Category Archives: church

Sleepy celebrations of Pentecost.

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Pincushion flowers

My celebrations of Pentecost last year and this had one thing in common, that I was running short on sleep. Last year, in Thessaloniki*, it was because I had stayed up late the night before talking to an old friend. Today, I had waked at about 4:30 and was a bit dopey for the next twelve hours, until I came home and took a nap.

I just noticed that I never wrote here about Pentecost in Greece. I celebrated the feast at the The Church of Panagia Archeiropoietos that I had toured with my guide Maria a few days before. In the linked post I told about the blue-veined marble floors from the 5th century, symbolically arranged so that near the front, curvier veins make it look like rivers flowing out from the altar out to the back of the temple.

A few days later I attended Divine Liturgy in that church. On Pentecost we Orthodox have Kneeling Vespers shortly after Liturgy. This service includes three long prayers, “Again and again on bended knee,” and there I was down on that venerable floor, listening to the prayers in Greek, not knowing the language. I was beginning to feel sleepy, and almost dozed off. As special as it was to kneel there, I didn’t want to hit my head on that marble, knowing that any new cracks that might develop would be in my skull. So for the second two prayers I sat.

Today

Today I was in my home parish, and it was a very joyous day! We received five new members into our church family before Liturgy, and that is always cause for celebration in itself. We typically have a potluck on Pentecost for our agape meal, instead of our usual arrangement of having a different team each week that plans and cooks a meal for 200 people. Today lots of people brought desserts, which were very popular. I was working in the bookstore, which is in the fellowship hall, and I got to meet two new catechumens and sell lots of books.

At Vespers, I didn’t kneel on the (cement) floor, because there was space on a rug. But it was a strain to make my groggy mind pay attention to the words. Soon after I came home I slept. Sunday afternoon naps are so often needed, and such a gift.

Just after I woke, a friend from church texted me that he could come over and help me move the last of my furniture back into place, things that had been moved for painting and carpet cleaning. I’m still able to move a lot of stuff myself, but this afternoon we needed to put a twin bed back together and push-pull a chest of drawers into the bedroom where my new housemate will be living. I don’t think I told you about her before, and I probably won’t tell you much about her in the future, but I’m very excited to have a student living here, a dear girl whom I’ve known since she was a baby.

After that, there was still enough sunlight for me to wander a bit and take pictures of the garden. The Tasmanian Flax, Dianella tasmanica, is at the berry stage, covered with its grapey fruits. Those beautiful fruits are toxic “to an unknown degree,” at least to humans, but birds are said to enjoy them in the plant’s home territory of southeastern Australia.

What a wonderful day it has been. Tomorrow is Holy Spirit Day, and it would be lovely to continue the overflowing blessing of Pentecost into another day, and attend Divine Liturgy. If I go to bed early enough (like now), it could happen.

I wish you all a Happy June ❤

*If you’d like to read my other posts from Thessaloniki, they will all open up when you click on this tag: Thessaloniki. 

The week previous to being in that city, I was with family on the Island of Paros, Greece, and the posts I wrote about that time are here: Paros.

What the mandorla reveals.

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This year we Orthodox celebrate the Ascension of Christ on May 21st, which is, as always, 40 days  after the feast of the Resurrection of Christ. It’s been a while since I published this article about the feast and about the significance of the mandorla, so I’m offering it again:

christ forgiving resurrection 2Until a recent vocabulary expansion, I knew little Italian beyond pizza and zucchini. Now I know mandorla, which means almond. In the language of iconography, it means a background shape, often an almond shape but not always, which conveys meaning having nothing to do with the nut.

In this article “Within a Mandorla” Fr. Stephen Freeman explains:

“Revealed in the context of a mandorla is that which we know by the revelation of Scripture but which might not have been witnessed by the human eye – or – if witnessed – somehow transcended the normal bounds of vision.

“Mark says that [Christ] was “carried up into heaven and seated at the right hand of God.” This last formula is a creedal confession – but not an eyewitness description. That Christ was taken up and that He is seated at the right hand of the Father is the faith and dogma of the Church. But the Church knows this in a mystical manner and not in the manner of a newspaper reporter.”

And from Icon Reader:

“Sometimes a star – but the usual elliptical shape gives it the name mandorla, which is Italian for the nut. The almond tree is the first plant to flower in Greece, sometimes as early as mid-January, and as such is a symbol of new life and fertility. Ancient Greek myths also link almonds, and the almond-shape, with new life; yet preceding all these in time, and succeeding them in importance, is the story of Aaron’s rod, which blossomed forth not only flowers, but almonds (Numbers 17:8)”

The mandorla can represent light that was actually seen by those present at an event, but it often also symbolizes the majesty and glory that is beyond our earthly vision or ability to put into words.

From Wikipedia: “These mandorla will often be painted in several concentric patterns of color which grow darker as they come close to the center. This is in keeping with the church’s use of apophatic theology, as described by Dionysius the Areopagite and others. As holiness increases, there is no way to depict its brightness except by darkness.”

The story of what the disciples of Jesus saw with their own eyes is told in the first chapter of the Book of Acts:

“So when they had come together, they asked him, ‘Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?’ He replied, ‘It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority.  But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.’ When he had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.  While he was going and they were gazing up toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them.  They said, ‘Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.’”

The Lord has ascended into heaven
that He might send the Comforter to the world.
The heavens prepared His throne, and the clouds His mount.
Angels marvel to see a Man high above them.
The Father receives Him Whom He holds, co-eternal, in His bosom.
The Holy Spirit commands all His Angels:
“Lift up your gates, ye princes!
All ye nations, clap your hands:
for Christ has gone up to where He was before!”

-Hymn for the feast

A belated letter from Lent.

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I’d like to catch up here about a few of the things that happened, and that I did, during the several weeks I was absent from the blogging world. These are the kinds of things you can take pictures of, so they are not many, considering all the hours and days we are talking about. It often happened that I would think to take a picture somewhere, but then I would think, “I’m not blogging, so I don’t really need a picture of that.” And it was nice. Life is full. Here are some of the ways my days were full of life:

Birthdays: I cooked for two of the birthday parties that I attended. One of my accomplishments in this department was a batch of vegan gluten-free chocolate cupcakes, which the party-goers thought wonderful; I ate two of them myself. The picture is from before they went into the oven. You might guess that there were beets in the batter!

Later I drove north for grandson Jamie’s 11th birthday, and took the job of baking the cake he remembers always being the tradition for his day, a “Black Forest Cake” made with a box mix, whipped cream, and canned cherry pie filling. The top layer of my version was so domed, I had to create a lake from the whipped cream to hold the cherries. No one should be surprised to find a lake in the Black Forest, right?

Up there, spring was early, and when we took walks in the woods we encountered dogwood flowers a month before they’d normally be seen. And a trillium. I am rarely in a place to see trilliums when they are newly opened, so that was wonderful.

Other cooking: A bigger project than the birthday baking was for church. I took a whole day to experiment at home in an effort to figure out how to get a consistently good imprint on the tops of our altar bread that we call prosphora.

And I learned a lot, though the huge batch of dough (it used 20+ cups of flour) from which I  made four sizes of breads, overwhelmed my kitchen — or more precisely, my mind, as I scrambled to keep track of timers and squeeze everything into my oven.

It seemed pretty chaotic for a while, but the end result was quite satisfactory, Glory to God! It was on St. Patrick’s Day, and I had been to church that morning so as to start my project off right. Thank you, Saint Patrick!

Reading: You can see from the sidebar that I read several books, but the one I most wanted to read for “lenten reading” I haven’t finished yet. It’s Transfiguring Time by Olivier Clément, and is a beautiful complement to the joy of Pascha, as the author’s own joy at the Christian message shines through every page. Clément was born in 1921 in France, and spent his 20’s exploring the religions of the East, in particular India. He became somewhat of an expert on ancient cosmologies and their concept of time, and when he discovered the Christian faith as elucidated by Vladimir Lossky, he saw the huge contrast. I’m sure I’ll share some quotes from Clément later.

Little breads for church feasts: For the feast of the 40 Martyrs of Sebaste I decided to bake Lark Buns for my church school class.

40 Martyrs Sebaste

The symbolism has to do with larks in springtime, but also the spirits of the martyrs flying up to heaven. You have to bake 40 of them, of course, so quite a few were left over to pass around to a few people at the agape meal. That was fun.

At the very end of Lent, on Palm Sunday, to commemorate Lazarus Saturday which was the day before, the cooks who prepared the agape meal made a batch of Lazarus Buns. They are just as cute!

In the garden: We had a couple of very warm weeks in March, and around the date of the equinox, when weather returned to normal, it was as though summer had ended and spring had arrived. It was easy to be out of doors during that special time. I had organized my seeds…

…and planted several 3″ pots with winter squash: kabocha, butternut and Delicata. Because of there being so much sunshine and high temps, I was able to leave them outdoors much of the time. Just before recent rains I set them out into the garden, and if we don’t get any killing frosts I should end up with a good supply of squash in the fall.

I harvested plenty of greens and they were delicious. The Chinese Broccoli towered over the garden bed and swayed prettily, scattering its flower petals around, but I didn’t get very much in the way of the broccoli part from it, and the larger leaves were bitter.

The Tasmanian Flax is blooming this spring, after readying itself for three years, and I am thrilled. Each flower is exquisite and dainty, and there are hundreds of them, so we can expect a slew of berries in a few months.

Now I must check out what my fellow bloggers have been doing the last two months ❤

The Eighth Day that is Bright Week.

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Christ is risen! Indeed He is risen!

This week after Pascha is called both Bright Week and The Eighth Day. Here is the explanation for that:

“When God created the universe, He rested on the 7th day, the Sabbath (Saturday). But, when Jesus rose from the grave, it was on the day after the Sabbath (the day after the 7th). Therefore, Jesus rose from the grave on the 8th day, He became the first-fruits of the new creation, the one unified with God, as the joyful sign and promise of the everlasting “Bright Week” in paradise…a never-ending week of brightness. The entire Bright Week is considered to be one continuous day.”

The photo above shows the altar doors as they are now, open all week, with the ceremonial artos bread that stays in that spot throughout this extended (8th) Day. On Thomas Sunday, the week after Pascha, we slice it up and pass it around to all the parishioners. It’s a very special recipe with lots of flavors and ingredients that keep it quite moist all week.

As with Holy Week, it seems like the best thing would be to just Be in Church for the seven days whole Day, but of course no one can do that. We must bask in the glow of Pascha wherever we are, and let His brightness shine out. Glory to God!

Proteas given to me on my birthday.