Categories: friends, parish-life, monasticism, feast-days, spiritual-journey
Date: 06 August 2006 08:09:24
Blessed Feast Day of the Transfiguration!
And an absolutely blessed one: thanks be to God. Even though only a few hours were spent at the monastery, it felt much more.
My sponsor and I reached the monastery just after 5:30am, around the mid-point of Matins. The church, the beautiful church, was in near darkness: a few candles provided the only light. As Matins went on, more and more candles were lit, brigthening the church quite markedly.
It was a great blessing to experience (part of) Matins and the Divine Liturgy in a monastic community: and the first time I have heard it in Greek also . After several repetitions, we Orthodox tend to go for a fair bit of repetition, I managed to pick up a few phrases -- though they may all have disappeared from memory tomorrow. Although it is a small community, four monks, and a few visitors today, I truly felt, as Orthodox like to say in terms of their liturgy, that heaven and earth met. A very, very different experience from a parish liturgy: not that heaven and earth may not meet there, indeed they do, but there was something about this dimly lit parish, with a few monks, and a few visitors, the various movements and the chants, that truly caused me to wonder if the very gates of heaven had been flung wide for me at that moment. It is indescribable.
After Liturgy, we had a nice breakfast and talk with the abbot, followed by a tour of the monastery grounds and a tour of the new complex being built. One thing, out of many, that struck me and my sponsor, is how in-tune with nature and the environment these monks are: wallabies are fed, native plants are being planted: and they do try and leave as little impact as they can. Many other qualities are noticeable as well: their deep wisdom and deep humility. And their warm, oh so warm and loving, personalities.
After the tour we had some time on our own to look at some books, followed by lunch with one of the monks and more conversation. And then we left. It may've been less than eight hours after we arrived, but it felt as if we had been there much longer. It was indeed a true blessing to experience this. May God bless richly the monks of the Monastery of the Holy Mother of God Pantanassa (Queen of All).
Transfiguration is a joyous feast: and Orthodox hymnography is ripe, overflowing even, with references to the Glory of God, the transformation of humanity and indeed all creation, to the two perfect natures of Christ, God and Man, and even to Christ's crucifixion. I didn't manage to make Vespers, but I was reading the chapter The Transfiguration Liturgy in the Orthodox Church by Fr Thomas Hopko in Orthodox and Wesleyan Scriptural Understanding and Practice last night, and a hymn from Vespers, a rather long hymn, Fr Hopko provides as a summary to the chapter does indeed sum it up for me:
Christ the Light that shone before the sun who in the body went about the earth
having fulfilled before His Crucifixion as befitting His divine majesty
all things pertaining to His divine dispensation
this day has mystically made known upon Mount Tabor the image of the Trinity.
For taking apart the three disciples He had expressly chosen, Peter, James and John,
He led them into the mountain by themselves
and for a short time He concealed the flesh He had assumed
and was transfigured before them
making manifest the excellence of the original beauty
though not in complete perfection.
For while giving them full assurance He also spared them
lest perchance they should lose their lives at the sight
yet they saw as much as their bodily eyes were able to receive.
He likewise called before Him the chief prophets Moses and Elijah
who testified to His divinity
that He indeed is the true Radiance of the Father's hypostasis
the Ruler of the living and the dead.
Wherefore a cloud covered them like a tent
and out of the cloud from above loudly sounded the voice of the Father:
"This is my beloved son, whom I have begotten without change from the womb before the morning star.
I have sent Him to save those who are baptized in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit
and who confess with faith that One Power of the Godhead is indivisible.
Listen to Him!"
And You Yourself, O Christ our God, supreme in goodness, who loves mankind,
shine upon us with the light of Your glory that no person can approach
and make us worthy to inherit your never-ending Kingdom.