Category Archives: Pascha

Who lives and was dead

church, Holy Week, Pascha,

Today was full of the Lord! The first thing I did on rising was go to church and take a turn reading Psalms by candlelight next to the “tomb” of Christ that had been erected on Friday and bedecked with Easter lilies. It is a special icon representing our Lord lying in the grave, and from the end of Friday night’s service the Psalms are read continuously until the next service, which was at 1:00 today.

The Orthodox also read Psalms all night by the casket of any church member at death. And if one is all alone in the church in the near dark — well, one is not alone, because God is there always, and not only He, but the saints who live and form that great Cloud of Witnesses, who are praying with us. It’s a very intimate and loving hour, and a blessed opportunity to participate in such a work.

In the middle of the Vesperal Liturgy of Holy Saturday we had baptisms. Once again we are at the anniversary of my own baptism on this day, four years ago now, and that adds to the gravity and joy of standing with those who are being newly illumined. During Lent the catechumens have been preparing for Holy Baptism, and the rest of the church pray extra on their behalf, and in our hearts and in repentance rededicate ourselves, remembering our own illumination.

Today there were six people baptized, praise God! Two couples, each with a very young boy-child, and they used our new sunken baptismal font that is just outside the church, filled with 90° water, which I’m sure made it easier for the little guys to suffer being immersed. The skies were dry, which made watching easier for all of us. In spite of the momentary displeasure and crying of the babies, everyone was beaming with smiles and songs.

Also during the service today we heard 15 Old Testament readings that have been familiar to me most of my life, but they are becoming even more beloved every year, as we hear passages as long as the whole book of Jonah and as short as the couple of paragraphs from Jeremiah that it has been my lot to chant three years in a row now. When Tom started reading the account of Abraham taking Isaac to the mountain to make a sacrifice, I realized that I have heard him read it every year, and from now on will never be able to read that moving story without hearing his voice.

We change all the altar cloths from purple to white in the middle of this service as well, two or three people nearby stepping up to do the quick work at the same time as men are lighting the chandelier and the choir is singing. Of course the choir is singing! There is rarely a quiet time during our services, filled as they are with prayers, Scripture, and hymns.

Mr. Glad went with me on Thursday evening for the Matins of Holy Friday, during which 12 Gospel passages are read, including the whole of several chapters of John, by the clergy in the center of the church. It’s a kind of total immersion in the events of Christ’s Passion, and requires three hours to get the full effect — but you get it.

Last night was Matins and Lamentations for Holy Saturday. The Lamentations consist of the whole chapter of Psalm 119, its verses interspersed with poetic verses pertaining directly to the Passion of Christ. But I didn’t go to that. I’m too old to stay up past my bedtime several nights in a row, and I wanted to be sure to make it tonight.

At my baptism, anointing with Holy Chrism

Tonight about midnight we will process around the church with candles — and maybe in the drizzle, if the weather doesn’t change quickly. Once we are back inside, a large portion of the first chapter of John will be read, often in more than one language. We will begin the happy shouts and songs of “Christ is risen!” and hymns that are the most rousing of the whole church year.

The priests and deacons will make the rounds among the people innumerable times with censing and with recitations of “Christ is risen!” and “In truth He is risen!” in many different languages in turn. Sometimes I see a cheat sheet floating around that shows these phrases, but I’m always a little too scattered to make up for my lack of preparedness right then. It’s very chummy, because we get a lot of visitors or once-a-year-ers and we fill the house. One has to pay attention to the candles to be sure that they don’t catch someone’s hair or long white scarf on fire.

Many children fall asleep on the floor as the festivities continue. The day of my baptism I was so thoroughly done-in that I couldn’t help looking again and again at the sleeping children and wishing that I were a child so that I could conk out, too. Perhaps I was being obvious; eventually a man offered me his chair, and with sleeping babe in arms moved to sit on the floor.

Of course, the highlight of the service is receiving the Holy Mysteries of Communion. When we have broken our Lenten fast with that heavenly food, and are giddy with fatigue, many of us go into the hall to share rich earthly treats that we’ve been doing without for many weeks. I’m not sure I will want to do that this year; I might need to come home and treat myself with sleep. We have a picnic Sunday afternoon with meat and everything one could want, when we are more rested.

So that’s where I’m going after I finish writing this and don my festal garments. I wanted to post at least something in commemoration of this pivotal point in history, and in our salvation history, and then I got carried away. What I first thought to share are these lines that Fr. L read to us instead of a homily this afternoon, words of the risen Christ that I hope will keep echoing in my heart.

I am the First and the Last. I am He who lives, and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore. Amen. And I have the keys of Hades and of Death.  

Leavetaking of Pascha

church, death, Pascha

Tonight at church we have a short service, Matins for Leavetaking of Pascha. It’s the last time we will sing all the wonderful jubilant Paschal hymns, and cry, “Christ is risen!” many times. Tomorrow is the actual day, followed quickly by Ascension.

In this icon you see our Lord bestowing life on those in the tombs, delivering souls from hell, “trampling down death by death.”

I’m so glad to be able to attend, and feast my soul on these fundamental glad tidings. Christ is risen, indeed!

An Olive Tree is More Than Interesting

art, church, history, nature, Pascha, travel, trees

In a recent post I said that my birthday olive tree was “an interesting gift.” I suppose it was because I was dead tired that I couldn’t think of a more telling word. I’m embarrassed to use such an uninteresting word as interesting. Ugh. The truth is, to receive the gift of an olive tree on the occasion of getting older made a huge impression on me. If I hadn’t needed to finish that post quickly and make dinner…well, enough of the excuses.

I love to look at these trees, so as I was browsing them on the Internet I pasted some pictures here. Vincent Van Gogh painted several scenes of olives.

A post about olive trees was one of the first in my string of blogs. And recently on my tree-rich trip I saw old California orchards. My childhood was near the groves that made Lindsay Ripe Olives famous, though as I have mentioned, I don’t like the fruits, and my family never had an olive tree on our property. Olive oil gelato? Very West-Coast, and I would be willing to give that a try.

You can adopt an olive tree growing in Italy, like the one at top, and then receive its produce for a year. I suppose you have to adopt it, or a different one, again the next year. Not very good parenting.

Montenegro is the home of this pocked giant, which is reputed to be 2000 years old. The longevity intrigues me, along with all the Biblical references, which I haven’t even begun to think about. Mention of them often goes along with general descriptions of abundance and productivity of gardens, and with pomegranates and figs and vineyards.

There’s a story of the olive tree who was asked to be king, and the olive branch in the dove’s mouth after The Flood. Doors for the Temple were carved in olive wood. Many people make reference to it being the tree of Peace, and God knows I need that–I need Him.

What does it mean, “I am like a green olive plant in the house of my God.” ?  It means alive, if it is green. Let me flourish in Your House, O Lord. Let me live in You.

Getting back to the trees themselves, the grove I would most like to visit is this idyllic one in Turkey , the fifth-largest seller of olive oil in the world– but trying to get to second place. Olive oil I do much appreciate, and can imagine having a picnic on the warm yellow grass, of bread dipped in oil, sitting on a blanket under the sun. Once during my sojourns in that very country, I helped women in shalvar* gather olives from the ground where they’d fallen. I even sampled one of the wrinkly brined olives they cured in flat pans spread around under the trees, and had to restrain myself from immediately spitting it out.

*(I tried in vain to find a picture of these baggy pants that so many women still wore in Turkey in the 60’s and 70’s. These days a version has become high fashion, and the ones worn by chic models are not the ones I saw and wore. Perhaps this will be be the subject of a future post.)


The Garden of Gethsemane figures prominently in the events of our salvation history, into which we entered last week through the services and events leading up to Pascha. And this tree lives there. What if it is also 2,000 years old?

I planned to post this blog before Pascha, but now here we are post-Gethsemane, post-Golgotha. Wherever olive trees, any trees, are living, this week they are dancing.

Bright Monday–Christ is Risen!

church, Pascha, poetry,

Today is Bright Monday, one of the many “most blessed” days of the church year. Our temple was beautiful in the morning light, and in the light of the parishoners’ peacefulness, decorated with white Easter lilies and the priests in white vestments, the altar open and letting more sunshine from outside flow into the nave. Wide beams of fuzzy sunlight also streamed down from the windows just below the dome, when thundershower cells were not passing by, and all the candles on the chandelier were lit, even though they weren’t “needed.” Here is a zoomed-in glimpse of my view.

I love that in the Orthodox Church we have a whole Bright Week to bask in the high joy of Pascha, before we descend slightly into the lesser heights of the 50-day Paschal season on our way to Pentecost. Throughout this period we get to greet each other every day not with a mere “hello!” but with that proclamation that is shouted in many languages on Pascha night, “Christ is risen!” Fr Stephen posted a lovely short video on his blog, one that captures the pervasive blessing of Christ’s Resurrection.

He also posts a translation of the words sung in the film, and though I don’t know how to link to the video directly, I can at least put the words here:

People rejoice, nations hear:
Christ is risen, and brings the joy!
Stars dance, mountains sing:
Christ is risen, and brings the joy!
Forests murmur, winds hum:
Christ is risen, and brings the joy!
Seas bow*, animals roar:
Christ is risen, and brings the joy!
Bees swarm, and the birds sing:
Christ is risen, and brings the joy!
Angels stand, triple the song:
Christ is risen, and brings the joy!
Sky humble yourself, and elevate the earth:
Christ is risen, and brings the joy!
Bells chime, and tell to all:
Christ is risen, and brings the joy!
Glory to You God, everything is possible to You,
Christ is risen, and brings the joy!

In my parish we had nine services between Holy Thursday and today, Bright Monday. I made six of them this year, and I doubt I’ve ever attended more–even though this year I felt the strain of trying to navigate my daily path through my strange house (torn up for remodeling) and several children coming in at various times for an Easter reunion of sorts.

Tonight I am filled to the brim with all the love of my children and husband, and thankfulness that they all wanted to be here and be together… and filled with Paschal joy, too! I noticed that even the sorrowful days leading up to Sunday have their own joy in anticipation of Christ’s rising from the dead. For example, these words from a hymn: “We worship Thy passion, O Christ; show us also Thy Holy Resurrection.”

Holy Friday is to be a day of strict fasting and quietness as much as possible, remembering His suffering and sacrifice, and because I had non-Orthodox family around I couldn’t plan ahead as to whether I would attend all the services that day: Royal Hours, Vespers of Holy Friday, and Matins of Holy Saturday. In the end, I wasn’t needed at home, and I realized that the best way to remain prayerful that day was to remain in church! So I spent most of the day there, and it was probably the richest Good Friday I’ve ever had. Not until I attended my first of these longish services that dwell deeply on the Cross of Christ did the event and its significance really sink into my heart.

The Vesperal Liturgy of Holy Saturday features 15 readings from the Old Testament, some of them pretty long, like the whole book of Jonah. And two or three of them feature extended congregational singing of choruses. Then–a baptism! It was in the middle of this service that I was baptized into the church three years ago. After I have listened to so much history of God’s dealings with His people, the baptism ritual is quite overwhelming. Just as God is lavish in His grace and forgiveness, His provision for our salvation, the ceremony is an extravagance of olive oil poured in water and holy chrism anointing hands, feet, ears and head. The “newly illumined” parishioner wears a white gown and carries a candle, wearing a cross that has also been dipped, baptized in the font.

I did happily remember my own baptism (that’s me in the photo), but it wasn’t only a personal nostalgia that brought me to tears; much more than that it was gratefulness for the whole plan of God, executed in a saga of faithfulness that we can’t even comprehend, much less tell adequately. If, as the apostle says in John 21:25, “…there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. Amen.”–then we also could not utter enough words to proclaim the implication of baptism, much less do a thorough job of “praising the LORD for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men!” Ps 107:8

Listening to the Orthodox prayers and hymns, it seems that the Church is trying anyway. A stranger to these proceedings might think that the priest goes overboard in prayers for the new member and prayers of thanksgiving to God. Part of me also thinks this, sometimes, at various services, it is true. But the other part of me says, “Hasn’t God filled our cups to overflowing? Didn’t he do everything He could to save us? Remember yesterday–Good Friday? Are you so soon bored with thanking Him?”

Truly the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. Which is why I didn’t even go to the glorious Paschal Matins and Liturgy at midnight. We were going to have a big family gathering in my house-with-no-kitchen the next day, and I was already worn out, so I needed to sleep that night. That Vesperal Liturgy is the beginning of our Resurrection celebrations, though, as in the middle somewhere we change the vestments and altar cloths to white, and we partake of Holy Communion, always a festal event.

While many of my family went to a brunch Sunday morning, I made signs for the bare walls in the living room, using crayons on some remnant rolls of newsprint I got about 30 years ago from the recycling center. Of course, they said, “Christ is risen!” and “Indeed He is risen!” I had brought in enough calla lilies from the back yard the day before to fill three vases stuck around the room amid the camping clutter and oddly-arranged furniture.

It was a blessed day of feasting and reunion, with yummy things from the deli. This morning was the buoyant liturgy , and now I will hope not to deflate too quickly, but to float airily on through this Bright Week.