Matins, the service of the morning, is the prayer of thanks to God for the new day and the beautiful world in which we find ourselves and through which we can come to know God more fully.
Matins is chiefly made up of psalmody and the “canon”. The canon is a series of verses organized into 9 Odes, which refer either to the day of the week, the saint of the day or to the wonder of God’s creation transfigured in the light of His resurrection.
As was mentioned earlier, the Church year is organized around Christ’s Resurrection. Simultaneously the liturgical day is structured around the realization of Christ’s victory over death and sin.
Christianity has maintained the old Jewish notion that the day begins with the setting sun. Why? Because we await the morning of Christ’s Resurrection. Thus the first service of the new day is Vespers; we move from the old day to the new day – the day of Resurrection!
Living Christ’s Resurrection is the basis of the Divine Liturgy and underpins the entire structure of the liturgical order of the Church. The Church calendar is built around two cycles: movable and immovable feasts.
The first, movable feasts, relates to the most profound moments of divine revelation: time which the Greeks called kairos. The second, fixed or immovable feasts, relates to specific days in history, for example, the Nativity of Christ or the Annunciation. It never changes and so it is straightforward to understand. This time/cycle was regarded as chronos by the Greeks – the root of the word chronological.
Every Divine Liturgy (Eucharistic liturgy) is a celebration of and participation in the death and resurrection of Christ. It is important to recall that the death of our Saviour is only the door through which we must go in order to come to the Resurrection: We bow to Your Cross, O Master, and we glorify Your Holy Resurrection!
Christ’s self-sacrifice allows us access to His Resurrection. At the opening of the Divine
Liturgy we stand on the verge of the Resurrection and the celebrant proclaims: Blessed is
the Kingdom of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We are God’s Eucharistic people. This is why the spirit of every Divine Liturgy is joyous and extols
God’s graciousness.
This Pascha we read our Patriarch’s encouragement to live as people of the Resurrection. So what does this mean? Do we know?
At Easter Liturgy we sing “We who have been baptized in Christ, have put on Christ”—literally—we wear Christ. Our Christian mission is to be Christ to the world.
We hear this and indeed we know this, but the actual lived meaning of this role simply defies any static description or prescription. We are called not to specific actions, but rather to profound being that demands a continuous consciousness of goodness and love.
Christians are the ones whose lives witness that Christ is risen from the dead, through their attitude to the world, to material things and to one another. They also witness to the fact that goodness, life and God’s love are stronger than hate, evil and even death!
Не я б’ю — лоза б’є, За тиждень — Великдень, Будь дужий, як вода, А багатий, як земля!
Not I—the willow taps, In one week—Easter! Be strong as the water and rich as the earth!
Once again we stand at the threshold: the end of Great Lent and the start of Passion Week (Strasnyj Tyzhden’), when we contemplate Christ’s suffering and death. We do this, not as an anniversary, or even as a memorial, but as a renewal of our identity as human beings of God.
Sometimes people say their own prayers during Liturgy …
These people aren’t feeling their role in the community event that is Liturgy. They simply have not grasped what is taking place at the Liturgy and naturally they would want to spend that time doing something that is spiritually engaging …
What is the meaning of other Services in our Church, besides the Divine Liturgy?
In our rite, we have a great number and variety of services. Each has its own worth. Too often, we make the mistake of measuring other liturgies as “less than” the Divine Liturgy.
Each liturgy is a glorification of God. We sing various biblical texts, hymns, chants—thus achieving the pinnacle of human ability; the celebration of God.
There is no more important celebration on the Christian calendar than today: the feast of the Lord’s resurrection. Among the many, many words that have been spoken and written about this day, none surpass those of the 4th century, St. John Chrysostom (who is credited as the author of our regular Divine Liturgy. His homily is traditionally proclaimed every Easter.
Let all the pious and all lovers of God rejoice in the splendor of this feast; let the wise servants blissfully enter into the joy of their Lord; let those who have borne the burden of Lent now receive their pay, and those who have toiled since the first hour, let them now receive their due reward …
The first and most important responsibility is to read, out loud, the Acts of the Apostles. Our Lord is symbolically in the grave BUT His work has not ended.
The Book of Acts tells the story of the beginning of the Church. In spite of the misery of Christ’s death we cannot fall into despair for Christ will rise and His Church will flourish!
Ukrainian Catholic Church of the Transfiguration 