Categories: orthodox-life, hymns
Date: 16 February 2010 11:37:41
Thank you all for your comments and particularly your prayers on the death of my grandmother; they are greatly appreciated and are the source of much comfort.
I have also been comforted and encouraged by the services of my church this week. This very helpful section from Monachos.net gives all of the assigned services of the Lenten and pre-Lenten period. I do believe there are churches who do keep all the services, though I know many, such as ours where we are renting premises or where people come from a wide geographic area, cannot and offer as much as they are able; and, of course, with the lives we have it is often not possible to attend as many services as we would like. But we all do what we can with the Grace of God. Our parish, through the kind use of a sister parish of St Nicholas, Bankstown, will hold services on Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays, as well as the usual Saturday evening Vespers and Sunday Matins and Liturgy at our usual hall.
Yesterday and today we served, as part of the Great Compline service, sections from the Great Canon of St Andrew of Crete [also known as the Canon of Repentance]. On Monday to Thursday of the first week of Great Lent, one portion of the Canon is sung during the service of Great Compline; on Wednesday [or Thursday] in the fifth week of the Great Lent, the Life of St Mary of Egypt is read together with the entire Great Canon.
The Canon, as with all Orthodox hymnography, is laden with Scripture and Scriptural allusions [the Monachos.net link above is helpful in showing Scriptural quotes and allusions]; and my poor Old Testament knowledge is shown with the reference to many people in the Old Testament we are called on to either emulate or to avoid emulating. Here are some of the stanzas from the first two portions of the Great Canon; they may seem rather harsh but this is a Canon of Repentance to lead us into Great Lent, and there is also, as always, hymns on the mercy and love of God. The entire service, with the many Psalms and prayers, is one, as with so much in Orthodoxy, and Christianity as a whole, that needs to be experienced: with fellow parishioners and worshippers: reading and even me writing now is one thing, but being there, with the services being longer, with dim light and candles flickering, with the hymns being sung slower and in a more "mournful" style, with making prostrations, with fellow worshippers, present in person and present in the icons, reveals the hidden joy, the sense of peace I get, in that I am aware of the great love God has for me and the great love with which I should respond: to God and my neighbours.
Having rivaled the first-created Adam by my transgression, I realize that I am stripped naked of God and of the everlasting kingdom and bliss through my sins. (Genesis 3)I alone have sinned against You, sinned above all men. O Christ my Saviour, spurn me not. You are the good Shepherd; seek me, Your lamb, and neglect not me who have gone astray. (John 10:11-14)
Righteous Joseph was given up by his brothers, that sweet soul was sold into slavery, as a type of the Lord; and you, my soul, have sold yourself completely to your vices. (Genesis 37:27-28)
Christ became man and called to repentance robbers and harlots. Repent, my soul! The door of the Kingdom is already open, and the transformed pharisees, publicans and adulterers are seizing it ahead of you. (Matthew 21:31; 11:12)
Have you heard of Job who was made holy on a dunghill, O my soul? You have not emulated his courage, nor had his firmness of purpose in all you have learned or known, or in your temptations, but you have proved unpersevering. (Job 1)
Imagine Moses' staff striking the sea and fixing the deep as a type of the divine Cross, by which you too, my soul, can accomplish great things. (Exodus 14:16)
You have heard, my soul, of Daniel in the lion's den and how he shut the beasts' mouths. You know how the Children who were with Azariah extinguished the flames of the burning furnace by faith. (Dan. 6:16-22; 3:23)
The desert-loving dove, the lamp of Christ, the Voice crying in the wilderness sounded, preaching repentance; while Herod sinned with Herodias. See, my soul, that you are not caught in the toils of sin, but embrace repentance. (Mark 1:3; Matthew 14:3)