My first Divine Liturgy experience.

[TER]

Nathan is just a fellow parishoner. Fr. Salamy taught class that night.

That's right. I think you mentioned him in an earlier post. My bad!

 

[heavenlyboy34]

That's right. I think you mentioned him in an earlier post. My bad!

You're forgiven, brother. ~crosses self~ ~hugs~ for thee!

 

[heavenlyboy34]

Unusual day in liturgy. Aside from the usual things that go on, we did a dedication of children and of the new prayer garden. I will upload a recording of the liturgy ASAP.

 

[TER]

Unusual day in liturgy. Aside from the usual things that go on, we did a dedication of children and of the new prayer garden. I will upload a recording of the liturgy ASAP.

Looking forward to hearing it!

 

[heavenlyboy34]

Looking forward to hearing it!

My battery is recharging. I found it out of juice when I got home, and I hope I had enough power to record the whole thing! :/ Should've recharged it last week.

 

[heavenlyboy34]

IDK why, but my recorder's battery didn't take the charge properly-so I couldn't record liturgy. :/ At any rate, we sang a lot of Christmas pieces today. I was allowed to go back to singing bass Tenor is too high for me.

The main tunes sung are here- http://www.stgeorgeaz.org/assets/files/sunday_bulletin/SundayBulletin20131222.pdf but we also did various seasonal liturgical chants not listed there.

 

[heavenlyboy34]

BTW, special performance for Christmas eve liturgy Tuesday. W00t!

 

[Matthew5]

BTW, special performance for Christmas eve liturgy Tuesday. W00t!

We have Royal Hours, Vesperal Liturgy, and Vigil scheduled for Christmas Eve. Unfortunately I have to work and have family obligations. Oh well, at least we'll make it to the festal Liturgy on Christmas Day.

 

[heavenlyboy34]

Really beautiful liturgy this evening. We did the traditional Christmas liturgical hymns troparions, kontakions,hallelujah, etc. Fr. Salamy taught about the nativity in the traditional manner. During several tunes there were solos for the bass section, so myself and the other basses had fun with that. С днем рождество христова!

 

[TER]

The services at my church started at 9:30, starting with Vespers, then Divine Liturgy, ending around 2 am. (then I had to run home to put the presents under the tree before my little monsters woke up!). It was a very solemn, beautiful and moving service. We are truly blessed to have this priest.

Just found this quote and thought I might add it to this thread:

We Orthodox live Christ within the Divine Liturgy, or rather Christ lives within us during the Divine Liturgy. The Divine Liturgy is a work of God. We say: "Time is a creation of the Lord". Among other things it means now is the time for God to act. Christ liturgizes, we live with Christ.

The Divine Liturgy is the way we know God and the way God becomes known to us. Christ celebrated the Divine Liturgy once and this passed into eternity. His divinized human nature came to the Divine Liturgy. We know Christ specifically in the Divine Liturgy. The Divine Liturgy we celebrate is the same Divine Liturgy which was done by Christ on Great Thursday in the Mystical Supper. The 14th through the 16th chapters of the Gospel according to John is one Divine Liturgy. So in the Divine Liturgy we understand Holy Scripture.

The early Church lived without a New Testament, but not without the Divine Liturgy. The first records, the written hymns, exist in the Divine Liturgy.


- Elder Sophrony (Sakharov)

 

[TER]

Here are some scriptural references of the word liturgy in the NT alongside the original koine Greek. The word in the parenthesis is the actual word used not the italicized words of ministered and service (as used in many modern translations)

Acts 13.2:

2 As they ministered (liturgized) to the Lord and fasted, the Holy Spirit said, “Now separate to Me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.”

2 λειτουργούντων δὲ αὐτῶν τῷ κυρίῳ καὶ νηστευόντων εἶπεν τὸ πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον· Ἀφορίσατε δή μοι τὸν Βαρναβᾶν καὶ Σαῦλον εἰς τὸ ἔργον ὃ προσκέκλημαι αὐτούς.


Luke 1.23

23 So it was, as soon as the days of his service (Liturgy) were completed, that he departed to his own house.

23 καὶ ἐγένετο ὡς ἐπλήσθησαν αἱ ἡμέραι τῆς λειτουργίας αὐτοῦ, ἀπῆλθεν εἰς τὸν οἶκον αὐτοῦ.


Phillipians 2.17:

17 Yes, and if I am being poured out as a drink offering on the sacrifice and service (liturgy) of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all.

17 ἀλλὰ εἰ καὶ σπένδομαι ἐπὶ τῇ θυσίᾳ καὶ λειτουργίᾳ τῆς πίστεως ὑμῶν, χαίρω καὶ συγχαίρω πᾶσιν ὑμῖν·


Hebrews 8.6:

6 But now He has obtained a more excellent ministry (liturgy), inasmuch as He is also Mediator of a better covenant, which was established on better promises.

νυνὶ δὲ διαφορωτέρας τέτυχεν λειτουργίας, ὅσῳ καὶ κρείττονός ἐστιν διαθήκης μεσίτης, ἥτις ἐπὶ κρείττοσιν ἐπαγγελίαις νενομοθέτηται.


Hebrew 1.7:

6 But when He again brings the firstborn into the world, He says:

“Let all the angels of God worship Him.”

7 And of the angels He says:

“Who makes His angels spirits
And His ministers (liturgizers) a flame of fire.”

7 καὶ πρὸς μὲν τοὺς ἀγγέλους λέγει· Ὁ ποιῶν τοὺς ἀγγέλους αὐτοῦ πνεύματα, καὶ τοὺς λειτουργοὺς αὐτοῦ πυρὸς φλόγα·

 

[TER]

 

[TER]

 

[heavenlyboy34]

Weirdness...Only a few showed up for choir rehearsal this morning. :/ So we almost dismissed for Orthros. Then everyone starts showing up at the last friggin moment, so there was a bit of practice before liturgy. Fr. Chris was absent toady. I had teh sad. Rev. Dn. Daumitt led the service. The little kids in the parish are kind of annoying but amusing at the same time.

 

[TER]

The liturgical unity of the faithful, under whatever conditions and in whatever institutions, networks and structures, is the starting point for the transformation of mass coexistence into a communion of persons, a society; for the achievement of social justice and not merely a program for it; and for liberating work from slavery to mechanized necessity and transforming it into a personal relationship, an event of communion. Only the life of the eucharistic body of the parish can give flesh to the formal idea of the ‘priestly’ character of politics, the prophetic character of science, the philanthropic character of economics and the mystical character of the family. Without the parish, all this is theory, naive idealism and a romantic utopia. Within the parish it becomes a historical reality, an immediate possibility and a concrete experience.

– from “The Freedom of Morality ” by Christos Yannaras

 

[TER]

Where else [other than at Eucharist] in our society are all of us–not just a gnostic elite, but everyone–called to be social critics, called to extricate ourselves from the powers and principalities that claim to rule our daily lives in order to submit ourselves to the sole dominion of the God before whom all of us are equal? Where else in our society are we all addressed and sprinkled and bowed to and incensed and touched and kissed and treated like somebody-all in the very same way? Where else do economic czars and beggars get the same treatment? Where else are food and drink blessed in a common prayer of thanksgiving, broken and poured out, so that everybody, everybody shares and shares alike?

– Robert Hovda

 

[heavenlyboy34]

This Sunday we will celebrate Epiphany per the Archdiocese's direction. We will also be doing the Great Blessing of Water. I've never done either, so it should be enlightening.

 

[TER]

The Life of Christ Within Us

By His Eminence Metropolitan Hierotheos
of Nafpaktos and Agiou Vlasiou​

We are at the beginning of the year and we are used to exchanging well wishes, which are always pleasant, hopeful and encouraging. Yet things in peoples lives do not come as they wish. There are voices today who speak of a difficult year ahead and, of course, there are serious grounds to support this view that there will be difficulties. But a person has to face all the problems of life with an elevated sense of meaning. This should be done particularly by Christians.

The thoughts below refer to how the Church urges Christians to live every day of their lives and, therefore, this year. Our model should be Christ and our continuing aim will be how to live in Christ.

1. Christ, after His baptism in the Jordan River and the arrest of John the Forerunner, began His ministry preaching repentance: "Repent, for the reign of heaven is near" (Matt. 4:17). This refers to the Gospel reading on the first Sunday after the Baptism of Christ, basically the first Sunday of each new year. This is important because it determines in our lives the course for every new year.

The sacred Gospels, although not a complete biography of Christ, do present a general outline of "what Christ said, did and suffered". As to what He "said" refers to His teachings, and a primary place for this is given to His Sermon on the Mount, as well as His speeches presented in the Gospel of John, which are full of theology. As to what he "did" refers to His miracles, namely the healing of sicknesses, the remission of sins and the raising from the dead. As to what He "suffered" refers to the persecution by the Scribes and Pharisees, and especially His Passion and Crucifixion. Of course, the Gospels describe His Resurrection and Ascension into the heavens as well as the coming of the All-Holy Spirit.

If we notice carefully we will find that these three actions of Christ reveal His divine-human person. That is, Christ preached as a Prophet, worked wonders as a King, and suffered and was crucified as a High Priest. In other words, Christ united in Himself these three categories of people who were in the Old Testament, that of the Prophet, King and High Priest.

2. However, the entire work of Christ we live again within the Mystery of the Divine Eucharist, which is the sacramental repetition of the work of divine economy. We come to the church, participate in the Divine Eucharist (we do not only pray as individuals), but we also live the sacramental event of the divine incarnation of Christ.

The Small Entrance symbolically shows Christ entering the world to preach the Gospel of repentance and salvation. The Priest holds the Gospel in which is contained the teaching of Christ and after the Entrance he reads the passage prescribed by the Fathers, and so we experience what Christ said and is saying, that is, the prophetic identity of Christ is declared.

During the course of the Divine Eucharist we pray that God would send His mercy. We feel that we are sick in soul and body, and have been hurt by demonic influences and the excitement of the passions, and so we see our unworthiness, our spiritual leprosy, as well as our spiritual deadness and internal situation, and we pray that God would send His mercy. That is, we come to the Divine Eucharist hurt, frustrated, and many times we feel miracles take place, that there are internal changes. By this we are living within us the wonderworking identity of Christ, what Christ did and does. We are experiencing the sovereignty of Christ over all creation.

Then, during the Divine Liturgy with the Great Entrance, the gifts are moved from the sacred Prothesis where they were suitably prepared and deposited on the holy Altar where the bloodless mystagogy will take place, to experience the Passion of Christ. The holy Altar is terrible Golgotha on which is performed this great bloodless sacrifice of Christ. In this sense in the Divine Eucharist we also experience what Christ suffered for our salvation, and so we experience His high priestly identity.

Indeed, the Divine Eucharist is the center of our spiritual life, because in it we see Christ acting as Prophet, King and High Priest. And when we are apprenticed into the mysteries of the Reign of God, we are ruled by the great King and nourished by His Body, and we can live the mystery of the Divine Economy. Finally, the Divine Eucharist is not an individual or even a common prayer, but it is an initiation into the mystery of the Divine Economy, which is the mystery of the Incarnation of Christ and the deification of man.

3. Yet, this entire life of Christ does not end with the celebration of the Divine Eucharist, but it continues also in our personal life. After the Divine Liturgy there begins another internal liturgy. When one communes of the Body and Blood of Christ, after necessary preparation, then they receive within them Christ as Prophet, King and High Priest and so the Divine Liturgy continues.

Christ teaches within us what we must do to walk correctly and rule over our passions, giving us His grace and energy, together with our synergy, to be released from the passions and freed from their dynasty. As a Priest He inspires us to pray unceasingly to God. This means that after Divine Communion we live Christ within us as Prophet, King and High Priest, and so we increase our spiritual life. Christ continues to preach, work miracles and perform as a Priest for our salvation.

In this sense the Gospel describes the key events of the life of Christ, mystically illustrated in the Mystery of the Divine Eucharist, and it is experienced spiritually in the heart, the center of the inner man, where the love and mercy of God is revealed.

We have many problems in our lives, several anomalous situations, and we face numerous difficulties, but as Christians we should live in Christ, that is, we should enter into the life of Christ and Christ can enter into us.

With these conditions, the new year will be blessed and fruitful and this year will be profitable. We should not only see our external difficulties, but we are interested primarily and above all how we make ​​within our existence a spiritual Divine Liturgy. We should be very interested especially in what the Apostle Paul says: "For if we are faithful to the end, trusting God just as firmly as when we first believed, we will share in all that belongs to Christ" (Heb. 3:14).

Happy and blessed New Year!

 

[heavenlyboy34]

The Blessing Of The Water was very interesting and beautiful. My first taste of Holy Water. Not the best water in the world as far as flavor, but still good. We sang the seasonal music-antiphon, apolitykion, etc.

 

[TER]

The Blessing Of The Water was very interesting and beautiful. My first taste of Holy Water. Not the best water in the world as far as flavor, but still good. We sang the seasonal music-antiphon, apolitykion, etc.

It has the taste of basil due to the priest dunking the basil leaves to bless the congregation. The Holy Water is truly blessed and powerful. Keep it safe for times of an emergency.