Finding God in Finals Week

Finals week has come, and is finally almost done. It is the main reason I have been MIA for a bit. Most final exam periods last for a week but my professors decided to offer some "unofficial exams" that began last Tuesday. So many students struggle so much during finals week so in order to help my friends out I went online to find an uplifting prayer for them. I found this rendition of psalm 23 on a blog called "amongst women".

A PRAYER FOR FINAL EXAMS

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not flunk;
He keepeth me from lying down when I should be studying.
He leadeth me beside the water cooler for a study break.
He restoreth my faith in study guides.
He leads me to better study habits
For my grade's sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of borderline grades,
I will not have a nervous breakdown For Thou art with me.
My prayers and my friends, they comfort me.
Thou givest me answers in moments of blankness;
Thou anointest my head with understanding.
My test paper runneth over with questions I recognize.
Surely passing grades and flying colors shall follow me.
All the days of my examination,
And I shall not have to dwell in this university forever,
AMEN

I just thought it was great. Although I had a very long exam period, I was able to take a much needed break and go home for a few days in between some of my exams. Being able to go to my home parish and spend time with my family really allowed me to come back and be refreshed and focused on my exams.

Not all of my exams were bad this year. I was able to turn in a great final TV package about the closing of the Institute of Catholic Thought's School of Theology at the University of Illinois. I also gave a group presentation of the Theology of the Body, one of my favorite topics.

I've been in college for 6 semesters and I think I have come to an interesting realization. The semesters that I have taken a course which allowed me to explore my faith have been some of my happiest semesters and I have gotten the best grades in these classes. The night our group put together our final presentation was the night before it was due. Last minute, I know! Such is college life, it is hard for 3 busy gals to get together sometimes. We worked from 10pm-1:30am making notes and then I went to my room to type them up until 3:30am. To be honest, I wasn't even tired! I was so excited about sharing what we learned with our class that I couldn't sleep. It was like the same rush I feel when I am on the trail of a great journalism story.

I feel so lucky to be able to live in a dorm that has a chapel connected to it. We have access to it 24/7! When residents tell me they are stressed, I tell them to take a time out for themselves. For a lot of them, it means take some time to go pray. I really believe that when you have your spiritual life in line, everything else falls into place. Does this mean that I think that if I go pray before an exam I will get an A? No, it means that I think that taking a 5 minute break to spend time with God will help me focus and put my priorities in order.

I've also found that saying the Jesus Prayer before an exam really helps me calm my nerves. "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, Have mercy on me a sinner."

As much as I have enjoyed this past semester, and the year (despite how absolutely miserable some of my classes were last semester) I am SO ready to go home for a few months. I love spending time with my family, going to my church to tape radio shows and help out, and just enjoying a life that isn't punctuated by papers, projects and midterms (oh my!). I'm also hoping that the summer will provide me with some awesome topics and opportunities to blog about.

So stick around, the best is yet to come.

First Women Journalists

The second Sunday after Easter is one of my favorites. In the Eastern Churches, we call it the "Sunday of the Myrrh Bearing Women". Today we celebrated the women who appeared at the tomb just after Christ rose from the dead. After hearing from the angel that Jesus had risen, they were the first to behold the risen Lord.

This past Easter I spent a lot of time contemplating the Myrrh Bearing Women. Those faithful women who never left Jesus. I think it is interesting that they went to the tomb after the Sabbath anyway. They probably saw the huge stone rolled in front of the tomb. They probably knew that it would be difficult to get a chance to anoint Christ properly, but they went anyway. Why? They went because they loved their teacher and friend so much that they knew they had to at least try.

I also realized how providential it was that these women were the first to see Christ. Women, by their nature, are very receptive. They are receptive both physiologically and psychologically. Everything about women, down to the gross anatomy proves the receptivity of women. How fitting it is that Jesus chose women, the most receptive to be the first to hear the news about His Resurrection. Jesus probably even knew that no woman can keep a great thing secret for long. In this case, he instructed them to take the news to his disciples. In this way, I call the Myrrh Bearing Women the First Women Journalists.

These women hold a special place in my heart. It isn't just because I am an aspiring female journalist but also because the very first time I was on the radio with Fr. Tom was on the Sunday of the Myrrh Bearing Women. I was on with Katie Reidy, also dubbed a Myrrh Bearing Woman, and together we shared our Easter experiences. It was a memorable day for me that helped to shape my future.

I Just Love Happy Endings

I love happy endings, really, I do. I'm a sucker for a good chick flick or a Disney movie. To me, Easter is one of the best happy endings/new beginnings ever. Unfortunately, this year my Easter was marred by something awful. I came back to school on Bright Monday when I received a phone call from my Dad. I thought it was odd because he called right before church was supposed to start on Monday night and he was scheduled to sing. He was at church, he said, and wanted to let me know that one of our Holy Water fonts had been stolen.

Stolen? I thought to myself. Who steals from a church on the day after Easter. Actually, my father said, they don't know if it was stolen on Monday. It could have been stolen on Sunday! I was really filled with anger. Easter was the most joyous day! Our church was full of peace and happiness and then, this happens.

On the one hand, I am so angry that I could scream. My church is truly like a home to me. More importantly, it is the House of God. My mom joked when I went away to school that I wasn't homesick, I was church-sick. Hearing that something that held something as precious as Holy Water was taken from a place that I love just broke my heart. On the other hand, I was deeply saddened, too. I thought about the person who stole it. What caused them to steal it? I don't know their heart, but more than likely, they needed money. It makes me sad to think that they had to steal from a church. I am sure that if they would have knocked on the door of our church, Fr. Tom could have helped them, somehow.

Our church is pretty unique (in many ways) because we leave our church open all day. Anyone can come into pray at anytime. I spoke with Fr. Tom, and I am happy to say that this won't change. Closing our doors would be like letter the Devil win. He wants us to close our doors, he wants this to hurt us and so we cannot let him win. We're hurt but yet we have been praying for those who stole from us.

In the Resurrection Canon we sing "Let us call bretheren, even those who hate us, and in the Resurrection, FORGIVE everything and let us sing: Christ is risen from the dead. By death he conquered Death, and to those in the graves, He granted Life!"

As I alluded to in the beginning, this story has a happy ending. I received an email from my Uncle Bill. In the email was an article that I will post a link to below. Our Holy Water font was found! Basically, it was found in someone's front yard in Midlothian. How it got there, we aren't sure. There is one small mistake in the article. It states that a few weeks ago we had two icons stolen from our church. While this did happen to us, it happened about two years ago during Lent. I'm sure there was just some confusion about dates and such.

Here is the link to the article: http://www.southtownstar.com/neighborhoodstar/orlandpark/1537977,042209churchtheft.article

Christ is Risen! Christos Voskrese!

Sunday Morning- Resurrection Matins and Divine Liturgy

CHRIST IS RISEN! INDEED HE IS RISEN! CHRISTOS VOSKRESE! VOISTINNU VOSKRESE!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7uvSrhBAiI

It is easy and difficult for me to fully explain what Resurrection Matins are really like. Fr. Tom and I always joke that we can't tell people what Byzantine services and liturgies are like, they just have to experience it. I think this is because we really experience the liturgy with all of our senses.

During Resurrection Matins, we take on the role of the myrrh bearing women. We have arrived at the tomb to find it empty and find the Risen Lord! The video above is part of the procession (I will try to link it directly on this page but blogger was taking forever!). We sing "Your resurrection O Christ our Savior, the angels in heaven praise with hymns. Make us on earth also worthy with a pure heart, to extol and give glory to you." When the priest reaches the entrance of the church (remember, during this weekend, the Church takes on the appearance of the tomb!) he reads the resurrection gospel and then he sings:

"Let God Arise and let his enemies be scattered and let those who hate him flee from before his face!"

We sing: "Christ is Risen from the dead! By death he conquered death! And to those in the graves he granted Life"

Priest: As smoke vanishes, so let them vanish as wax melts before a fire.

Us: Christ is Risen!...

Priest: So let the wicked perish at the presence of God! And let the righteous ones rejoice!

Us: Christ is Risen!...

Priest: This is the day that the Lord has made, let us exult and rejoice in it!

Us: Christ is Risen!



Priest (Breaking the "seal" of the tomb with a hand cross): Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, now and ever and forever, Amen.

Us: CHRIST IS RISEN FROM THE DEAD! BY DEATH HE CONQUERED DEATH AND TO THOSE IN THE GRAVES, HE GRANTED LIFE!

The Doors are flung open and we find a large icon of the resurrection in the place of the shroud. All of the red altar coverings have been changed to white (by the altar cloth fairies aka some faithful women).



Everything is fast paced from hear. The melody of Matins sounds like you are running because you ARE running. We ARE the myrrh bearing women. We HAVE seen the risen Lord. What would you do? Sit around and be like "well that was neat, want to get some coffee?" NO! You would run as fast as you could to tell everyone.

The deacons are almost constantly incensing the church proclaiming "Christ is Risen!" or Christos Voskrese (Christ is Risen in Old Church Slovanic) to which we respond "Indeed He is Risen!" or "Voistinnu Voskrese!".

During Matins, we also sing one of my favorite hymns to the Theotokos, or Mother of God.

"The angel exclaimed to her, full of grace! Rejoice O Pure Virgin! Again, I say Rejoice! Your Son is risen from the grave on the third day, and has raised the dead! Let all nations rejoice: Shine in splendor O new Jerusalem, for the Glory of the Lord is risen upon you O Sion. Since with joy and rejoice! And you, Pure Mother of God, Rejoice in the Resurrection of your Son!"

During Matins all of the faithful process up to kiss a hand cross, a gospel book and an icon of the resurrection. Everyone is singing loudly and joyfully!

I think all of Matins is my favorite part, but I especially love when the priest reads the Easter Sermon by St. John Chrysostom. The zinger comes at the end where the saint-rightly dubbed "golden tongue"- says: "O death, where is your sting; Abyss, where is your victory? Christ is risen, and you are cast down; Christ is risen, and the demons are crushed; Christ is risen, and the angels sing for joy; Christ is risen, and life had overcome; Christ is risen, and the tomb is emptied of the dead: for Christ the Resurrection has become the first-fruits of the dead. To Him be glory and power for ever and ever. Amen!"

Wow. Just let all of that sink in for a minute. Fr. Joe (Fr. Tom's cousin) read this with such enthusiasm and emphasis that it was really powerful. We who have journeyed with Christ can't help but smile. Because we walked with him at every step of the way, being able to say Christ is Risen means something very special to us. Everything we did, everything we experienced was preparing us for this moment, so that we could truly sing out that Christ is Risen! We were baptized into his death and we rejoice in his resurrection!

Christ is Risen! Indeed He is Risen! Christos Voskrese! Voistinnu Voskrese!

Saturday Night- Vespers with the Divine Liturgy of St. Basil

"Today Hades sighs and cried out: 'I should never have received the One Who was born of Mary; for He came against me and destroyed my power and crushed my gates of bronze. Being God, He raised the souls which I once held." Glory to your cross and resurrection, O Lord!"

This is just one of the stichera which we sing on Holy Saturday evening. A stichera is basically a way of singing what we believe.

Like our Roman Catholic bretheren, we also baptize catechumens on Holy Saturday. This year, we baptized a young girl. It was so precious because she was old enough to recite her own Baptism vows. Before the actual baptism, the priests asks her if she renounces Satan and if she has committed herself to Christ. When she answers "Yes, I do renounce him!" and "Yes, I HAVE committed myself to Christ!" it was just so meaningful and heartfelt.

During the Vespers we have two very long Old Testament readings. My favorite is the story from the book of Daniel (Daniel 3:1-51) about the three youths who were thrown into the firery furnace: Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. The three refused to worship the golden statue which King Nebechadnezzar (say THAT five times fast) set up. Although they were cast into the white hot furnance they were not burned! Instead, the angel of the Lord came into the furnace and made the inside "as though a dew-laden breeze were blowing through it" and the three of them sang praises to God.

During the Liturgy of St. Basil we sing "All you who have been baptized into Christ, have put on Christ! Alleluia!" instead of the Trisagion or Thrice Holy Hymn. This echos the epistle reading from Romans 6:3-11. St. Paul writes that "A man who is dead has been freed from sin. If we have died with Christ, we believe that we are also to live with him. We know that Christ, once raised from the dead, will never die again; death has no more power over him. His death was death to sin, once for all; his life is life for God. In the same way, you must consider youselves dead to sin but alive for God in Christ Jesus."

Finally, we read the account of the Resurrection according to St. Matthew. Christ has risen from the dead. We can sing this from the rooftops, right? Not exactly. During this liturgy we don't take on the role of a particular person. No one knows that Christ is Risen yet because we haven't found out about it yet. Can you imagine witnessing such an event? We would probably we blinded by the glory and magnificence of it all! Christ is risen but the story isn't over yet. Many people who attend Vespers and Liturgy on Saturday night come back on Sunday morning to hear the rest of the story.

Yum-O! Since technically, Christ has risen, we can bless the Easter baskets. I wish the internet had a scratch and sniff screen because the smell in our vestibule was A-Mazing. Ham, sausage (sorry if your a vegetarian but you don't know what you are missing), cheese, butter, sweets mingled with the sweet smelling incense and filled the air.

On the way home my sister and I are starving. We both decided that sleep was more important than eating dinner so we decided to stop off at Steak'n'Shake. I had given up meat for lent and my sister had been following the fast for percription for Good Friday (no meat or dairy) and Holy Saturday (no meat) so we were ready for meat. My sister isn't a huge burger eater but we both ordered burgers and dug in. Let me tell you my friends, a greasy burger never tasted so good ;)

When we go home I can hardly sleep because I am so filled with excitement and anticipation for Pascha!

Holy Saturday- Jerusalem Matins

On Saturday morning, my aunt and I get up to go to the Jerusalem Matins service. This year (because of the revised liturgy and revised EVERYTHING, don't get me started) the service lasted about 2 hours. During this service we commemorate the Harrowing of Hell or Christ's descent into Hades to free the souls from Satan's clutches. We take the burial shroud and process with it around the church singing the Trisagion, or "Thrice Holy Hymn" three time. We sing "Holy God, Holy and might, Holy and Immortal. Have mercy on us." This is sung in the funeral melody to remind us of Christ's death the previous day. "This symbolizes Christ's movement through hell anticipating the moment when he will conquer Satan's power of death by rising out of hell and taking all humanity with him" (taken from my church bulletin this year).

The famous "dry bones" passage from Ezekiel is read during Jerusalem Matins. In Ezekiel 37:11-14 it reads: "Then he said to me: Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They have been saying, 'Our bones are dried up, our hope is lost, and we are cut off!' Therefore, prophesy and say to them: Thus says the Lord God: O my people, I will open your graves and have you rise from them, and bring you back to the land of Israel. Then you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and have you rise from them, O my people! I will put my spirit in you that you may live, and I will settle you upon your land; thus you shall know that I am the Lord. I have promised and I will do it says the Lord."

Our services during Great Week are filled with readings from the prophets that foreshadowed the suffering, death, and resurrection of the Lord. We read especially from Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel and we hear about the trial of Job as well.

After Jerusalem Matins, I am sent on a special mission. I like to call it "Project Easter Basket". Every year the Teens make Easter baskets for members of our parish. The parishioners bring back the baskets but we have to buy new candles and coverings for them every year. That is where I come in. Since not many of the other Teens have their own means of transportation I head out in search of the candles and coverings. Last year I hit the mother load at Home Goods. I found the perfect napkins to use as coverings and they had candles! I was back and forth in a half and hour. This year, I was not so lucky. I found the LAST package of plain (aka boring) white napkins but NO candles, not even cream ones. No biggie, I would just head to Target which is right next door. How on earth Target was out of candles, I will never know, but they were. I headed to three other stores before finding them at Walgreens (of all places) and for really cheap too! I head back to church with my finds and food coloring for the Easter eggs.

I dropped them off and headed home for a much needed nap. I needed to gear up for Vespers with Diving Liturgy later that night! I almost feel like I can justify taking a nap because we believe that even Jesus kept the old Sabbath before rising from the Grave on Sunday.

Guarding the Grave

I'm tired, really tired when I leave church after vespers. As long as I keep moving, I can usually take my mind off of the fact that I've been up for almost 40 hours. My Aunt Maria and I take my Grandpa home after Vespers and then go to Homecut donuts in Joliet. We have made it a tradition of sorts to always pick up a dozen donuts and leave them at church when we go to guard the grave. We still have a couple of hours to go once we get back to her house so we decided to watch The Passion of the Christ. After almost a half an hour of wrestling with remote controls and dvd players we finally get it started but don't manage to finish it. Whether or not you like Mel Gibson, you have to admit that this is a moving film. I've heard arguments that it is just a gruesome, bloody film. Guess what, that's being Christ was murdered in the most gruesome and bloody way. That is what happened, no sugarcoating. It's not an enjoying thing to watch, that's why I usually only watch it once a year. I remember the first time I saw the Passion. Our Teen group went and my friend Katie and I cried so hard at some points that one of my contact lenses fell out which made reading the subtitles difficult.

At about 11:30 we leave for church again and pick up a family friend of ours, Marilyn, along the way. When we get to church we meet up with my aunt's friend Jean and the four of us keep watch over the grave just like I'm sure the women who followed Christ did nearly 2,000 years ago. My eyes are desperately fighting to stay open in the dimly lit church. I try to pray an Acathist to Christ in order to keep myself awake. It seems like the older I get, the fast the hour passes on and before long, our replacements, my Uncle Bill and Marilyn's husband John, show up. They have some different plans of how they will spend their hour. They decided to try and fix the trojca, or 3 pronged candle, which has been falling apart with some gold braiding.

When we get back to my aunt's house it is nearly 2am. I have been awake for 43 hours but I know that whatever exhaustion I feel must still not even touch that of what the women who followed Christ felt. I change into my pj's and try to get some rest.

Great Friday-Vespers with Procession & the Guarding of the Grave

On Great Friday evening we have a vespers service that is very similar to a funeral service. At this point, Christ has already died. We take on the role of Joseph of Arimathea and the women who were with him.

During the service Fr Tom takes the

plaschanitza, or burial shroud from the altar and a procession, led by the altar servers and deacons, begins. The lights are all turned off in church and the faithful are given candles to carry. Normally, we will process outside around the church. This year, however, it was very windy and chilly so Fr. Tom decided to stay inside. When I first heard Fr. Tom say this I was really disappointed but, then, I got over it. The atmosphere inside of the church was almost eerie. I was so moved that I felt it would inappropriate to take pictures. The one above is from last year. Just picture this: You are in a darkened church, there is incense filling the air around you, giving the church a smoky, foggy feel, the funeral procession is winding its way through the crowd of people gathered in the church. We have a large area in church where people can stand instead of sitting and they part, like the Red Sea as Fr. Tom carries the body of Christ to his tomb. All this time, the cantor is leading the congregation in singing a hymn :"The noble Joseph, took down from the cross Your most pure body. Anointing it with spices, he wrapped it in pure linen and laid it in burial in a new tomb." We sing this over and over again until the procession ends and Fr. Tom places the shroud on the tomb.

At this point, the priest usually gives a homily. On Great Friday this year, Fr. Tom's cousin, Fr. Joe Loya (a Byzantine priest who teaches at Villanova) gives the homily. He told a story about a young rabbi's son who would always go into the forest to pray. Everyday, he would go deeper and deeper in the forest until, one day, his father loses sight of him. He calls out to the boy and, when he finds him, he chastises him and asks him why he has to go so far into the forest to pray. The boy says that he experiences God differently there. The rabbi calls him a fool, "don't you know that God is the same everywhere?" he asks. "Yes Father, I know God is the same everywhere, but I am different when I am there. I experience God in ways I don't experience him anywhere else."

Those words struck me so much because that is exactly how I feel every year when I come home to church for Holy Week. I could stay at school. I could be anywhere else, but I don't think I could ever get the same experience anywhere else. Fr. Tom and I were talking one day while taping the radio show and he even told me that he had been to the Holy Land during Great Week and still did not experience Christ's Passion the way he does when he is at home at our parish.

Once the homily is over, the faithful, come up to venerate the shroud, shuffling up there on our knees. We kiss the wounds of Christ while the cantor sings a couple of songs. One song is "Having suffered the passion for us, Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy, have mercy, have mercy on us." He also sang "Now do I go to the cross. No where else, shall I find you, Jesus Lord,Peace of my soul. There shall I find, the Mother of God, sorrow and pain, piercing her heart. Sorrow now is all I feel."

Great Friday-Royal Hours

On Great Friday, at noon we have a service called Royal Hours. This service can last up to three hours, but we usually only do part of the service. It is celebrating during the time when Christ hung upon the cross, from 12pm-3pm. It is called "Royal Hours" because long ago, in Byzantium, this is the time when the Emperor would attend the service as a sign of his own repentance.

After this service, the Teens usually have quiet prayer and reflection time with confession. One of the things that have been provided for us to read in a packet is a scientific description of what happens when someone is crucified. Many people believe that one dies from a loss of blood. Actually, a person who is crucified dies from asphyxiation. Those who are crucified must pull their bodies up while hanging on the cross in order to take a breath. This is why the legs of the robbers crucified with Jesus were broken, so they would die faster. Because Jesus was already dead, his legs were not broken. This fulfilled what was said through the scriptures "not a bone of it will be broken". Instead the guard pierced Christ's side with a lance and blood and water flowed forth. This also fulfilled what was said in the scriptures "They will look upon him whom they have pieced".

Sometime in the afternoon I leave to go home and get ready for dinner with my family at night. We have a meal of pirohi (or pierogies) and bread. It may be a fasting meal but it is delicious nevertheless. After dinner we all get ready for the vespers service later that night.

Great Friday- The Twelve Gospels

On Great Friday Morning (Holy Thursday evening in some other churches) the Eastern Church has a special Matins service called the Twelve Gospels. Over the course of about two hours, the priest and deacon read twelve gospel readings depicting the passion of Christ, from his arrest in Gethsemane, to his trial before Pilate to his crucifixion and death.

This is a picture of my grandpa, one of our ushers, holding the candle which is held every time a gospel is read in our church. The first of the gospel readings is the longest, it clocks in at about 17 minutes and they get progressively shorter after that. During this service we sing "Glory be to you Passion O Lord" and "Glory Be to you long suffering O Lord". I think this is the best way to read the Passion of Christ. Reading it all together really helps one visualize what he went through for us.

After the reading of the Twelve Gospels, we eat a light breakfast and get to work. One of the great Easter or Pascha traditions in the East is to bring Easter baskets to be blessed on Saturday night or Sunday morning, filled with all of the food we have been fasting from: meat (especially ham and sausage), eggs, cheese, some bread, butter, etc. Because we have many families at our church who have converted to the Byzantine Rite and we have many older parishioners, the Teens take orders and make Easter baskets. During this time, we also do little tasks around church like re-organizing our library and scraping wax from the candles off of the floor in the sanctuary before mopping it and hand drying it.

Great Thursday- Great Friday

Great Thursday night into Great Friday is one of my favorite times of Holy Week. After the Divine Liturgy, our ByzanTEEN Pascha retreat begins. We (the Teens and Young Adults) will spend most of the weekend at church praying, cleaning, making Easter Baskets for our parishioners and giving tours. On Holy Thursday night we get a large number of visitors from Roman Catholic churches coming to our church to pray. They spend the evening on Holy Thursday travelling to different parishes in the area. Because our parish is so unique, many of the faithful who come to visit us want a mini tour. The Roman Catholic parishes have Eucharistic Adoration on this night but we do not for a couple of reasons. The main reason is that Eucharistic Adoration is not a practiced tradition in the Eastern Churches. The Eastern churches never really experienced any controversies over the Eucharist like the West did. Because of the controversies that arose in the West, the beautiful practice of Eucharistic Adoration came about in order to show Christ to the people. Since this never occurred in the East, we don't have this practice. There is also a practical reason why Eucharistic adoration is not practiced in the East, our bread is leavened bread. We do not use a host. Our priest takes a small loaf of bread and cuts it into small cubes and places it into a chalice and then pours the Blood of Christ over the Body. Eucharist is placed into the recipients mouth via a spoon. The leavened bread would make it difficult to be placed into a monstrance. While we do not display the Eucharist, it is ever present in the tabernacle that sits upon the altar which is not easily seen because of the iconostasis or icon screen. The iconostasis serves a boundary between the Sanctuary, the Holy of Holies and the nave fo the church. There are four doors on the icon screen: the two side doors are known as Deacon Doors, anyone can pass through these doors during the liturgy; the two middle doors are known as the Royal Doors. Only the priest and deacon may pass through these doors and only at three times during the liturgy: when they are blessing the peopel, when they are carrying the gospel book and when they are holding the Eucharist. The icon screen also adds a mystical sense to our liturgy. It is a physical representation of what we believe. God has revealed some things to us while others still remain a mystery.

One thing that everyone notices when they walk into our church is that it is covered in icons like this one of Pentecost. Icons are literally Theology in color. They were used from the early days of the church as a way to teach those who could neither read nor write about their faith. We are blessed at Annunciation parish because Fr. Tom painted all of our icons (and he isn't done yet). Many of the icons must be painted a certain way. There are rules that the writer (not painter) of an icon must follow. However, with some saints and apostles there is a little bit of leeway with colors. The apostle in the middle of this icon is my favorite. When Fr. Tom began to paint it I asked him if he would paint one of them Orange and Blue (the school colors of the University of Illinois! Go ILLINI!) and he was more than happy to oblige.

After the tour groups have left, we start to prepare our church for the weekend. This includes helping our florist set up the flowers and setting up our tomb. The tomb sort of looks like a desk but on Great Friday Fr. Tom will place the plaschanitza or shroud on it and we will venerate it.

Great Friday-12am- Reading of the Psalms


At midnight the teens begin to chant the psalms. It is something we have done for at least three years. This year, we started out with 10: Cherie, Adam, Tim, Blaise, Krystal, Kelli, DeAnna, Lexie, Marijana, and myself. This is more than we have had in the past. Half of us have already gone to bed and I can't blame them.

I am crazy to stay up and do this but I can't help but hear the words of Christ in the gospel "will none of you stay awake with me?" running through my head. It is at this time that I feel like a small group of us really take on the role of the women followers of Christ. Traditionally, the Eastern church teaches that the apostles, save for John, all ran away, but the women were the ones who followed Jesus at a distant to his trial and death.
The tradition of reading the psalms is usually done in the monasteries, but I think this is the best way to spend the night. This is a small thing that we can do for Christ, who did so much for us. We may not sing in perfect pitch, we slip up on "thee" "thou" and "hast" and our voices grow hoarse, but it is worth it. About half way through we take a break from the psalms to sing an Acathist to the Mother of God. This is like the Byzantine equivalent to the Rosary. It helps to break up the monotony and offer praise to the God-bearer and Theotokos. After the Acathist. our number drops to three and then to just Cherie and myself. We are the oldest (both 21) and have stayed up through all of it for the past two years. It is dark and cold in the church. The floor is cold and we alternate sitting and standing to relieve our aching feet and backs. At about 5am the lights in church turn on and Fr. Tom comes in to work on the rest of the Pentecost icon. As he paints we continue to chant the psalms. He later told us that it was one of the most amazing things, to be painting and listening to people chant the psalms. At 6:20 am we sing psalm 150 a little louder and more exuberantly than we have been singing because we are finally dine. Cherie and I hug, knowing that we have kept each other awake.
We only have an hour and a half until the first of three of the Great Friday services begin. We freshen up and change clothes before getting some coffee (Black! Because we fast from meat and dairy on Great Friday) and waking the rest of the Teens.

Great Thursday- April 9, 2009

Being at home finally makes Holy Week seem more real. I was able to attend Bridegroom Matins this morning. We focus a lot on Judas during this service, noting his betrayal of Christ that will take place later that night. Greed led Judas to betray Christ. He was too concerned with earthly cares and possessions. He became consumed by his obsession with money and, besides turning the Savior of the world over to the lawless ones, he also furthered his own self-destruction. This morning we sang "Love for money led a man to take his own life." In a way, I really feel sorry for Judas. He was one of the people closest to Christ but he really never grasped what Jesus taught. Had he fully understood the teaching of Christ, he would have realized that, even though he did something that was horrible, Christ would have forgiven him because he is a merciful and gracious God.

Thursday night, we celebrated Vespers (an evening prayer service) with the Divine Liturgy of St. Basil the Great. We commemorate Christ instituting the Holy Eucharist. Imagine what it would have been like to be a part of that first Eucharist. Imagine you are Judas and while the consecrated bread is still in your mouth you are making plans to betray your friend, your Savior.

In our Cathedral in Parma, Ohio, our Bishop will wash and kiss the feet of twelve priests. He will also consecrate the Chrism oil used for Confirmation and will bless the antimensions. An antimension is a cloth with the relic of a saint sewn into it. It must always sit atop the Altar of Sacrifice in every Divine Liturgy. This custom began in the early days of the church when the Christians would celebrate the liturgy in the catacombs.

This is a picture of our priest, Fr. Thomas Loya, distributing the Holy Eucharist to an altar server.

Posts Coming Soon

Unfortunately, I forgot to bring home one vital cord for my camera so I wasn't able to download any of my pictures and video :(, hence the delay in my posting. I did write everything down in a notebook and I will be posting everything between Monday and Tuesday, I hope.

Great Wednesday April 8, 2009

I will add more to this post later, but I just wanted to say that I was either in class, working on a floor event at my dorm or traveling all day yesterday. Now, I am finally home (YAY!) and can enjoy Holy Week even more now. Because I got home so late Wednesday night I didn't have a chance to blog because I had to turn around and select my classes for next semester (yes, even at home I can't really escape school) but I will be updating more with comments about Holy Wednesday.

Great Tuesday April 7, 2009

Today's Readings: Matthew 24: 36- 26:2 , Luke 1:24-38, Ezekiel 1:21-8, Job 1:13-22

Today's post will be fairly short because I am a little wiped out. 3 hours of reporting and filming video+ 4.5 hours of editing= a mentally exhausted Byzantine Blogger.

In yesterday's post (which was actually posted today), I mentioned Bridegroom Matins. During Holy Week, Christ takes on the image of the Bridegroom coming to the nuptial mystery. We, his church are the bride of Christ. The matins for this morning talked about a number of things, but most importantly, to me, it discussed the parable of the Ten Virgins. Five of the ten virgins were ready with oil in their lamps when the Bridegroom arrived and five were not and missed him when they went looking for oil. The moral: Be prepared because you never know when the day of judgment will come. In Matins we actually sang "O faithful let us be on fire with love for the Bridegroom, and with lamps burning, let us go out to meet him. May the light of our virtues shine brightly and may our faith be radiant. With the wise Virgins, let us prepare to enter the banquet hall of the Lord; for the divine Spouse offers us all the crown of immortality."

Today, we also read the account of the Annunciation in the Gospel of Luke (Luke 1: 24-38). Again, we are presented with a Virgin who was prepared and accepting of the will of God. The Annunciation is such an important feast that, when it falls on Great Friday, it take preeminence over Great Friday. As Fr. Tom put it, it is like Christ steps aside for his mother. While I question where I stand in the Holy Week journey with Christ, I often think about whether or not I could have been as courageous as the Theotokos was. Could I have trusted in God so much at such a young age? What must it have been like for Mary to see her son riding triumphantly into Jerusalem one day and having to bury her innocent son less than a week later?

The readings for Great Week also feature the figure of Job. To be honest, I felt a bit like Job today. Things just kept falling through, things weren't working out, our video wasn't long enough, this clip wasn't crisp enough. It just all seemed relentless (but for me it all worked out in the end).

Unfortunately, that is it for today. I need to conserve some energy for later on this week to avoid burnout.

Great Monday April 6, 2009

Today's Readings: Matthew 21:18-43, Ezekiel 1:1-20, Exodus 1:1-20, Job 1:1-12

I really like my coffee with cream and sugar, but today I drank it black. This week, I decided to give up not just meat, but dairy products as well. For those who follow the strict fast, this is normal. They've been doing it for 40 days already. I've gotten used to not eating meat while at college, so this is stepping it up a notch for me.

Yesterday in Liturgy we sang "Hosanna in the highest, He who comes is blessed!" Jesus is like a rock star (only better). He brought a man back to life! A stinking, festering corpse rose from the dead at the sound of his words! Fr. Tom mentioned in his sermon that it is easy for us to be gun ho for Jesus now. It is easy to stand with him, to praise him. This is a glorious moment. It is like we've all jumped on the bandwagon. Then, Fr. Tom asked us to think about where we would be later on this week. Would we stand by Jesus? Would you? Would I?

One of the most beautiful things to me about Great Week in the Eastern churches is that we really "get into it". We immerse ourselves into the story of Christ's Passion, Death and Resurrection. We walked with Christ into Jerusalem but would we walk with him to Calvary?

I am a creative/imaginative person so the idea of fully immersing myself into the story is really appealing. Ever since my senior year of high school, I've felt a particular connection with the women who followed Christ, his Mother, Salome, and especially, Mary Magdalene. The very first radio show I taped with Fr. Tom was for the Sunday of the Myrrh-bearing women. Katie Reidy was also there. In a way, they were like biblical journalists, proclaiming the news that Christ had risen! I'm getting ahead of myself, it is only Monday. So, as I go through Great Week, I try and imagine what those women who were friends (yes, Dan Brown, just friends! Not wife, not lover, etc.) and followers of Christ must have gone through. Today we are still excited about Lazarus being brought back to life and Palm/Flowery Sunday. It is still easy to stand up for Christ.

In a very small way I did make an attempt to stand up for Christ by urging all of my facebook friends (especially those at secular schools) to stand up for their faith by not attending class on Friday. It isn't good enough for me that my absence is excused for religious reasons. No one should attend classes on Great Friday. Whether or not you accept Christ is rather trivial. He, as St. Paul said in Romans 6:10 "died to sin once and for ALL." Christ is so loving that He died for everyone, even those who don't believe in him as their Savior.

Today, during Bridegroom Matins, Christ is compared to the Old Testament figure of Joseph. The stories draw interesting parallels: both have 12 guys, an innocent man betrayed by those closest to him, condemned for something he did not do and then the man forgives those who have wronged them and saves them. When I was young, the story of Joseph was one of my favorites. Now, as a young adult, I appreciate the similarities between the two stories all the more.

Being at college during even a part of Holy Week is very difficult for me. Last year, by some twist of scheduling, or divine intervention, my spring break well during Holy Week. Unfortunately, it is not so this year. Of course, I have one large project due on the day I get to leave for home (Wednesday). It is a journalism project that is mercilessly hanging over my head. Several story ideas have fallen through and then, our of nowhere, my partner found one. No matter how many times this happens to me, and that is a LOT, I am always so amazed at how God works sometimes.

As I was pondering on how much I feel God has always helped me in things such as this, I decided to read the gospel for today: Matthew 21:18-43. It is a bit lengthy but full of amazing things. The first part really struck me:

"Amen, I say to you, if you have faith and do not waiver, not only will you
do what has been done to the fig tree, but even if you say to the
mountain 'be lifted up and thrown into the sea' it will be done.
Whatever you ask for in prayer in faith, you will receive."

I really found this passage all too fitting for me. I'm a huge fan of the phrase "where the Lord closes a door, somewhere he opens a window." My friends call me overly optimistic at times because I really believe that things work out for the best in the end. It may not be what we think is best, but it is always what God, our loving Father, knowsis best. I don't know about you, but I would take God's wisdom over my notions any day.


The Gospel readings for Great Week are, largely, from the later chapters, the stories from Jesus' entry into Jerusalem, through his Passion and glorious Resurrection on the third day. Now, Holy Week, is also a time to look back at the beginning. Recently, while taping an episode of Light of the East with Fr. Tom and Fr. Maximos, I learned of a practice done by monks of reading all of the gospels throughout Great Week. So today, as I was sitting, bored, in one of my classes, I pulled out my Amazon Kindle (a digital book reading device), downloaded the Bible (for FREE!) and began to read the Gospel of Matthew. While I was reading, I was still slightly worried about my journalism project until I read a passage from Matthew 6:27 where Christ says: "Can any of you by worrying add a single moment to your life span?" and again in verse 34: "Do not worry about tomorrow; tomorrow will take care of itself. Sufficient for today is its own evil."

So, I try not to worry about tomorrow, I try to think about today. Where am I today in this journey through Great Week with Christ? Today, I am still humming "Rejoice today with all of your heart, O daughter Zion. Here is your King coming to you, as he sits upon a colt." Even though I try not to worry about tomorrow, I can't help but wonder if I'll still be brave enough to stand next to Jesus.

I promise, the next one won't be this long. I wrote all of this at one time. Once I am home and attending services, they will be shorter and broken up a little but more.

Great Week

Welcome to Blog of the East!

I decided to start this blog while thinking about a way to document the events of Great/Holy Week. I was going to keep a journal of this week (because it is my favorite week out of the whole year) but I decided to create a blog so I can share my excitement and experiences as well as pictures and videos that I hope to take during the week. Unfortunately, I am at school until Wednesday night so the first three days will be commentary on readings and just my thoughts in general.

I will try and post everything I wrote about Great Monday in my journal but today is a busy day so we'll see what I accomplish.