Several people read this blog that are not Orthodox, but are my friends on Facebook. So I will explain a little bit about what we do during this time.
Fasting plays a great part, but is not the sole reason for Lent. It is part of learning obedience, and to lead you into a more prayerful life. Less time spent on food, more time for God. Two weeks before, we have Meatfare week, which is a time to clean out the cupboards and refrigerator of meat products. The next week is Cheesefare week, which is a time to clean out and eat up all the dairy. Then during Lent, we are expected to eat a mostly vegan diet. This week ended last Sunday night with Forgiveness Sunday service, the official start to Lent. The Forgiveness Service is a time for everyone in the parish to recognize the need to forgive because God forgives. I have a hard time with this one, because forgiveness is a practice I've had to teach myself, I am not a very forgiving person. Shamefully, I must admit that I didn't go this year.
During this first week of Lent we have several services. The Great Canon of St. Andrew of Crete, which involves lots of prostrations, speaks of our need for mercy and forgiveness from God. We are also reminded that Jesus Christ was born of the flesh of a woman and from the Spirit, so that He is fully God and fully man. Many people are mistaken about the use of Mary in our worship. Mary is called forth as a reminder of this miracle of God's presence among us.
Anyway, on Wednesdays and Fridays during Lent we have Presanctified Liturgy. We are not allowed to have a full communion service during the weeks of Lent, only on Sundays, so the priest prepares enough bread and wine on Sundays to last for two more services during the week. We are to fast prior to these services, so usually there is a vegetarian soup supper afterwards at our church on Wednesdays.
Someone asked what "Liturgy" is, it means work, which is what we do when we worship and sacrifice our praise to God. It involves sets of prayers, or litanies, and reading of Psalms, OT or NT reading, the Gospel, and hymns to God, a remembrance of a particular saint or event in Bible, and a homily, or sermon, usually on the daily Bible reading. The service culminates in serving of the Eucharist.
Lent is a time for asking forgiveness, searching yourself, weeding out the bad, filling the empty space with good. Coming closer to God through prayer. Sure, you can do this all year long, but who has that sense of commitment? I know that around the world, millions of people , Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, and others who chose to, are struggling right along with me. I can make another pot of beans because I know there are millions of other moms doing the same thing. I can get on my knees without too much self-consciousness because I know others are also. I can "stop the noise" and read my Bible. I can take food to the food pantry. I can ask forgiveness of those around me for sins I have committed against them. I can start to forgive others. Yes, yes, I can. I should. I have, I will continue, because I need the practice, and I'm lousy with sin myself.
If you are in Lent, let's do it together, pressing on toward the goal of Jesus Christ, our Glorious Pascha!
Pascha means Passover in Greek. Jesus came to fulfill all that was prepared before Him in the OT. He is the Passover. The One who gets us to God.
Hebrews 12: 1 Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Dianne , who needs to do it all better
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Will there be enough evidence to convict me?
What if we lived in a country that was not Christian friendly? What if any evidence found against me could get me thrown into prison, my livelihood taken away, my meeting place burned down, and my family separated, or murdered?
Would there be enough evidence in my life to convict me?
I think we live in a time and place in America where being Christian is an easy thing. I can wear a bracelet with WWJD? on it. How about an "In God We Trust" license plate, provided by the state? THAT would make me easy to track as I cut off the guy in the next lane, and shake my fist at him. I can slap a "fish" sticker right there on my bumper, just in case anyone is confused by my actual behavior. Yea, boy, they'd know I'm a Christian, because when I get out of my car at the movie theater to watch a less than stellar movie, I'd have on my "__________________"* t-shirt.
*insert any catchy "I'm cool 'cause I'm a Christian, and you're not" phrase
If the thought police listened to my music collection, would I have anything there to convict me? I'm not a great lover of "Christian radio music," so that wouldn't be there to confuse them. You know the stuff, the singers dress, act, and sing like secular artists, but insert God occasionally, and try to sound sincere as their sales soar, and THEIR name is on everyone's lips at the awards shows. What about the movies I rent? The books I read? The groups I belong to? What do I allow my children access to? Would that convict me of being Christian?
Lately, my priest, Father Joel, has been calling our attention during prayers to Christians around the world who are in peril because of the governments that rule them. Egypt, Iraq, Indonesia, China...... the list goes on. In some of these places, just having a Bible, or not attending Mosque could get your house ransacked, burned, or your family assaulted. Would I still get up on Sunday mornings for liturgy (the work of the church, the communion service)and leave my house if I knew there would be a spy at the end of the street writing down my name?
Several faith traditions within Christianity revere saints. We name them at services, we have their pictures or icons on our walls, we name our churches and schools for them. We hold up them up as testimony to lives given in worship of the Trinity. I don't necessarily want to die the bloody death of a martyr, as those mentioned in Hebrews 11. I just wonder where I would be if anti-Christian troops marched down my street.
One 20th century martyr, St. John of Chicago, lived close enough in time for me to relate to his sainthood, and to his stand against anti-Christian forces. He was a Russian priest who came to America in the late 1800's to start churches and schools in the Chicago area. He returned to Russia and on Oct. 31, 1917, during a revolutionary battle in his town, he and other priests started prayer services "for the victory of the Cossacks"..
"The priests were captured and sent to the headquarters of the Council of the Workers and Soldier Deputies. A priest, Fr John Kochurov, was trying to protest and to clarify the situation. He was hit several times on his face. With cheers and yelling the enraged mob conveyed him to the Tsarskoye Selo aerodrome. Several rifles were raised against the defenseless pastor. A shot thundered out, then another, after which the priest fell down on the ground, and blood spilled upon his cassock. Death did not come to him immediately... He was pulled by his hair, and somebody suggested, Finish him off like a dog. The next morning the body was brought into the former palace hospital."
http://sainttikhons.org/St._John_Kochurov.html
I wouldn't fault any Russian Christians who ran and hid that day. Many who gathered to pray and worship during this battle knew that they wouldn't make it home. Their lives were testimony to the presence that God had in their lives.
My shirt for the today should say "WWIBWTCFTC?*
*Where Will I Be When They Come For The Christians?
I hope there is enough evidence to convict me.
Hebrews 11:35-37...Others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection. Still others had trial of mockings and scourgings, yes, and of chains and imprisonment.. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, were tempted, were slain with the sword.
Dianne, not worthy
Would there be enough evidence in my life to convict me?
I think we live in a time and place in America where being Christian is an easy thing. I can wear a bracelet with WWJD? on it. How about an "In God We Trust" license plate, provided by the state? THAT would make me easy to track as I cut off the guy in the next lane, and shake my fist at him. I can slap a "fish" sticker right there on my bumper, just in case anyone is confused by my actual behavior. Yea, boy, they'd know I'm a Christian, because when I get out of my car at the movie theater to watch a less than stellar movie, I'd have on my "__________________"* t-shirt.
*insert any catchy "I'm cool 'cause I'm a Christian, and you're not" phrase
If the thought police listened to my music collection, would I have anything there to convict me? I'm not a great lover of "Christian radio music," so that wouldn't be there to confuse them. You know the stuff, the singers dress, act, and sing like secular artists, but insert God occasionally, and try to sound sincere as their sales soar, and THEIR name is on everyone's lips at the awards shows. What about the movies I rent? The books I read? The groups I belong to? What do I allow my children access to? Would that convict me of being Christian?
Lately, my priest, Father Joel, has been calling our attention during prayers to Christians around the world who are in peril because of the governments that rule them. Egypt, Iraq, Indonesia, China...... the list goes on. In some of these places, just having a Bible, or not attending Mosque could get your house ransacked, burned, or your family assaulted. Would I still get up on Sunday mornings for liturgy (the work of the church, the communion service)and leave my house if I knew there would be a spy at the end of the street writing down my name?
Several faith traditions within Christianity revere saints. We name them at services, we have their pictures or icons on our walls, we name our churches and schools for them. We hold up them up as testimony to lives given in worship of the Trinity. I don't necessarily want to die the bloody death of a martyr, as those mentioned in Hebrews 11. I just wonder where I would be if anti-Christian troops marched down my street.
One 20th century martyr, St. John of Chicago, lived close enough in time for me to relate to his sainthood, and to his stand against anti-Christian forces. He was a Russian priest who came to America in the late 1800's to start churches and schools in the Chicago area. He returned to Russia and on Oct. 31, 1917, during a revolutionary battle in his town, he and other priests started prayer services "for the victory of the Cossacks"..
"The priests were captured and sent to the headquarters of the Council of the Workers and Soldier Deputies. A priest, Fr John Kochurov, was trying to protest and to clarify the situation. He was hit several times on his face. With cheers and yelling the enraged mob conveyed him to the Tsarskoye Selo aerodrome. Several rifles were raised against the defenseless pastor. A shot thundered out, then another, after which the priest fell down on the ground, and blood spilled upon his cassock. Death did not come to him immediately... He was pulled by his hair, and somebody suggested, Finish him off like a dog. The next morning the body was brought into the former palace hospital."
http://sainttikhons.org/St._John_Kochurov.html
I wouldn't fault any Russian Christians who ran and hid that day. Many who gathered to pray and worship during this battle knew that they wouldn't make it home. Their lives were testimony to the presence that God had in their lives.
My shirt for the today should say "WWIBWTCFTC?*
*Where Will I Be When They Come For The Christians?
I hope there is enough evidence to convict me.
Hebrews 11:35-37...Others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection. Still others had trial of mockings and scourgings, yes, and of chains and imprisonment.. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, were tempted, were slain with the sword.
Dianne, not worthy
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Unbelievable Renewal
We've had a hard, long, cold, icy winter here in the midwest. Most conversation usually turns to "no more snow, or the weather man is outa here." We're sick and tired of it. The yards are brown, the driveways are muddy, the cars are dirty, and our spirits are down.
But the promise of spring is just around the corner. I saw green poking up in our church garden on Sunday. I even waded into the mud in my good shoes to pull back dead leaves to find daylilies inviting themselves into the sun. That gave me a little sweet surprise, something to pull out and remember throughout a busy week.
I also watched a gardening show this week on television. It's a good thing we don't have cable, or I'd be on Home and Garden station all the time. The demonstrators were walking through a magnificent, green, abundant, lush, full tropical garden, I could almost smell it. The weird thing was that I had almost forgotten what that was like. It was as if I was Alice, looking through a glass into another existence. People in t-shirts and shorts, a soft breeze, sunshine, green everywhere, it gave me quite a yearning to be there. It seemed like spring and summer were just a far off dream, somewhere we will never get to this year. I felt I had peeked into paradise.
Then I wondered about what Heaven will be like. In Orthodoxy, when we join together in liturgy, the communion service, we believe we are living in the Kingdom of Heaven, that we are surrounded by clouds of witnesses (Hebrews 12:1). We say-- "Blessed is the Kingdom, of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, now and ever, and unto ages of ages, Amen."
But there is more to the Kingdom than this earthly existence we share. Infinitely more. What of the Heaven that we are told of in the last chapters of Revelation? All this, all that surrounds us, our earth, our homes, our stuff, will all pass away, and we will be living with a new heaven and a new earth. There will be no sea, nothing to separate us, or make us different. We will be in union with God. We will be the bride, he will be the Groom. And it won't be an earthly marriage, one that can be tossed away, but one that keeps us eternally joined to God. It was revealed to St. John in Revelation 21 that EVERY tear will be wiped away, there will be no more death, no more sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain. All former things will pass.
When we were children, didn't we want our parents to wipe away our tears, take away the pain, the sorrow, and the little deaths we suffered through every day? Most people reading this blog are adults, and for many, there is no one who fills this roll on earth any more. I know many who are suffering terrible pain, loss, and hurt, I can't take it away, I can't wipe away all the silent, unshed tears. I can help, but really, at the end of the day, it is still there, haunting dreams, and stealing sleep.
Imagine this perfect world that is waiting for us. Imagine our heavenly Father, taking away all the past. We won't even have a memory of our pains, sorrows, and tears. All will be new and fresh, just like in that gardening show, only much better--an unbelievable place, full of love and our eternal union with God.
Enter Lent with the image of this perfect Heaven in your heart and mind. This is our ultimate goal, this is where our souls yearn to be. Wake up in the mornings, sure of the knowledge that God will lead us there. He wants to take away all that troubles you, all the pain, sorrow, and hurt. He wants us to live forever with Him in Heaven, in a beautiful, perfect place.
From Revelation 22:17 And the Spirit and the bride say, "Come!" And let him who hears say, "Come!" And let him who thirsts come. Whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely.
Dianne
yearning for union with God
But the promise of spring is just around the corner. I saw green poking up in our church garden on Sunday. I even waded into the mud in my good shoes to pull back dead leaves to find daylilies inviting themselves into the sun. That gave me a little sweet surprise, something to pull out and remember throughout a busy week.
I also watched a gardening show this week on television. It's a good thing we don't have cable, or I'd be on Home and Garden station all the time. The demonstrators were walking through a magnificent, green, abundant, lush, full tropical garden, I could almost smell it. The weird thing was that I had almost forgotten what that was like. It was as if I was Alice, looking through a glass into another existence. People in t-shirts and shorts, a soft breeze, sunshine, green everywhere, it gave me quite a yearning to be there. It seemed like spring and summer were just a far off dream, somewhere we will never get to this year. I felt I had peeked into paradise.
Then I wondered about what Heaven will be like. In Orthodoxy, when we join together in liturgy, the communion service, we believe we are living in the Kingdom of Heaven, that we are surrounded by clouds of witnesses (Hebrews 12:1). We say-- "Blessed is the Kingdom, of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, now and ever, and unto ages of ages, Amen."
But there is more to the Kingdom than this earthly existence we share. Infinitely more. What of the Heaven that we are told of in the last chapters of Revelation? All this, all that surrounds us, our earth, our homes, our stuff, will all pass away, and we will be living with a new heaven and a new earth. There will be no sea, nothing to separate us, or make us different. We will be in union with God. We will be the bride, he will be the Groom. And it won't be an earthly marriage, one that can be tossed away, but one that keeps us eternally joined to God. It was revealed to St. John in Revelation 21 that EVERY tear will be wiped away, there will be no more death, no more sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain. All former things will pass.
When we were children, didn't we want our parents to wipe away our tears, take away the pain, the sorrow, and the little deaths we suffered through every day? Most people reading this blog are adults, and for many, there is no one who fills this roll on earth any more. I know many who are suffering terrible pain, loss, and hurt, I can't take it away, I can't wipe away all the silent, unshed tears. I can help, but really, at the end of the day, it is still there, haunting dreams, and stealing sleep.
Imagine this perfect world that is waiting for us. Imagine our heavenly Father, taking away all the past. We won't even have a memory of our pains, sorrows, and tears. All will be new and fresh, just like in that gardening show, only much better--an unbelievable place, full of love and our eternal union with God.
Enter Lent with the image of this perfect Heaven in your heart and mind. This is our ultimate goal, this is where our souls yearn to be. Wake up in the mornings, sure of the knowledge that God will lead us there. He wants to take away all that troubles you, all the pain, sorrow, and hurt. He wants us to live forever with Him in Heaven, in a beautiful, perfect place.
From Revelation 22:17 And the Spirit and the bride say, "Come!" And let him who hears say, "Come!" And let him who thirsts come. Whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely.
Dianne
yearning for union with God
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