Archive for the 'Byzantine' Category
Posted by Eric (April 3, 2006 at 2:50 pm)
Last Thursday, we chanted the Great Canon of St. Andrew of Crete at St. George Church. This matins service, typically done on Thursday morning in the fifth week of Great Lent, takes about three hours and includes some 220-odd prostrations—down on your knees, face to the floor. Through haunting odes, refrains, litanies and canticles, St. Andrew reminds us, first, of our own sinfulness despite the example of the patriarchs, prophets and holy men of old, and then of the hope offered us in Christ.
It’s a pretty hard-core, Marines-boot-camp sort of service. Not being a complete idiot, I did have a Clif bar and a tankard of coffee before hand. Pretty hungry by the end and scarcely able to walk—going downstairs was particularly difficult.
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Posted in Byzantine, Faith | Comments Off on Have Mercy on Me, O God!
Posted by Eric (March 20, 2006 at 7:03 pm)
“He humbled you and let you hunger . . . that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone.” (Deuteronomy 8:3)
We are nearly at Mid-Fast, and I’d like to return to Alexander Schmemann’s comment, quoted in my last entry, that “fasting is the only means by which man recovers his true spiritual nature.â€
At first this statement might appear contradictory. Doesn’t fasting make ever more present to us the fact that we do, indeed, rely on bread most utterly? Doesn’t fasting show us that we are but flesh and bones—hungry flesh and aching bones?
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Posted by Eric (March 10, 2006 at 4:45 pm)
“There is no Lent without fasting.” —Alexander Schmemann
Lately I’ve heard some interesting discussion on Catholic radio about fasting and abstinence. It’s encouraging to hear people talking about fasting and even proposing to restore the tradition of abstinence from meat on Fridays throughout the year. But some of the discussion seems to miss the mark.
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Posted by Eric (March 3, 2006 at 12:21 am)
The first week of the Great Fast is traditionally known as “Clean Week,” which is a euphemistic way of saying “Severe Gastro-Intestinal Disquietude Week,” as the body adapts to a diet free of animal products. I’ve got some friends who have decided to do a bread and water fast for the entire period of Lent. I can only image what they’re going through.
I’d love to say more about fasting right now, but I’ve got a pretty nasty cold on top of the rigors of Clean Week and I’ve already stayed up too late trying to learn the Lamplighting Psalm in Romanian Tone 8, a doozy. Tone 5 is even worse—like, say, a vegan fast compared to a bread and water fast.
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Posted by Eric (February 28, 2006 at 7:01 pm)
You’ve got to love a religion that has a feast called the “Sunday of Cheesefare.” Cheesefare Sunday—so called because it is the last day to eat cheese and other dairy products before the beginning of Great Lent—was the day before yesterday for most Eastern Catholics in the U.S. Other Eastern Catholics will celebrate Cheesefare Sunday next week, along with the Orthodox.
For Cheesfare Sunday I baked some four-cheese vegetarian calzones (no meat; we ate the last of that a week ago on Meatfare Sunday). The four cheeses were ricotta, parmasan, mozarella and pecorino, the last three of which I picked up at Trader Joe’s on Saturday. It was a mournful moment there in the dairy aisle, bidding farewell to my cheesy friends.
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