On our praznyk at church we brought fruit to celebrate creation transfigured through Christ. This week we bless flowers and herbs on the feast of the Dormition, again seeing the sacred in the everyday world around us.
These flowers and herbs, however, bring our attention more specifically to our place in the miracle of living. The plants we bring to the memorial of the death of the Mother of God celebrate the beauty and peacefulness of her passing from the earth to the embrace of her Son.
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!
Though I had crossed all the ways,
crossed mountains and valleys
from East up to West,
If I have not discovered the freedom of being myself
I have gotten to nowhere.
Though I had shared all my goods
with people of another language and culture,
made friendship with pilgrims of thousand paths
or shared lodging with saints and princes
If I am not able to forgive my neighbor tomorrow
I have gotten to nowhere.
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.
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!
We know that Lent is a time of introspection and reflection, a time to take inventory of ourselves, as it were, and where we stand in relation to God and the world we live in.
Lenten Church services and Liturgical readings guide us in this direction as a community, but at the same time we can also focus on our personal communication with God: our personal prayer.
Today marks the mid-point of Great Lent and we venerate the Holy Cross. The Cross is a reminder of the immensity of God’s love demonstrated in the person of
Jesus Christ who accepted death on the Cross, but through God’s love was raised on the third day.
Ця неділя, хрестопоклонна знаменує собою середину Великої Чотиридесятниці (Посту). І в цю неділю наша увага звернена на превелику Божу любов котра виявилася в особі Ісуса Христа котрий віддав своє життя за Божу правду та водночас любов Отця воскрес Його на третій день!
As in previous years, through the proclamation of the Word of God and catechesis we hope to deepen our experience of repentance and return to God.
During Great Lent, as a result of the efforts of the inter-eparchial network, … , various sectors of the population have the opportunity to hear the truth not only about the place the Creator has given us within creation, but also what a great evil “ecological sin” is—that in transgressing God’s creative plan—multiplies the suffering of Jesus in the world imprisoned and plundered by sin.
(Interview with Fr. Oleh Kindiy, Professor at the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv – continued)
Many people we interviewed replied that they believe in God but they don’t need a “middle man”. Others go to church when it’s empty. Still others attend for certain “rituals”: baptisms, weddings, or funerals. The majority generally don’t consider Church as community.
This is because, for instance, we teach catechism to children but only rarely in parishes do we have catechetical programs for adults. The Early Christians knew well that Church was a place to continuously deepen our faith, but we today have yet to recognize this. In terms of knowing God, there are no boundaries. On the other hand, at times people demand something from the Church, but when they are invited to, for example, a Parish Bible study, or a group to discover the beauty of the Byzantine Liturgy, they won’t take that next step; few respond to the additional offerings of their church.
Ukrainian Catholic Church of the Transfiguration 