-law to stand behind me after I'm finished reading it so that they can catch me as I go falling from being completely overwhelmed!

God bless!

Alex

Dear Joe!

Christ is Risen!

Thank you for your contributions to this wonderful thread! I enjoyed being reminded about the wonderful daily food, our Liturgy. It is the best "catechism" ever produced by the Church.

Thank you for your "eastern eyes" and for sharing your love for our Church!

Elias

Hola,

Here's an excerpt from a poem I recently composed that I think is pertinent to this thread:


"We’re sending our kids to Sunday School instead of the Stichera
And calling it “education”

We’ve subjected our holy Services
instead of our beefs, to truncation.

We’ve rushed to put our dance troupes on display,
Laboured hours, sacrificed weekends without pay,
If only our zeal knew showed so much mobilization

Under the banner of “fraternalism”
we’ve amassed almost half a billion dollars in worldly assets
While our real riches are often dumped without thinking,
despite their all their glorious facets.

Forgive us, our Orthodox mother,
for putting you under the sharpened end
Of the axe of our collective selective memory
While undergoing an ecclesiastical industrialization

And forgive us Constantinople,
For being careless,
And calling it “assimilation”."

Yours in the Theotokos,

Darrenn

[ 04-10-2002: Message edited by: Darrenn Jackson ]

"And, Cantor Joe, if you are apologizing for whatever in your previous excellent post, I'd be very much afraid of reading one of your posts when you feel you are more "composed" shall we say . . ."


Alex,

When I am more composed I will do some commentary on Maccabees. But I'm afraid I'll have something really to apologize for.

Joe

Dear Cantor Joe,

The word "Maccabee" means "Hammer" does it not?

Then you are our scriptural "Hammer!"

Hammer away, Servant of Christ!

Alex

Hello Darrenn,
Your parish has had such a dance group (ethnic, of the Carpathian People variety) for only a few months. Are you saying after this short time that they have already wasted time and effort that would have been better spent on more "spiritual" activities?

Oh, and XPICTOC BOCKPEC! by the way.

Dear RichC,

But at least by saying what he feels in this way, Jackson is truly being "Darrenn"

Why is it that I get this feeling that you want to throw something at me?

Alex

RichC,

Christ is Risen!
Indeed He is Risen!

I'm saying that and much, much more. I'm saying that it's interesting (to say the least) how all of a sudden, a whole lot time suddenly opens up, and kids and their parents alike discover a whole other cache of energy for a dance troupe. Where has all this been before? WHY DID CHRIST OUR LORD, RISEN FROM THE DEAD, INSTITUTE THE CHURCH FOR IN THE FIRST PLACE?

I don't think that all that time and energy spent on the dance troupe is wasted. It's fun (even I must admit), and a semi-constructive way to spend Saturday mornings and afternoons. What about our Faith? Why are our priorities so, to put it bluntly, "whacked out"? We jumped to organize a dance troupe before a youth group. We beat all odds to prepare for a performance before spectators, but what have we done to preach the Gospel to our world using the means that were entrusted to us (time, talents, treasure, worldly goods, skills, etc...) are we proactive about The Tradition or nostalgic notions of The Old Country?

To be completely honest, I think we intuitively know that there must be something much, much more to our Byzantine identity. And, where do we turn? Not to our liturgical texts, our spiritual tradition, but to an ethnic identity which simply does not reflect the current make-up of our parishes. Really, I think we're just identity shopping, searching for something uniquely Byzantine to offer the world, something to ensure that us and the next generation feel somehow sentimentally connected to our Church and her history. This goes back to the Uniate method of mindset: Orthodox on the outside, Latin (and "one of us") on the inside. We're looking for others to tell us who we are. Uniatism brings a peculiar mix of isolationism and self-defeatism: too proud to undergo a purification of memory and reclaim our Orthodox Faith, and yet too demasuclated to act as what we are: a Church, with its own spirituality, theologically, liturgy, ecclesiology, discipline, and customs. Looking to the Romans for validation and to the Old Country for identity. We are Byzantine Christians, and not the only ones who are. I'm pro-Byzantine, pro-Catholic, pro-Orthodox, pro-Holy Father, and pro-Reunion. Those are things that I stand for. It is especially in light of that last one that I'm reconsidering my role and purpose within the dance troupe, but that's another thread....

The Church is a city on a hill, and not a people on display.

Oh, I forgot pro-Rusyn. What I can't understand is why we claim to be all Slavophillic in costume while our spiritual and biological ancestors live and die in schism, with a history of beefs longer than our patience for unity seems to be. Who really loves the Rusyn people? Those who work to heal the family feud, or our Trans-Carpathian Cultural Societies for the Preservation of Really Cool Songs and Dances? Who is the model to follow, Ss. Cyril and Methodious who left everything that they prized in the glory that was Byzantium to give the Slavs the Gospel, or the dance instructors who incessantly tell us when to right-left-right-left-stomp-right-left-spin-spin?

We Byzantine Catholics need to put our money where our mouth is, or rather our mouth where all the money is (hence that shot I took at the GCU in that excerpt).

I'm a Ruthenian because the nearest BC parish is Ruthenian, and the Ruthenians took me. Rusyn I am not, but I am a Ruthenian, for good or ill. More importantly, I am a Byzantine, and frankly (as I alluded to in the thread "Family Emergency"), what gets me is that I have Ruthenian brothers and sisters on the other side of the Tiber (because of some the worst ecclesial policy known to man) that I have never seen or met, while we are partly responsible for continiuing that schism by being good Uniates. Hey, that's MY FAMILY we're talking about, or rather, not talking about...

Lemme finish off by sharing an observation I've made looking through Byzantine eyes:

Isn't it odd that don't feel really that odd about singing "Ja Rusyn Byl, Jesm i Budu" when most of us are Krouts, Canucks, Poles WASP, but perform some rather tortorous acrobatics in our Liturgies when we "translate" "Orthodox Christians" into "Christians of the true faith" to avoid offense.

Discuss...

Yours in the Theotokos,

Darrenn

Darrenn,

Bravo!

There is a time and a place for everything, including ethnic festivals and such, but when it comes to the 'core' it is the proclamation of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ that is our priority. All our stichera, liturgical hymns, Creed, prayers, Anaphoras, etc. direct us to this reality. There is a bizzare perversion when we spend more on ethnic festivities than catechesis and Evangelization.


God bless!
Cantor Joe Thur

[ 04-11-2002: Message edited by: J Thur ]

Alex,

Apparently, not even I am immune.

In other news, the dance troupe will be performing at the ordination of Bishop William Skurla. I'll try my best to make it. It would be such a blessing to see all my buds from around the Eparchy.

Finished Volume 3 of our Catechism, "Mystery Lived", it is wonderful. Hold on, I feel another long post coming on....

Yours in the Theotokos,

Darrenn

Here's a little spontaneous reflection I'd like to call...

"Nous: Never Leave Your Home Church Without It"

About oh, two or so months before I was received into the Byzantine Catholic Church (and became a Ruthless Ruthenian!.......okay, so mine aren't nearly as good as Alex's) I bought a book that I had been eyeing in my parish's bookstore by Fr. Peter Chrysavvgis(sp?, I have so much trouble with those Greek names) titled, "The Making of the Patristic Mind". A very slim, but very, very dense book. It was really my first adventure into the that terra incognita of Orthodox Epistemology and internal authority. When I finished that book, I realized that up till then, I really had no idea what Orthodoxy is all about.

From what I think I understand about the subject, it seems that in Eastern theology, truth is self-authenticating (but not necessarily always easy to discover), and that the only sure basis that exists for a Christian way of thinking is the Christian way of life, that is, the way of life established by Our Lord Himself. The Church, being a body, has a mind (the "mind of the Church"), which is formed and enlightened by the ascetic ideal (darn it, monasticism keeps popping up).

Basically, take the Catholic teaching on the primacy of (a properly formed) conscience and expand it to the Church as a whole. That was key to helping me understand the whole issue of internal authority as something much more than an anti-authoritarian relativism. The Church, as a whole, discerns what is true, and what is truly from God (discernment of spirits), and the monastic soul of the Church is what keeps this mind healthy, being a vital reference point in more ways than one.

Okay, so zip back about 6 or so months earlier. After attending Sunday Divine Liturgy every Sunday for about 3 or 4 months, I decided to go to the Life Teen Mass back at the RC parish I went to for over 3 years. At the end of that 1.5 hour ideal I wanted to sit down in silence because I felt so "spiritually dizzy". I don't know how to explain it, it's like a felt this ephemeral, bubbly, emotional energy all over me and just wanted to cast it off me any way possible. For some reason, my whole approach to worshipping God had changed, not only on the outside, but on the inside as well. Where I previously felt so spiritually at home was now intolerable to me. I had passed some kind of spiritual point of no return. I realized that I had entered...

The Joyful Light Zone

That's right, even in those few short months, even when I felt that I was just beginning step out of my teenbopper shell, even when I felt that I wasn't "getting anything out of it", God was working. It was a setup! All those hours of slow-paced singing without distraction and musical accompaniment, along with the repeated, prolonged exposure to a hymnody more substantive than that blasted sappy poem about footprints in the sand, (oh, and all those prostrations and metania!) had all taken its toll. I had irreversibly become a ByzanTEEN.

Now zoom ahead to last month. I decided that I would Spring Break at....Holy Resurrection Monastery. Rocky Point has nothing on Newberry Springs! Anyhoo, I arrive, have dinner and Great Compline with the monks, and then settle in for the night (I got to stay in the library, hehehehehe). Rising to the sound of the symnadron at 5:30 am, I rise to go to Matins and first hour, which lasted for about 1.5 hours. At the end, I approached Hegumen Fr. Nicholas who told me to be back in the church in half an hour yet another service! I thought he was nuts! But back I was for a service that lasted about 15 (third hour, I think). At the end, I thought to myself, "That wasn't so bad". When the unfortunate day came to leave, the rhthym of prayer had left its mark on me. The constant prayer, silence, fellowship, and work had all made mystical common sense.

The word "liturgy", as J Thur noted, is a composite of the two Greek words, "laos" (people) and "ergon" (work). Liturgy, done correctly, reverently, and joyfully is a "work of the people" on a cosmic, eternal scale. Its first direction is up (worship of the people rising to God), but it is also down (God's Word [Scripture and all the Tradition], and the Logos of the divinely revealed Liturgy), from the top down (preserved by the common, councillar and canonical Tradition, by the communion of all orthodox Bishops), from the past to the present (the example and teachings of Our Lord and His Apostles that shape the Liturgy, given to us in the "school of prayer"), and from the inside out (the Liturgy, being of course an eschatological event that effects the reconcilliation of the cosmos that it prefigures). The pentultimate work of the Church is the Liturgy. It is where her self-understanding is revealed, and salvation history relived.

It ultimately is the triumph of kairos over chronos (see Light for Life, Volume 2, "Mystery Celebrated"). The Liturgy is JUST THAT, IN THE LITURGY WE EXPERIENCE "THE MYSTERY CELEBRATED" AND NOT "THE MYSTERY CEREBRAL-ATED" And it makes me worry about the overall health of our Church when parents get worried over a two-hour Divine Liturgy because the extra hour was earmarked for Sunday School.

Okay, Darrenn, that's all nice, but what's the relevance of all this?

See, the Church (for good or for ill) is an inherently canonical entity. As the word suggest, canons provide some degree of regularity and order in the Church. The Church has a Canon of Scripture (our reference point for all other purported "inspired", "inspiring", or "inspirational" writings), a Canon of Tradition (actually this includes Scripture...but anyway, it is the statement of the Church's mind, the Church's self-reflection on her pilgrimage. It is Tradition that is the reference point for all healthy conceptions of ourselves as Christians, ultimately, what the new life in Christ should "feel like"), and lastly, a Canon of Sanity (My name for monasticism, as Pope John Paul II said, "the soul of the Church". Our reference point for all that claims to be a move of God, or an "outpouring of the Holy Spirit")

Seeing renewing through Byzantine eyes means being much more concerned with maintaining the Church's ability to make people holy than with the investing herself with the authority to make her faithful obey (in stark contrast to the RCC, which seems to claim all the authority to make its faithful obey but seemingly lacks the actual ability to do so when she needs it the most--now).

So one can continue their spiritual journey by keeping their bookshelves stocked with the authoritative documents from the authoritative figures to serve as their guardian from chaos...

but me, I always take my nous with me.

Discuss...

Yours in the Theotokos,

Darrenn

[ 04-11-2002: Message edited by: Darrenn Jackson ]

“The Liturgy is JUST THAT, IN THE LITURGY WE EXPERIENCE "THE MYSTERY CELEBRATED" AND NOT "THE MYSTERY CEREBRAL-ATED" And it makes me worry about the overall health of our Church when parents get worried over a two-hour Divine Liturgy because the extra hour was earmarked for Sunday School.”

How many think they are getting their money's worth when a baseball game goes into extra innings? ECF can never recover what was lost when the Church opted for liturgical minimalism. For those who have a copy of our Church's Festal Menaion, Lenten Triodioin, Pentecostarion and Vespers and Matins books, take an hour or two and skim through their pages (I actually would recommend praying them instead!). Read a few stichera, a few aposticha, a few canons, etc. The “Mystery Celebrated” is right there! These hymns taught many an illiterate generations better than any religious education text and workbook. And it is absolutely FREE!!! There were no "Grade 3' or "Grade 5' books. The faith of our Church is cycled through and through before us every year. I would bet that if we exchanged our one-hour/week "cerebral' ECF programs for an additional hour before Divine Liturgy to "celebrate' Matins (Light and Creation) our next generation would have learned how to “see with Byzantine eyes.”

Any challenges? Better ideas?


Cantor Joe Thur
Deacon-student

Disclaimer: I don't recommend dumping our catechesis programs. Theology/dogma just needs to get back together with Liturgy/Mystery celerated. Our Church needs not to support this divorce any longer. We need to sing this Melody of Faith once again in its fullest and not just talk about it at conferences and seminars. Like Nike's motto: Just Do It!

[ 04-12-2002: Message edited by: J Thur ]

Dear Cantor and Mentor,

You are too wonderful for words!

The problem in our parishes is that we don't by and large celebrate the Horologion and the reading of the liturgical rubrics is something reserved to Cantors without any participation of the faithful.

But I agree that learning catechism as we do tends to teach children to look upon religion as they do school, cram before the final exam and forget all about it afterwards.

Our parish priest once explained the difference in missionary approach between East and West.

He said that the West came into a territory and started a building campaign, building churches, rectories etc.

The Eastern missionary simply lodged with someone in a village and started to serve the Divine Liturgy and the Horologion and this drew people to the Church (or the Holy Spirit rather!).

Alex

J Thur,

You're absolutely right. If I were a (married) parish priest, I would...

1)Take our religious Ed materials, give 'em to the parents to teach their kids at home (Religious homeschooling!!!) What I don't get is why the homeschooling parents often want to drag their kids into a classroom with other people's kids for Sunday school after Liturgy. But anyway..

2)Celebrate Matins right before a FULL Divine Liturgy on Sunday (okay, maybe with confessions in between)

3)Encourage EVERYONE in the pews to sing and pray the services. Youth and adults. The phrase for Sacrosanctum Concillium (V II's document on sacred Liturgy) that was pounded into me during my sojurn among the Romans was "full, conscious, and active participation", I think it's good advice.

4) Recruit young people to serve as cantors and readers (maybe rotate some of the altar boys).

5) Institue practice sessions for the cantors on Saturdays.

6)See to the revival of Ruthenian Plainchant

7)Take maybe 1/3 of the pews and line them against the walls, and sell the rest to the Romans and Protestants

8) Have the Babas bake good ethnic foods for the Youth Group meetings.

9)Create and maintain a special wall in the social hall, just for the youth group.

10) Create a "reader" if you will, of especially important patristic texts for the youth group (and really for any parish ministry) for class/private study

11)direct outreach to surrounding community (like the immediate neighborhood).

12)Create, and update a parish website (like the one for St. Thomas the Apostle in Rahway, NJ)

13) Establish a travelling icon program for vocations

14)Put the youth, young adults, and converts under the supervision of the Babas.

15)Hold "Open House" nights for those interested in our parish.

Yours in the Theotokos,

Darrenn

"The problem in our parishes is that ... the reading of the liturgical rubrics is something reserved to Cantors without any participation of the faithful.

Alex,

I think the 'liturgical rubrics' is something reserved for the celebrants, no? As for participation, our Plainchant can make than happen.

Joe

Dear Cantor Joe,

Er, yes - you are right.

I meant to say that in our parishes the people seem to leave the Liturgy to the Celebrants and the Cantors alone without too much participation from them.

Not all parishes, but most I've been in.

Alex

I think one problem is having regular Saturday night divine liturgies. Even if you have vespers beforehand, most people also won't show up to matins/Divine Liturgy Sunday morning, and miss out on the resurrectional theology of matins.

I think a shortened All-Night Vigil, (about 2 hours) rather than the normal 3 hours or so on Saturday nights would be quite helpful.

MK