Orienting to the Liturgy-- the Unity of the Church in the Holy Spirit

Sunday of the Fathers of the First Ecumenical Council; Postfeast of Ascension

[The Sunday between the Feast of the Ascension and Pentecost commemorates the First Ecumenical Council- Nicaea I.  This council was called together in 325 to condemn the heresy of Arianism.  The central theme of this Sunday is the unity of the Church.  The Church is joined together by the same faith, the same beliefs concerning the Trinity, the Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. Heresy is such a potent poison to the Church because it causes the disintegration of the unity of the Church, which Christ willed for the Church.  Our Church has endured unspeakable suffering for the sake of the unity of the Church.  Even now, we are witnesses everyday to the Orthodox Church that the Church of Christ is one.]

1^st Antiphon

Clap your hands, all you nations;* shout to God with an exuberant voice.

Through the prayers of the Mother of God, O Saviour, save us.

For the Lord, the most high, is awesome;* he is the great king over all the earth.

Through the prayers…

He has subdued peoples for us;* and the nations he has place ‘neath out feet.

Through the prayers…

God has ascended amid shouts of joy;* the Lord has gone up with the sounding of a trumpet.

Through the prayers…

Glory…Now…; Only Begotten Son…

Refrain for the usual 3^rd Antiphon

O Son of God, exalted in glory, save us who sing to you. Alleluia.

Tropar, Tone 6

While Mary Magdalene was standing at your tomb in search of your most pure body,* angelic powers appeared and the guards were mortified.* You took hell captive; it could not overcome you.* You revealed yourself as the source of life to the Virgin.* O Lord, risen from the dead, glory to you.

Tropar of the Ascension, Tone 4

You ascended in glory, O Christ our God,* You gladdened your followers by promising the Holy Spirit.* Your blessing confirmed them in the belief that you are the Son of God,* the deliverer of the world.

Tropar of the Fathers, Tone 8

You are glorified in the highest degree, O Christ our God,* for you made our fathers on earth into shining lights.* Through them you led us to true faith.* O Lord, rich in mercy, glory to you.

Glory…

Kondak of the Fathers, Tone 8

The apostles preaching and the fathers teaching confirmed the church in a single faith.* Vested in a garment woven from the fabric of sublime theology,* she rightly teaches and glorifies the great mystery of divine worship.

[the kondak of the Fathers confirms the continuity of the Church. The same Church founded by Christ and the Apostles is now handed on to us. There is a single, true faith, which we receive from the Apostles, and which the Catholic Church still holds.]

Now…

Kondak of Ascension, Tone 6

When you fulfilled the Father’s plan for us* and united all things on earth with those of heaven above,* O Christ our God, you ascended in glory.* But in no way have you left us, for you abide constantly with us* and proclaim assuringly to all who love you:* I am with you and no one has any power over you.

Prokimen of the Fathers, Tone 4

Blest are you, O Lord God of our fathers.* Forever praised and glorified is your name.

v. For you are just in all you have done.

THE READING FROM THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES: 

In those days Paul had decided to sail past Ephesus in order not to lose time in the province of Asia, for he was hurrying to be in Jerusalem, if at all possible, for the day of Pentecost. From Miletus he had the presbyters of the church at Ephesus summoned. When they came to him, he addressed them, "You know how I lived among you the whole time from the day I first came to the province of Asia. Keep watch over yourselves and over the whole flock of which the Holy Spirit has appointed you overseers, in which you tend the church of God that he acquired with his own blood. I know that after my departure savage wolves will come among you, and they will not spare the flock. And from your own group, men will come forward perverting the truth to draw the disciples away after them. So be vigilant and remember that for three years, night and day, I unceasingly admonished each of you with tears. And now I commend you to God and to that gracious word of his that can build you up and give you the inheritance among all who are consecrated. I have never wanted anyone's silver or gold or clothing. You know well that these very hands have served my needs and my companions. In every way I have shown you that by hard work of that sort we must help the weak, and keep in mind the words of the Lord Jesus who himself said, 'It is more blessed to give than to receive. "When he had finished speaking he knelt down and prayed with them all. (Acts 20:16-18, 28-36)

Alleluia, Tone 1

The God of gods, the Lord, has spoken and summoned the earth from the rising of the sun to its setting.

v. Assemble his faithful ones before him, those who made a covenant with him by sacrifice.

A READING FROM THE HOLY GOSPEL ACCORDING TO

SAINT JOHN:

At that time, Jesus looked up to heaven and said, "Father, the hour has come. Give glory to your son, so that your son may glorify you, just as you gave him authority over all people, so that he may give eternal life to all you gave him. Now this is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ. I glorified you on earth by accomplishing the work that you gave me to do. Now glorify me, Father, with you, with the glory that I had with you before the world began. "I revealed your name to those whom you gave me out of the world. They belonged to you, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything you gave me is from you, because the words you gave to me I have given to them, and they accepted them and truly understood that I came from you, and they have believed that you sent me. I pray for them. I do not pray for the world but for the ones you have given me, because they are yours, and everything of mine is yours and everything of yours is mine, and I have been glorified in them. And now I will no longer be in the world, but they are in the world, while I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one just as we are. When I was with them I protected them in your name that you gave me, and I guarded them, and none of them was lost except the son of destruction, in order that the scripture might be fulfilled. But now I am coming to you. I speak this in the world so that they may share my joy completely. I gave them your word, and the world hated them, because they do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world but that you keep them from the evil one. They do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world. Consecrate them in the truth. Your word is truth.

(John 17, 1-17)

[The central theme of the Gospel reading is the unity of the Church based on her unity of faith.  The Church continuously strives to maintain her unity in the profession of the one, true faith, despite the uninterrupted attempts by the world and the Devil to divide and scatter it.]

Zadostoynyk

Extol, my soul, the Lord exalted gloriously in the flesh above the heavens. Irmos, Tone 5: All of us believers with one accord,* proclaim your greatness as the Mother of God,* for in time you gave birth to the timeless One,* defying words and human understanding.

Communion verse

Praise the Lord from the havens;* praise him in the highest.

Rejoice in the Lord, you righteous ones;* praise for the upright is fitting.

Alleluia (3)

Instead of “We have seen the true light” and “May our mouths be filled” we sing: Be exalted above the heavens, O God, and Your glory above all the earth.

The Fathers of the First Ecumenical Council-- Our patrons against the spirit of obstinacy

Brothers and sisters in Christ—

There are few persons in the history of the Church who are as odious as the heresiarch Arius.  Arius was a priest of the city of Alexandria in Egypt, who became a famous preacher and spiritual director in last days of the persecution of the Church.  His ministry became even more widely known after the Edict of Milan, which ended the persecution of the Christian Church in 312.  His teacher in theology and the spiritual life was one of the greatest minds, which the Church produced in that early age, St. Lucian of Antioch, who died a martyr for the faith in the last and greatest persecution under the Emperor Diocletian. 

     Arius not only excelled as a preacher. He was also famous for uncommon ability as a hymn-writer.  He wrote an entire book of hymns for use in the Church of Alexandria, and his hymns were thought to be so fine that they were sung everywhere, throughout the Greek-speaking Church, in just a few short years.  His book, entitled Thalia (Blossoms, in Greek), survives to this day, and his style and verse is still admired for its perfection. 

     Nevertheless, despite his enormous gifts and his high-powered education, many of Arius’ ideas were wrong, fatally wrong.  He taught that Jesus Christ, the Word of God, was a supremely perfect creature.  Christ was the first creature to have been created.  In fact, his perfection was so great that he was exalted to the throne of God, and sat at God’s right hand, and would judge the living and the dead in the time to come.  Although Christ was not God, nor was he equal to God, nevertheless he was called “the only-begotten god” because of his great perfection above every other being. 

     Arius’ bishop, St. Peter of Alexandria, became aware that his priest was preaching these ideas, and he became very alarmed at the spread of these notions, since they are so much at variance with the truth.  According to the faith of the Church, Jesus Christ, the Logos of the Father, is God just as surely as the Father Himself is God.  Christ is of the same substance as the Father.  Everything that the Father is, the Son is likewise.  They only differ in their relationship to one another, so that the Father is not the Son, and the Son is not the Father.  We become so used to reciting the Niceo-Constantinopolitan Creed that we often rattle it off without thought or emphasis, but if we were to add the emphasis where in belongs, there would be one phrase, which is particularly emphasized.  We say: “Light from Light, true God from true God. Begotten, NOT CREATED, of one essence with the Father, and through Whom all things were made.” Those two words: NOT CREATED sum up the faith of the Church, which Arius denied. 

     Bishop Peter of Alexandria summoned his wayward priest and tried to correct his errors, but Arius refused to accept correction.  After all, he considered himself to be better educated than the bishop in the matters at issue.  In the end, Bishop Peter had to excommunicate Arius.  Thus, Arius left Alexandria and moved abroad, to Antioch.  In this way, Arius’ ideas continued to spread, and his influence increased. 

     Eventually, with the passage of time, the Church was split in two by the ideas of the priest from Alexandria, into the party called the Arians (who accepted his ideas), and a party, which rejected his ideas.  They called themselves the Catholics (from kath ‘olon, Greek for “according to the whole,” since they professed the whole Christian faith).

     To restore unity in the Church, Pope St. Sylvester, together with the Emperor St. Constantine the Great, summoned all the bishops of the world to a Council in Nicaea, near the Imperial capital.  Three hundred and eighteen bishops made the journey.  In the course of the weeks that followed, they condemned the ideas of Arius, and wrote the first two thirds of the Creed, which we still use today.  The last part of the Creed, the part concerning the Holy Spirit, would be added fifty-two years later at the First Council of Constantinople. 

     If Arius had accepted the Council’s teachings, he would have been immediately restored to his former position as a priest of Alexandria.  But he was obstinate, just as he had been in the days when his bishop had tried to correct him.  Now, because he would not accept the correction of the entire Church, he was sentenced to exile.  Nevertheless, from his place of exile, he continued to try, in various ways, to spread the ideas, which the Church had already judged and condemned.  In the end, his ideas won over the Emperor, Constantine’s son and successor Constantius II, who recalled Arius from exile, and reinstated him as a priest in good standing.  On the night of Arius arrival in the Imperial capital there was to be a triumphal torchlight procession, but before the parade could get underway, Arius fell suddenly ill with pain in his abdomen.  He retired to a privy, seeking relief.  When he delayed a long time in the privy, some of his friends and attendants went in to see if he was alright.  They found that he had burst open in the middle, and that his insides were all full of decay, worms and corruption. 

     Arius’ problem was not that he had erroneous ideas.  None of us is right about everything all the time.  We all have mistaken notions from time to time.  The problem was that he was obstinate.  He refused to accept correction.  He continued to maintain that he was right, even though the Church had determined that he was wrong.  His obstinacy turned into a rancor against the Church, which ate him up inside and led him to become, both literally and figuratively, a mass of decay and corruption. 

     Arius was obstinate, and in the same way, we—this people, this culture—are obstinate.  The Church proclaims the teaching of Jesus concerning various issues (too many to enumerate), and we decide that the Lord Jesus is wrong.  Contraception, sexual relationships outside of marriage, the gravely sinful nature of homosexual acts, stem cell research, in vitro fertilization, the gravely evil nature of socialism and the usury of interest banking, and on, and on, and on…. The Lord Jesus is wrong, and we are right, we have decided.  Or, we may try to make ourselves feel better; we may try to rationalize by telling ourselves: “The Church does not speak for Christ.” But Christ established the Church to attenuate His Incarnation in the world (the Church is His Body). You either believe that the Church speaks for Christ, or you believe that His voice has perished from the world.  If you countenance the belief that His voice has perished, then you have no faith at all in the Divinity of the Son of God. 

     Arius was obstinate, and we are obstinate.  Let us let go of our obstinacy, by conforming our minds wholeheartedly to truth.  Let us accept what the Lord Jesus teaches us through the Church, and pray for understanding and wisdom. 

The Sunday of the Man Born Blind-- Deification By Grace

Brothers and sisters in Christ—

Today the Gospel centers on the theme of blindness versus the theme of light. Blindness in the terms of the Gospel, is the unwillingness to accept the destiny that is offered to us in Christ.  It is the unwillingness to accept the God’s invitation to share His Life, and grow into His Divine Nature.  Blindness is the rejection of the vocation of God to each human being to become God by grace.  On account of this definition of blindness, the Lord Jesus exclaimed that He came into the world to give sight to those who were blind, but to take away the sight of those who could see.  When the Pharisees countered with the statement: “So then, we are blind?” The Lord clarifies His point: “If you were blind, you would have no sin, but because you say ‘We see,’ your sin remains.” In others words, the blindness that rejects the life of God is a willful blindness.  God freely offers Himself in friendship to the human being, and the human being says “no.”

     Light and sight, on the other hand, are images of Christ Himself, as He is possessed in His identity by each and every human being that accepts the call to salvation.  The person who accepts the invitation of God in Christ, is transformed within, so that he has a mind and insight no longer merely his own, but God’s.  He is able to see the universe and especially his fellow human beings in the way that God sees them.  Thus, by means of his incorporation into Christ through the Mysteries, he becomes capable of compassion and love.  The Fathers of the Church continuously use the natural image of a log in the fire.  Any who have sat by a campfire, a bonfire, or even their fireplace, has observed the moment at which a certain log in the fire becomes completely imbued with fire, to the extent that it is impossible to discern where the log ends and the fire begins, but all seem to one and the same.  In the same way, the person who is conformed to Christ, who has become God by grace, is so completely imbued with God that it becomes increasingly difficult to discern which of his actions are his own and which are God’s.  Many of the saints have been gifted with the power to work astounding miracles, and yet we know intuitively that the miraculous power does not come from them, but from the Lord. Seraphim of Sarov, in the nineteenth century, describes the goal of the Christian life as “the acquisition of the Holy Spirit.” In fact, in certain cases, the human soul has become so imbued with the grace of the Holy Spirit, that even the body has gained a remarkable radiance.  For example, when St. Antony the Great emerged from the fortress in the Egyptian desert, where he has dedicated twenty years to prayer, his flesh shone with an unearthly light. 

     In a Gospel passage similar to the reading that we have for this Sunday, we find the Lord healing a blind man.  When the man is healed, however, he sees imperfectly, he sees men moving around him, but they look like trees.  The Lord Jesus applies His healing grace a second time to the man, and this time he recovers his sight and sees perfectly.  This Gospel story shows forth the truth that our growth into Christ is not a one time event, but a process that requires the repeated action of the Lord, combined with a continuous commitment of our good will.  Drawing near to the Lord in prayer and in His Life-Giving Sacraments is not a single event, but a friendship that deepens, grows and expands throughout our earthly life.

    Receiving sight and light from the Lord, being conformed to the mind of God in Christ, gives us a natural abhorrence of all darkness.  In this case, the precepts of the Lord are not external rules, but a natural way of life.  The human being who draws near to the Lord in a life of prayer begins to act and think as the Lord acts and thinks.  The closer he comes to the Lord in prayer, the more like the Lord he becomes in his thoughts and actions, because his mind, and even his body, are by degrees becoming deified by the action of the light that we call grace.  It goes without saying that the closer he comes to the Lord, the greater his abhorrence for evil, ignorance and moral darkness.  At the same time that his hatred for sin increases, his love and compassion for his fellow creatures increases to the extent that their salvation becomes as precious as his own. 

     A commitment to light and sight means a commitment to prayer and growth in our relationship with the Lord through the Divine Mysteries.  We need to pray as much as possible, and pray more as prayer becomes more and more natural to us (using the words of the Gospel as the source and inspiration for our prayer).

Sunday of the Samaritan Woman-- Living Water (The Life of God)

Brothers and sisters in Christ—

   Today we heard the Lord’s promise to the Samaritan woman of “living water.”  That living water of which the Lord speaks is the Life of God.  In the beginning, God made all of creation to share His Life, so that the lowest elements in the creation up to the highest elements, all share the same life, the same energy, which flows from God.  Thus, the use of the material creation, would be a communion with what is spiritual, while spiritual blessing and grace would be living, present and available in material things.

     Through sin, death entered into creation, and it ceased to be a complete manifestation of God’s Life and a means to communion with Him.  Therefore, Christ entered the world in order to restore creation, not by the violent means of a sudden and catastrophic reformation, but by planting the seeds of the renewed creation in the midst of the ruins of the old.  Thus, Christ established the sacraments to be sources of Divine Life. 

     Are we to believe, then, that by partaking of material things and performing outward, corporal actions, we share the Life of God? Yes.  We believe, for example, that by immersion in water, we come to share in the identity of Christ, and that by partaking in His Body and Blood under the corporal appearance of bread and wine, we are built up and sustained in that identity. 

     What is the point of sharing the identity of Christ? In this way, we fulfill our natural aspiration to healing and perfection.  Each and every one of us, in the deepest level of his or her personality, wants to be God.   If this were not so, our ancestors would not have succumbed to temptation and committed the first sin.  We have a deep desire to be God, a desire, which is built into us by God Himself.  Far from this being an evil desire, it is the fulfillment of our nature as God made us.  Our ancestors erred in that they tried to be God apart from God.  Nevertheless, God invites us to become God by grace, not by nature as He is, but by sharing His Life with Him. 

     Being God means being powerful and abundant, this is why the promise that the Lord makes to the Samaritan woman is so fetching.  He tells the woman that she can have within her a fountain of living water springing up to life everlasting.  This echoes what He said elsewhere in the Gospel of John: “As the Father has Life in Himself, so He has given to the Son to have Life in Himself.”  We share the identity of the Son, and so, in Christ, we have become God by grace.  The power and abundance that are at our disposal are immense—in fact, infinite.  We need only read the words of the Gospel of St. John in order to understand the magnitude of the power that is given to anyone who becomes God by grace.

     The work, which Christ has begun in us by His Mysteries, by making us sharers in His identity, has to be completed by us, as we allow God to work through us.  The perfection of God is already within us, as it was sewn into us by participation in the life-giving sacraments, but it has to be uncovered.  We uncover that perfection through our daily life, following Christ.

     We may be tempted to think of the meeting described in the Gospel today as a chance meeting.  But in truth that meeting was planned by God for the salvation of the world from all eternity.  In the same way that God planned that meeting from all eternity, so too He has planned the circumstances and events of our lives.  There is no happenstance when it comes to the worship of the true God.  Everything is foreseen in the plan of God.  What happens to us and for us is the manifestation of His great loving kindness.  Therefore, that which happens to us is the best that can happen, according to the plan of God. This is what the Holy Apostle Paul tells us, when he says: “All things work together to the good of those who love God.” It stands to reason that as all things work together for God, so all things work together for those who have become God by grace.  We should cast away any notion that we are victims of chance, and begin to see, really see, the benevolent work of the One Who loves us.  One of the pervasive contemporary spiritual diseases among believers in Christ is the belief in misfortune.  None of the events that come to us from the hand of God is misfortune (such is only a superstition).  Rather, we create our misfortunes by our inadequate responses to the things that God sends us.  Are the sufferings and death of the Lord Jesus a misfortune? Certainly not!

     Our God and we have the same goal—that we become God by grace.  God ordains all things, so that they work together for the accomplishment of that goal.  Only we can foil His desire, and ours as well, by failing to accept with love and docility the things that He sends us.

The Sunday of the Paralytic-- Do We Want to be Healed?

Brothers and sisters in Christ—

In the Gospel reading, which we heard today, the Lord asks a very compelling question.  He says to the paralyzed man: “Do you want to be healed?”  It is a compelling, almost troubling question, because the answer seems so obvious.  How could the man not desire, and desire fervently, to be healed of his infirmity.  After all, the text tells us that the man had been sick for thirty-eight years. The Lord Jesus, however, very deliberately asks him: “Do you want to be healed?”  For the Lord, the question is tantamount to: “Can you be healed?”

     The question has two parts.  The first part ascertains the wishes of the paralyzed man. He says: “Do you want…?” The second part of the question states the proposed object of desire: healing, health, salvation.  It is interesting to note, however, that the man does not reply in the affirmative.  He does not tell the Lord Jesus that he would like to be healed.  He merely states the difficulties and obstacles, which stand between him and a cure.  He tells the Lord about all the reasons why he can’t be healed.  He explains to the Lord that he is without hope.  The hymns of the Church for this Sunday are even more explicit.  In these hymns, the paralyzed man says amid tears that the Sheep Pool is worthless to him, since, even if the Angel of the Lord should descend every day, or every minute of everyday and stir the water, he still would not be able to go down into the water before someone else had already partaken of its healing virtue.

     The Lord Jesus determined to ask to this specific hopeless man this compelling question: “Do you want to be healed?” Perhaps to the paralyzed man the question appeared only as a kind of cruel joke, since the one apparent hope for a cure seems such an impossibility.  But rather than a cruel joke, the question was a manifestation of the Lord’s compassion to all His creatures.  The same compassionate Lord, who told His disciples: “Ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be opened for you,” now says to this man: “name what you want, and it shall be done for you.”

     Behold our compassionate God, who desires our happiness so much that He is willing to give us whatever we ask, whatever, that is, that is to our good.  But the man is so hopeless, so depressed and despairing, that he does not ask.  He is a little like the Lord Jesus’ own ancestor King Ahaz, who was invited by the Prophet Isaiah to ask for a sign from God that the nation would be saved from its enemies.  The Holy Prophet pleaded with the king: “ask for a sign from the Lord. Let be as deep as the netherworld, or as high as the sky.” But Ahaz replied, “I will not ask. I will not tempt the Lord.” See the way that despair and hopelessness sometimes masquerade as piety. Ahaz does not refuse to ask for a sign because he thinks that the Lord will be angry with such a request. No, he refuses to ask for a sign, because he has no hope for a sign.  The Lord has to intervene in order to give him (and the world) some hope again.  The Lord tells him through Isaiah the Prophet: “The Lord Himself will give you this sign: the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and you will call him by the name Immanuel (God is with us).” In response to the despair of a hopeless king, the compassionate God gives the world the best news that it would ever hear.”

     It is the same in the case of the paralyzed man.  The man has lost all hope.  He does not even dare to allow himself to think about a cure, for he knows that a cure is impossible.  But the compassionate God asks him a question, a question, which he does not answer, except by the remnant, the glimmer of desire behind his eyes.  The God of compassion would do nothing without his consent, but once he has expressed his desire, even in the longing, listless and hopeless way that he does, the Lord merely commands that the man’s desire be fulfilled.

     So it is also in our lives.  Many of our fellow human beings suffer with inveterate problems, addictions, bad habits that destroy their relationships, and make them return again and again to the same sins that have so often degraded them.  Time and again, we commit the same sins, over and over again, returning to God in confession and repentance, only to lapse once more into the selfsame faults.  Eventually, we give up confession and repentance altogether, for “they do not help,” and we accept our vices, sins and evil habits, deciding: “I do not need to be healed.”

     Our God is a God of compassion.  We must believe that He sees our suffering under the burden of our sins more than our sins themselves, like the father in the Parable of the Prodigal Son, who sees his son coming from afar, and is “moved with compassion.”  So, we return again and again to our failings, our faults.  Always the same sins we bring to the Lord in confession and repentance.  Did we ever ask to be freed? 

     The compassionate God will do nothing without our consent.  He is continually asking us, pleading with us: “Do you want to be healed?” Have we become like the paralyzed man and nearly lost all hope of any improvement in our life, our circumstances, and our character?  Too often we allow despair to enter our lives under the veneer of ease.  We say to ourselves: “I am not perfect, I have my faults, but that is alright.” Making peace with our inveterate faults, vices and habits, we cease to make serious war upon them. “Well, my faults are not so serious.” With this and other rationalizations, we are missing the opportunity to become better human beings, because we have despaired of the possibility of any improvement. Our despair has led us to say to ourselves: “I do not need to be healed.”

     But all we need to do is ask—to reply to our compassionate God’s gracious question: “Do you want to be healed?” Like the paralyzed man, we have the propensity to begin to make the long checklist of all the difficulties and obstacles that stand between us and real improvement, growth and healing.  But, in the end, none of the difficulties and obstacles matter.  When the Lord determines to heal us, He only commands, and it is done. 

     Therefore, let us ask… that the fervour of our hearts to become better and better people will not burn out, that we will never give up in despair and accept our vices as “part of who we are, and that we will have the faith to ask for healing, believe in healing and receive healing from the Source of Life, our compassionate God.

Sunday of the Myrrhbearing Women--Christ the New Adam

Brothers and sisters in Christ—

In the morning of the Resurrection of Christ, before the sunrise, the angel of the Lord descended from Heaven and opened the tomb.  The Gospel of St. Matthew tells us that “He rolled the stone away, and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing was as white as snow.  In fear, the soldiers trembled and fell down before him, as if dead.”  The purpose of this deed was to show that the tomb was empty, for the Lord Jesus had earlier risen from the dead.  In order to understand the term “third-day resurrection” or “resurrection on the third day,” we need to understand the Hebrew concept of the day.  The Hebrew day begins in the evening with the setting of the sun.  Therefore, when we say “the resurrection on the third day,” we do not mean that the Lord Jesus Christ was among the dead during three whole days, but rather during parts of three days, for He died on Friday, the Preparation Day for the Jewish Sabbath, and then the Sabbath began with the setting of the sun on Friday evening.  On Saturday, He slept in death, but the Sabbath ended  with the setting of the sun on Saturday evening, and the new day (the first day of the week) began.  Jesus Christ rose from the dead on the third day, that is, after the setting of the sun on Saturday.  In this way, Our Lord fulfilled the prophecy spoken by the Prophet Hosea: “Come, let us return to the Lord, for He has torn, and He will heal us. He has stricken, and He will bind us up. After two days He will bring us to life. On the third day He will raise us up, and we shall live before Him.”(Hosea 6:2) The words of the Prophet show that the Resurrection of Christ is our resurrection, and through the suffering of the Lord Jesus we have the forgiveness of sins and a new life.  The Resurrection of Christ begins a new world, for the Lord Jesus rose from the dead on the first day of the week, when God’s work of Creation began, and when He created the light.  The Lord Jesus Christ is “the Father of a new Creation,” and He fulfilled all the prophecies, which proclaimed the restoration of the universe.  For example, the Gospel of St. John tells us that “there was, in the place where they crucified Him, a garden, and in the garden was a tomb in which no one had yet been laid.  There then, because of the Preparation Day of the Jews, they laid Jesus, because the tomb was near at hand.” Here we see the clear parallelism between the burial of the Lord Jesus and the Garden of Eden, for the Book of Genesis tells us: “The Lord God planted a Garden in Eden, in the East, and there He placed the man, whom He had made. Out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food.  The Tree of Life was in the middle of the Garden…”(Gen. 2:8) Here we see a complete restoration, since, in the beginning, the Tree of Life was in the middle of the garden, and now the new Tree of Life, the Cross of the Lord Jesus is in the midst of this new garden.  The Book of Genesis tells us: “Then the Lord God made the man from the dust of the earth, and breathed into him the breath of life, and the man became of living being.” But now, in the Resurrection of Christ, the Man became a life-giving Spirit.

     In this imagery, we behold the Lord Christ—the New Adam, the father of the new family of the human race.  This new family is not like the old one, since God only has children. He does not have grandsons and granddaughters.  Each Christian person has the same relationship with Christ: “To as many as accepted Him, He gave to power to become Children of God, those who believe in His Name; who are born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” Truly, each Christian is begotten from above, just as the Lord Jesus told Nicodemus: “If one does not receive birth from water and Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God.  That which is born of flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit—is spirit.  The wind blows where it wills, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or whence it goes. So too is everyone who is born of the Spirit.” In Christ, I am a direct son of God.  Therefore, Christ our God made the Church to be a family, and He became its head.  In this way the human family was restored, because according to the traditional ethical teachings of the Church, the most important people in the world are the heads of families, for they hold the place of Christ.  The Holy Catholic Church has the most profound respect for the heads of families, but complete disdain and contempt for human bureaucracies and other structures, which try to destroy the rights of the family.  A healthy society and nation recognizes the rights of the heads of families to make decisions concerning the good of their families, while an evil society and nation abridges these rights, which belong to the heads of families according to the law of nature. 

     The Lord Jesus Christ is the Father of a new family, which we call “the Church,” and we imitate him in our daily lives, and we model our families according to the example of His family.  Each head of a family is the recipient in abundance of the virtues of wisdom, justice, courage and temperance, if he asks for them from Christ, the Head of our Heavenly Family.

Thomas Sunday--The Lord Uses Weakness to Win the Most Astounding Victories

My Lord, and my God!

Today, in the Gospel, we hear the Holy Apostle Thomas make an acclamation, which is also a profession of faith. He declares, “My Lord and my God!” on seeing the Risen Lord Jesus, and inspecting the wounds in the Lord’s hands, feet and side.  In this acclamation, He gives two titles to Jesus: he calls Him Lord and God.  The first of these titles is unremarkable, since the disciples of Jesus had called Him “Lord” many times in the course of the previous three years of His public ministry.  But, it is the second name, paired with “Lord” which is so meaningful on this eighth day of the Resurrection.  St. Thomas professes that the Lord Jesus is God.  None had yet made this confession.  It is true that Simon Peter, earlier in the Lord’s ministry, in the area of Caesarea Philippi had professed that the Lord Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God, but never to this point had there been such a clear profession of the divinity of the Christ.

Christ’s victory: A human victory 

     St. Thomas’ profession of faith is only possible because he not only recognizes who Jesus is, but he also realizes what Jesus has done.  In this moment is born the branch of theology, which we call “Christology” because it is concerned with the identity of the Christ.  Thomas realizes, as he stands before the Risen Christ and probes His wounds, that God has won a tremendous victory for us over Death, Sin, Satan and Hell. What is wondrous, however, is that this victory is not a “divine” victory.  It has not been effected by the majesty of God, but by the lowliness of human nature.  God, in winning this victory, did not take up the weapons of Divinity, but took up the shattered weapons of human nature in order to wage war against the Evil One, for He became like us in everything except sin.

God uses the weak

     Naturally, we remember the way in which the Prophet of God Elias proved the existence and majesty of God in the time of the Old Testament.  In those days, God’s People, Israel, was afflicted with a mass apostasy.  Many had abandoned the worship of the true God for the worship of worthless idols; for they were following the example of the wicked king Ahab and his notoriously evil wife Jezebel.  The Holy Prophet Elias called all the leaders of Israel to a meeting to take place on the summit of Mt. Carmel.  There, he challenged the worshippers of the false gods to a contest.  Both he and the idol-worshippers were to build altars and lay the sacrifices on the altars, but they were not to light the fires.  Instead, everything was to be prepared, and then the worshippers of idols were to call upon their gods, while Elias would pray to the God of Israel. The God Who answered with fire would be recognized as the true God.  But the Prophet Elias went further; he took enormous amounts of water and poured them over the wood, the altar and the sacrifice. Again and again, he had more water brought, until the sacrifice and the wood on the altar were completely drenched.  In the meantime, the worshippers of the false gods were praying to their gods to no avail.  Then, Elias prayed to the God of Israel. Fire descended from heaven and consumed the sacrifice, and, along with it, all the water, the wood and even the stones of the altar itself.  The majesty of God descended into the worthless nature of drenched flesh and wood, and won a victory over Satan and his angels, which reclaimed the souls of the people of Israel.

     In fact, during the long ages of expectation for the Messiah, God made a habit of choosing that which was weak and worthless in the eyes of the world in order to win the most astounding victories. We remember, for example, the victory, which the Lord won through Gideon against Midian.  We learn about this marvelous victory in the Book of Judges.  “The Lord said to Gideon: “The people that are with you are many, and Midian shall not be delivered into their hands; lest Israel should glory against me, and say: I was delivered by my own strength.  Speak to the people, and proclaim in the hearing of all: Whosoever is fearful and timorous, let him return. So two and twenty thousand men went away from Mount Gilead and returned home, and only ten thousand remained.  The Lord said to Gideon: The people are still too many. Bring them to the waters, and there I will try them: and of whom I shall say to you, “This one shall go with you,” let him go: whom I shall forbid to go, let him return.  When the people came down to the waters, the Lord said to Gideon: They that shall lap the water with their tongues, as dogs are wont to lap, you shall set apart by themselves: but they that shall drink, bowing down their knees, shall be on the other side.  And the number of them that had lapped water, casting it with the hand to their mouth, was three hundred men: and all the rest of the multitude had drunk kneeling. The Lord said to Gideon: By the three hundred men that lapped water, I will save you, and deliver Midian into your hand.” The phrase “as dogs are wont to lap” is a bit confusing, since the text later refers to the same men as having carried the water to their mouths with their hands.  However, the Father of the Church Macrobius Siccus connects this episode with the well-known Egyptian proverb, “the dog drinks and runs away.” In other words, it was not so much the manner in which the men drank, which resembled dogs, but the haste with which they drank.  The dogs of Egypt drink quickly and run away for fear of being eaten by the crocodiles, which lurk in the water. Siccus infers from this that the men chosen were not only a small number, but were also the most cowardly men.

All these victories are a preparation for the “victory of victories”

     All of these astounding victories, which the Lord worked against every human expectation, were preparation for the victory of victories, which He Himself would win over Satan and Death, through the weapon of our weak, shattered and decrepit nature.  Human nature, which had before been so humiliated by its long slavery to the Devil, could no longer be despised, because by an astounding reversal weakness and decrepitude became the instrument of humiliation for the enemies of God and man.

Christ’s victory: Our victory

     How can we personally share in this great victory? Through the Mysteries of Christ, His victory becomes our victory.  In Baptism, Repentance and the Eucharist, our flesh becomes the flesh of the Crucified.  Our weak and humiliated human nature becomes His nature, victorious over the Devil.  Our sufferings become His sufferings.  Our death becomes His death, and our resurrection becomes His Resurrection. 

     Today as we gaze upon the Eucharist, like St. Thomas, we look upon the flesh of the Risen Christ, the weapon, which God has chosen to end our slavery and humiliation.  Let us each acclaim Him: “My Lord and my God.”

Holy Pascha-- Understanding the True Meaning of Death to Understand the True Meaning of Life

Brothers and sisters in Christ—

     The word “Resurrection” should be the summation of our hope and the hope of the entire human race, since in this word, we have the promise of everlasting life.  But, Our Holy Father Benedict XVI has written in his encyclical “Spe Salvi” that, more and more, the Christian hope for life everlasting no longer has any attraction for many people, because they have a false concept of the life, which Christ grants to us in His Resurrection.  In the same way, they also have a faulty concept of death, the universal disease, which afflicts the whole human race.

     We should make sure that we understand these themes, if we hope to give encouragement to others, who live in the darkness and despair of this world.  In order to understand the Resurrection, first we must understand death, because this word means more than the definition, which the world often gives to it.  When we Christians speak of death, we mean the entire state, which is otherwise called “corruption.” For us human beings, the word “corruption” is the fullness of all the evils, which we here experience.  Corruption is the mind, which no longer controls its body, and the body, which ceases to function in a normal way.  Corruption is the hatred, which divides communities and families.  In short, corruption is the disintegration of our very beings.  Corruption shows clearly in the man, who is the slave of destructive addictions.

     There is an old Tibetan fable, which speaks about a passenger coach, which was pulled by five horses and full of passengers.  The coachman fell fast asleep, and the passengers began to quarrel among themselves.  Each tried to direct the coach and its horses to the place to which he or she wanted to go, but, as they quarreled, the horses ended up wandering aimlessly.  In the end, the coachman awoke.  He rebuked the haughty passengers and seized the reins.  Then, he directed the coach to the destination of each individual passenger in an organized and peaceful manner.

     This story illustrates the human soul, which, on account of sin, is in a state of disorder.  The horses represent the five senses, but the passengers represent the different passions (disordered desires), which try to lead the soul to their own competing destinations, while the coachman sleeps.  The coachman represents the rational mind, which should always direct the soul.  On account of our sinful nature, our souls are disordered, and only our mind—the true coachman—united with Christ, is able to restore the original order and engender peace.

     Naturally, we recognize that certain bodily diseases involve the partial death of the human body before the onset of the fullness of physical death.  In the fifteenth century, the monks of the Order of St. Anthony in Alsace hired the artist Matthias Grunewald to paint the altar in the chapel of their hospital, which specialized in the treatment of leprosy and the disease, which was then called “St. Anthony’s Fire,” but which now modern medicine refers to as “ergotism.” When Grunewald painted the scene of Calvary, he depicted the flesh of Christ with the symptoms of these terrible diseases.  The Body of Christ is shown disfigured by red sores, from which copious fluids flow, even as parts of the skin peel back, to uncover the appearance of raw meat.  This depiction of Christ, afflicted by disease, is terrible in the extreme, and this presentation would be entirely intolerable with the image of the Resurrection, which shows Christ, having triumphed over His enemies, while a great light shines from His pure flesh.  Thus, the people, who prayed before this image, troubled as they were by terrible skin illnesses, acquired hope from Christ, Who took all suffering on Himself, and especially the greatest leprosy and illness—sin.  This is the meaning of that, which we sing in Matins: “You, O King and Lord, have fallen asleep in the flesh as a mortal man, but on the third day, You arose again.  You have raised Adam from his corruption and made Death powerless.” In this same poem, Christ is called “the Pascha of Incorruption,” in other words, “the sacrifice, which takes all corruption on Himself.”

     Our challenge is to live as people, who have been redeemed from corruption, so that we are no longer slaves in the passions, but servants of God, since He bore our pains and sufferings to the Cross.

Holy Saturday-- The Day He Slept in Death

Brothers and sisters in Christ—

Our Lord Jesus Christ gives the following epitome of everlasting life and the Kingdom of God: And this is everlasting life—to know You, the Only, True God and Jesus Christ, Whom You have sent.  This epitome gives us some insight into the importance of knowing and loving God as the practical priority of our lives. 

     In the context of the Hebrew Bible, the Lord’s description of everlasting life is hardly surprising, when we consider that the same kind of language had been employed for a millennium in Israelite civilization.  The Prophet Jeremiah tells us that the day will come, when: No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, “Know the Lord,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.”

     What the Lord means to say from this description is that there is much more to eternal life than survival after death.  The Hebrew word and concept, which the Greek New Testament is translating is pronounced “yada,” and it means “to know by vision or observation.” This very ancient word is the perfect expression of our hope, for we believe that in Heaven we will have perfect vision of our God—the Most Holy Trinity.

     We find that throughout the Scriptures the same word “yada” meaning “to know by sight” is the normal and usual description of our relationship with God. In the Book of Genesis especially, we see that there is a profound conversation, by which God knows and loves us, and we also know and love God in return, just as the Holy Apostle Paul describes in his First Epistle to the Corinthians: “We know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.”

     In the Book of Genesis, God told our father Abraham: “I am the Lord who brought you from Ur of the Chaldees, to give you this land to possess.” But he said, “O Lord God, how am I to know that I shall possess it?” Then the Lord said to Abraham: “Know this for certain, that your offspring shall be aliens in a land that is not theirs, and shall be slaves there, and they shall be oppressed for four hundred years; but I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions.” Then, later, during the sacrifice of his son, Isaac, according to God’s command, the following occurs to Abraham: “Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to kill his son. But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven, and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” And he said, “here I am.” He said, “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me” … So Abraham called that place “The Lord will see.”

     Everlasting life is much more than mere survival after death. It is truly knowing and loving God.  Well, everlasting life can begin here in this world, as we strive to know God better and better, as we read the Scriptures with attention and devotion, and attend the church services with a desire to really deepen our relationship with God.

Good Friday-- Christ's Glorification

Brothers and sisters in Christ—

     Human life is meant to be the loving embrace of God.  God made His image and likeness in order to love it.  We, human beings, having been reconciled to God through participation in His Christ, receive this love, and respond to it with love. 

     Christ, throughout the Gospels speaks about His glorification.  But when He says “glorification,” He does not mean His resurrection on the third day, but His redeeming suffering and death.  Every human life consists of elements of action and passion: what we do, and what we suffer.  Like Christ, our model, we must begin to recognize that our glory is in our sufferings.  Our glory consists in what we receive from God, not what we do for God, because God does not need anything from us.  A tiny child has nothing of worth to give to his father, he only sits and rests in the embrace of his father, and receives the love of his father.  Thus, it is by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit of God that He leads us to perfection—perfect love of Him and our neighbour. 

     Christ is our model.  Behold, He is “lifted up,” he is exalted and glorified by what He suffers.  He is exalted and glorified in the loving embrace of the Father.  We too are exalted and glorified in what we suffer, when we receive the events of our lives with equanimity, peace and joy, with the knowledge that all these things are part of His loving plan.  If we can put away the gloomy thoughts that cloud and taint our perception of the circumstances, which surround us, and live with our focus and concentration on this present moment, then the Kingdom of God will open for us, and the world, which God has created for us we take on a new and lovely freshness.  The loving embrace of God is available to us in the present moment, not in the sins and failures of our past, nor in the fears and uncertainties of the future.  Here, we rest in the loving embrace of God, as we were created to do.  In this place, in this loving embrace, in this present moment, alive with the presence of God, there is no fear, no shame, no regret, but only peace.  In this same way, John describes the death of Christ in his Gospel.  Imagine, death—in fact, a violent and painful death— accompanied only by peace, but with neither shame nor regret. John gives us an image of this peace. He begins: “In the place where they crucified Him there was a garden.” This is not the first time that God has used a garden as the symbol of His loving embrace.  In the Book of Genesis, at the very beginning of the story of God’s saving plan for us, God placed Adam in a garden that he had especially made for him.  Gardens are places of peace, not violence and fear.  The new Tree of Life is established in a garden, as a symbol of the profound and lasting peace that God means to give us in the renewed, loving embrace of His love.  John continues: “and in the garden there was a tomb in which no one had yet been buried.” Death and suffering itself is swallowed up in this peace.  Our paradise grows and blossoms from the seed of suffering.

Orienting to the Liturgy-- Entrance into Jerusalem

Floral (Palm) Sunday

[The hymns and antiphons of this Sunday express the inexorable course of events that connects the raising of Lazarus from the dead with the suffering and death of the Lord Jesus.  Despite the fact that He had worked numerous miracles during the three years of His ministry, the raising of His friend Lazarus from the dead is the sign that ultimately and finally convinces His enemies that He must be eliminated (in the words of the High Priest Caiaphas, “It is better for one man to die than for the whole nation to perish”). To the authorities in Jerusalem, the journey of the Lord Jesus toward the Holy City for the Passover looks like a procession toward a royal coronation.  The city populace, and even the disciples, share this expectation, and the Lord’s entry into Jerusalem confirms everyone’s hopes, or fears.]

Antiphon 1

I am filled with love for the Lord will hear the voice of my plea.

Through the prayers of the Mother of God, O Saviour, save us.

-For He has inclined His ear to me, and I will call to Him all the days of my life.

Through the prayers…

-The pangs of death encircled me, the trials of Hades befell me.

Through the prayers…

-I met with anguish and pain, and called upon the name of the Lord.

Through the prayers…

Antiphon 3

-Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, for His mercy endures forever.

Tropar, Tone 1: Assuring us before Your Passion of the general resurrection, You raised Lazarus from the dead, O Christ God: and so, like the children we also carry signs of victory and cry to You, the conqueror of death: Hosanna in the highest! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.

-Therefore, let the house of Israel say that He is good, for His mercy endures forever.

Assuring us...

-Therefore, let the house Aaron say that He is good, for His mercy endures forever.

Assuring us...

-Let all who fear the Lord say that He is good, for His mercy endures forever.

Assuring us...

Entrance Hymn: Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord, the Lord is God and has appeared to us.

Assuring us...

Glory...

Tropar, Tone 4

Buried with You through Baptism, O Christ our God, we have been granted immortal life by Your resurrection, and we sing Your praises, crying out: Hosanna in the highest! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.

Now...

Kondak, Tone 6

Mounted on the throne in Heaven, O Christ God, and on a colt here on earth, You accepted the praise of the angels, and the hymn of the children who cried to You: Blessed are You, who have come to call Adam back.

[Of the all the hymns for this day, the kondak is especially wonderful.  It leads us to meditate on the fact that even while Christ our God was among us in the flesh, He was also in Heaven enthroned with the Father.  In this hymn, the Messianic title “the Son of David” is not mentioned, but the people’s historical expectation of a coming kingship is mixed with full realization of what Christ has accomplished.]

Prokimen, Tone 4

Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord; God the Lord has appeared to us.

v. Give thanks to the Lord for He is good, for His mercy endures forever.

A READING FROM THE LETTER OF SAINT PAUL,
THE APOSTLE, TO PHILIPPIANS:

Brethren, rejoice in the Lord always. I shall say it again: rejoice! Your kindness should be known to all. The Lord is near. Have no anxiety at all, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God. Then the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Keep on doing what you have learned and received and heard and seen in me. Then the God of peace will be with you. (4:4-9)

Alleluia, Tone 1

Sing to the Lord a new song, for He has worked wonders.

v. All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.

A READING FROM THE HOLY GOSPEL

 ACCORDING TO SAINT JOHN:

Six days before Passover Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. They gave a dinner for him there, and Martha served, while Lazarus was one of those reclining at table with him. Mary took a liter of costly perfumed oil made from genuine aromatic nard and anointed the feet of Jesus and dried them with her hair; the house was filled with the fragrance of the oil. Then Judas the Iscariot, one (of) his disciples, and the one who would betray him, said, "Why was this oil not sold for three hundred days' wages and given to the poor?" He said this not because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief and held the money bag and used to steal the contributions. So Jesus said, "Leave her alone. Let her keep this for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me." (The) large crowd of the Jews found out that he was there and came, not only because of Jesus, but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. And the chief priests plotted to kill Lazarus too, because many of the Jews were turning away and believing in Jesus because of him. On the next day, when the great crowd that had come to the feast heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, they took palm branches and went out to meet him, and cried out: "Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, (even) the king of Israel." Jesus found an ass and sat upon it, as is written: "Fear no more, O daughter Zion; see, your king comes, seated upon an ass's colt." His disciples did not understand this at first, but when Jesus had been glorified they remembered that these things were written about him and that they had done this for him. So the crowd that was with him when he called Lazarus from the tomb and raised him from death continued to testify. This was (also) why the crowd went to meet him, because they heard that he had done this sign. (12:1-18)

[The Pharisees and the chief priests are willfully blind to the fulfillment of the Messianic prophecies.  They choose to see the Lord Jesus as an imposter who deliberately takes every opportunity to take action, which could be construed to fulfill the ancient Scriptures.  This might indeed be a valid point of view if it were not for the enormous number of miraculous signs, which accompanied the Lord’s teaching and ministry at every stage.  All of these miraculous signs culminate in the raising of Lazarus from the dead. If it were not for these signs, worked through Divine Power, it is doubtful that even the Holy Apostles and the other disciples would have been convinced and converted. Over the course of the three years of the public ministry, the disciples and many of the people became convinced that this rabbi from Galilee was the Messiah, the Son of God.  Further, after they saw Him, touched Him and ate with Him after His resurrection from the dead, they became convinced that He Himself is the God of Israel.  500 such individuals, whose names we know, who ate and drank with Him after He rose from the dead, were later tortured and died very violent deaths rather than deny that they had seen Him.]  

Zadostoynyk, Tone 4

O my soul, magnify Christ who is seated on a foal.  The Lord is God and has appeared to us: together let us celebrate.* Come with great rejoicing; let us magnify Christ with palms and olive branches, and with songs let us cry aloud to Him: Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord, our Saviour.

Communion verse

Blessed is He Who comes in the name of the Lord, God the Lord has appeared to us.

Alleluia. (3)