Aposticha Prayers

Posted on by Fr. Peter

The Aposticha Prayers for the Vespers on Wednesday Evening of the 2nd Week of Great Lent:

Keeping a spiritual fast, O brethren, let us speak no lies with our tongue nor give our brothers and sisters cause for scandal. But through repentance, let us make the lamp of our soul burn brightly, and let us cry with tears to Christ: “Forgive us our trespasses in Your love for mankind.”

To You have I lifted up my eyes, to You who live in heaven. Behold: the eyes of the servants are turned to the hands of their masters, and the eyes of the maid-servants to the hands of their mistresses: thus do our eyes watch the Lord our God until He takes pity on us.

Have mercy on us, O Lord, have mercy on us, for we have been filled with shame: our soul has been filled to overflowing. May scorn befall detractors, and humiliation come to the proud.
O Martyrs worthy of all praise, although the earth did not conceal your bodies in burial, Heaven has welcomed you. The gates of Paradise were opened to you, and there you rejoice in the Tree of Life. Intercede with Christ that He grant our souls peace and great mercy!
O Virgin, most worthy of our hymns, Moses foresaw your mystery with his prophetic eyes: it was the bush which burned without being consumed; for the Fire of the God-head did not burn your pure womb. Thus we entreat you, the Mother of our God, to grant peace to the world.

Presanctified Liturgy

Posted on by Fr. Peter
During Great Lent we Orthodox celebrate the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts. A tip of the kamilavka to Fr. Thomas Hopko for the following:
The usual Divine Liturgy is not served during the weekdays of Great Lent because of the paschal character of the Liturgy itself. In its place the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts is celebrated. The Liturgy is prescribed for Wednesday and Friday evenings during Great Lent. (Present practice here is to serve the Liturgy only on Wednesday). This liturgy is the solemn Lenten Vespers with Holy Communion added to it. The Communion is received from the Sacramental Gifts of bread and wine offered and sanctified at the Divine Liturgy of the previous Lord’s Day.
At the Lord’s Day Liturgy, the priest prepares a “lamb” (the bread which becomes Christ’s Body at the Divine Liturgy) which is then consecrated together with the wine and is kept for the Presanctified Liturgy. During the chanting of the Psalms the night of the Liturgy, the priest places the Presanctified Gifts on the diskos. He carries them in solemn procession around the back of the altar table to the table of oblation.
The evening reception of Communion at the Presanctified Liturgy is fulfilled after a day of prayer and fasting. The Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts is one of the great masterpieces of Orthodox piety and liturgical creativity.

Fesculli

Posted on by Fr. Peter
This recipe comes from a parishioner, Carol P. I made this yesterday and it came out pretty good. The only mistake I made was not setting the crock pot on high.

16 oz. bag Northern Beans
2 chopped onions
2 carrots
2 celery
salt & pepper
3/4 cup oil (I left this out as it is Lent you know 🙂
6-8oz. tomato sauce

Soak beans in crock pot – 3/4 full of water overnight.
Drain water – add fresh water, onions, carrots, celery, salt & pepper, oil.
Cook on high about 8 hours.
after about six hours – add tomato sauce.

Enjoy!

More on Peace

Posted on by Fr. Peter
The Orthodox Peace Fellowship has many wonderful resources for the study of peace from an Orthodox Christian perspective. Here is the link to the website.
I will post some links to various articles and comment on them as I read them. I welcome your comments.

Prayer of St. Ephraim

Posted on by Fr. Peter

During Great Lent we add a prayer to the Vespers service from St. Ephraim:

Oh Lord and Master of my life do not give me a spirit of sloth, despair, lust of power and idle talk.
But give rather a spirit of chastity, humility, patience and love to your servant.
Yes, Lord and King, grant me to see my own transgressions and not to judge my brother.
For blessed are You unto ages of ages, amen.

After each stanza of the prayer we make a Great Metania. This is great prayer of penance and also sets our mind aright as we continue this journey of Great Lent. Add this to your prayer routine of you do not already use it.

Sunday of Orthodox Part II

Posted on by Fr. Peter
Fr. Greg has a great recap of the Sunday of Orthodox Liturgy. I will add my sentiments to his post that it was great to serve the Liturgy with my brother priests. We do not often get the chance to worship together and it was a great way to celebrate the day.

Sunday of Orthodoxy

Posted on by Fr. Peter
Today is the First Sunday of Great Lent also known as the Sunday of Orthodoxy. On this day we celebrate the restoration of the veneration of the Holy Icons after the Iconoclastic period of Church history. For the Orthodox Icons are not simply wood and paint but a window that helps us to pray and meditate on what the image is. Tradition holds that at the end of the Liturgy today a procession of people bearing Icons will take place around the Church. We are commemorating a procession that took place after the restoration. The Emperor Michael and his mother and others processed around caring the Holy Images and returned them to the churches. In the end what the day is about is the triumph of true doctrine over that of heresy.
At the end of the procession the priest and people will say:

As the prophets beheld, as the apostles have taught, as the Church has received as the teachers have declared, as the world has agreed, as grace has shown forth, as truth has been revealed, as falsehood has been dispelled, as wisdom has become manifest, as Christ awarded; thus we declare; thus we affirm; thus we proclaim Christ our true God, and honor His saints in words, writings, thoughts, sacrifices, churches, and holy icons – on the one hand, worshipping and reverencing Christ as God and Lord, and on the other, honoring the saints as true servants of the same Lord of all, and offering them proper veneration. This is the faith of the fathers. This is the faith of the Orthodox. This is the faith on which the world is established. Therefore, with fraternal and filial love we praise the heralds of the faith, those who with glory and honor have struggled for the faith, and we say: to the champions of Orthodoxy, faithful emperors, most-holy patriarchs, hierarchs, teachers, martyrs, and confessors: May your memory be eternal.

As has been our custom here for many years, 11 of the 12 churches in the Worcester area will be closed today so we all can celebrate together in one Liturgy.

Blessed Fast!

Peace

Posted on by Fr. Peter

I have never considered myself an activist on any topic. But I think I must now change my stance. With all of this craziness going on in the world and the US involvement continuing and perhaps ramping up in the Middle East it is time that I become an activist for peace. The past week we have seen stories in the Washington Post and other papers about the situation at the Veteran’s Administration. Each time we send one of our men and women into harms way we have to be concerned about how we will care for them on the other side. We have dropped the ball on that end.
When I begin the Liturgy on Sunday, or frankly anytime we begin a liturgy in the Orthodox Church we begin by saying “In Peace let us pray to the Lord.” We understand this as the need for peace in our own soul and heart, but I take it one step more and we need to have peace! In another place we pray for the peace of the whole world! Again, prayer is good, prayer is important, but now is time for action.
This lent I am reading Selected Writings from Dorothy Day. I have just begun this work and I am still in the Introduction. I hope to include some of the thoughts from this book as lent continues. I have also pledged to be on of the million blogs for peace. Our goal should be the timely withdrawal of our troops from Iraq. We need to bring our men and women home and care for them. We need to support them while they are there, and pray for them, and bring them home.

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