Tag Archives: Holy Week

Lazarus

church, my garden, Pascha, ,

Tonight was the service of Matins for Lazarus Saturday. It made me so happy. About a week before Pascha we experience this foretaste of Paschal joy, witnessing the raising of Lazarus after he had lain in the tomb for four days. But first, picture the scene when Jesus came into town: Lazarus’s sisters were grieving and seemed to blame Jesus for their brother’s death, saying, “If you had been here, he wouldn’t have died.” Jesus wept. The sisters made mention of the fact that their brother’s corpse was at the point of stinking. It was kind of a downer all around.

I know Lent is a time of drawing close to God, and learning of His tender love for us, and looking eagerly toward The Resurrection. But it’s also characterized as a time of bright sadness. This year I have felt the sadness part more than the bright part, as a burden-bearing, until these last few days.

Since December I’d had bright white lights still up around my kitchen window, and for many weeks I left them on night and day, to help my mood. Sometime in March I unplugged the string, but I was still reluctant to untape and untack them. I pondered leaving them all year, unlit but ready to come to my aid with the next dreary day in the Fall, but it was an idea stemming wholly from weariness.

Suddenly one morning during a short spell of sunshine, I knew I needed to wash the window and the sill, so of course the lights could not stay there. I washed and swept and scrubbed all kinds of things around the house and the yard for two or three days, and prepared myself to be resurrected. I took away the candlesticks and put fresh flowers instead on the windowsill.

And the brightness has taken over. Pascha is so late this year, Spring also in many places, but Lent seems to have passed quickly. Perhaps during Holy Week I can finish my housecleaning and make the place look properly freshened up for Christ’s glorious Resurrection.

But first Lazarus will walk — alive! — out of the tomb and be unbound. If he can be raised after his body was rotting, so can I be relieved of my burdens and my stinking sins and put on Christ.  As he said,

Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light.

I will try to pay attention and learn and find that rest through the next week as we are on our way to Calvary, and I’m really looking forward to being there at the empty tomb!

Elder Zosima and his brother

book characters, books, church, Lent, love, quotes, , ,

In my reading of The Brothers Karamazov, I came this morning, Monday of Holy Week, to the part “From the Life of the Elder Zosima.” The elder first relates about his older brother, who only at the age of seventeen and sick unto death, turned from anger and scoffing toward a path that might lead to repentance, and seemingly only to please his mother. But that is not an entirely bad reason.

…on Tuesday morning my brother started keeping the fast and going to church. “I’m doing it only for your sake, mother, to give you joy and peace,” he said to her….But he did not go to church for long, he took to his bed, so that he had to confess and receive communion at home. The days grew bright, clear, fragrant — Easter was late that year. All night, I remember, he used to cough, slept badly, but in the morning he would always get dressed and try to sit in an armchair. So I remember him: he sits, quiet and meek, he smiles, he is sick but his countenance is glad, joyful. He was utterly changed in spirit — such a wondrous change had suddenly begun in him!

The young man asked forgiveness of everyone and talked about his great sin, but at the same time was so happy and full of thankfulness and exhortations, that people thought he was going mad.

Thus he awoke every day with more and more tenderness, rejoicing and all atremble with love. The doctor would come — the old German Eisenschmidt used to come to us: “Well, what do you think, doctor, shall I live one more day in the world?” he would joke with him. “Not just one day, you will live many days,” the doctor would answer, “you will live months and years, too.” “But what are years, what are months!” he would exclaim. “Why count the days, when even one day is enough for a man to know all happiness. My dears, why do we quarrel, boast before each other, remember each other’s offenses? Let us go into the garden, let us walk and play and love and praise and kiss each other, and bless our life.”

This older brother died a few weeks after Easter, when the teller of the story, the elder Zosima, was only eight years old. He talks, now near death himself, more about his childhood, and how it was also during Holy Week that he began to see more when he went to church.

But I remember how, even before I learned to read, a certain spiritual perception visited me for the first time, when I was just eight years old. Mother took me to church by myself (I do not remember where my brother was then), during Holy Week, to the Monday liturgy. It was a clear day, and, remembering it now, I seem to see again the incense rising from the censer and quietly ascending upwards, and from above, through a narrow window in the cupola, God’s rays pouring down upon us in the church, and the incense rising up to them in waves, as if dissolving into them. I looked with deep tenderness, and for the first time in my life I consciously received the first seed of the word of God in my soul. A young man walked out into the middle of the church with a big book, so big that it seemed to me he even had difficulty in carrying it, and he placed it on the analogion [lectern], opened it, and began to read, and suddenly, then, for the first time I understood something, for the first time in my life I understood what was read in God’s church.

The reading was from the book of Job. And tonight I myself plan to attend this liturgy, and though I haven’t seen the program for the service, I now have confidence that I will hear this same reading. How many times have I also watched the beams of light shining down when I stood in church, and even felt their heat on my face, like the warmth of God’s Holy Spirit?

The Elder Zosima is a fictional character, but he is believed to be based on a real-life monk in old Russia. In the novel, where I am reading, Zosima goes on in his very moving fashion to tell his life’s story: “– and over all is God’s truth, moving, reconciling, all-forgiving!”

Isn’t it sweet that God should arrange for me to read this passage this morning, to help me in an unusual way to become even more receptive to His being with us tonight by means of hymns such as, “Let my prayer arise in Thy sight as incense….,” and the Psalms of Ascent — and the Holy Mysteries!

Last week our bishop was present with us, and he gave us a good word about the last days of Lent — well, technically Lent has come to an end, but we are still in the anticipation and preparation that is Holy Week. He said that Lent is not about finding every bit of dirt in our souls, but about the bridal chamber, about discovering the great love that our Lord Jesus has for us.

Perhaps Zosima’s brother went to a Bridegroom Matins service on Tuesday; we have three of them this week, and tomorrow I hope to attend at 6:30 in the morning. The Lord Himself has been filling my lamp with the oil of His Holy Spirit!

The day started with callas.

church, my garden, , , , ,
This morning I went out in the fog to cut as many nice calla lilies as I could find in my three patches, to contribute to what our Flower Lady and her team would use to decorate the church for Palm Sunday and Holy Week.

Mr. Glad came out with me and found a snail on the slab of schist that Soldier brought me from the mountains a while back.

Today was Lazarus Saturday, which is like a foretaste of Christ’s own resurrection. It marks the end of Lent, and helps us remember Christ’s power over death and hell which He demonstrated at The Event of all history, which will come to us at Pascha whether we are ready or not.

I dropped off the bucket of blooms right before Divine Liturgy (Holy Communion service) in the morning. In the afternoon, people cleaned and decorated the church.

In the evening was the Vigil for Palm Sunday, a gloriously rich beginning of the feast. The callas had been added to other flowers, including something that looked like campanula, and some unusual orange woody stems with berries (?) on them.

The palm fronds were all laid out at the ready.

In the middle of the service, while the sun was still up, we processed outside and stood singing and praying for a while; I was next to the wisteria and noticed the bees buzzing and the sweetness of the flowers adding to the flavor of the Holy Spirit.

Not long after that — I am leaving out so much that was wonderful, like the flower-covered chandelier set to swinging, and special breads, but You Had to Be There — the palm fronds were given out, and once they had a branch to hold, the children found it easier to last another while.

 Blessed is He that comes in the name of the Lord!

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.