Showing posts with label Great Lent. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Great Lent. Show all posts
The Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts as one of the great masterpieces of Orthodox piety and liturgical creativity.
The joyousness which accompanies the performance of
the Divine Liturgies of St. Basil the Great and St. John Chrysostom was
regarded by the early Church as not suitable for the penitential season of the
Great Fast. For this reason, the Synod in Laodicea (363 AD) forbade the
performance of the Divine Liturgies during the Great Lent. except on Saturday,
Sunday, the Feast of the Annunciation, and Holy Thursday.
The Christians of that time were in the habit of
receiving Holy Communion almost daily and now were deprived of the strengths
derived from Holy Communion for about a week. The greatly saddened them.
The Church, desiring Her children to continue their
pious habit of daily receiving the Holy Communion, permitted its reception but
from Holy Gifts that had been consecrated in a preceding Liturgy. Thus the
Liturgy of Presanctified Gifts was formed, and was celebrated on evenings from
Monday through Friday during Great Lent; there is no consecration of the Sacred
Elements at the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts, but those who desire to
communicate receive the Holy Gifts which have been consecrated at the previous
Divine Liturgy. The Christians did not eat anything all day.
It received its present form from St. Gregory the
Great, Bishop of Rome in the sixth century. It became a Canon at the Quinisext
Council in 692 AD. The Canon reads:
On all days of the holy fast of Great Lent, except on
the Sabbath (i.e. Saturday), and the Lord's Day (i.e. Sunday) and the holy day
of the Annunciation, the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts is to be served
(Canon 52, Quinisect Council, 692 AD).
As the years passed, however, the Christians
unfortunately lost their original zeal and ignored the benefits from Holy
Communion, and so they did not receive it every day or even every Sunday. They
received it at long intervals. Therefore the Liturgy of Presanctified Gifts
lost its original and main meaning to those celebrating it. Today, it is used
only during the Great Fast, on Wednesdays and Fridays; on Thursday in the fifth
week of Great Fast; and on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday in Passion (Holy)
Week.
The Liturgy of Presanctified Gifts consists of
Vespers, with special Prayers together with a portion of the Divine Liturgy,
omitting its most important part, the consecration of the Holy Gifts; and the
Third, Sixth and Ninth Hours (with the Typical Psalms) are used in a particular
manner at the beginning.
The Sacred Elements, consecrated at the Divine Liturgy
on Saturdays and Sundays, are preserved on the holy Altar in the tabernacle.
The priest places the Gifts on the diskos with prayer and incensing after the
Great Litany, during the chanting of the psalms (kathisma). He carries them in
solemn procession around the back of the Altar, and to the Table of Oblation.
The evening psalm, Lord I call upon You, is then sung
with the special hymns for the day. This is followed with the evening entrance,
the hymn Gladsome Light, and two Biblical readings; from Genesis and from
Proverbs. The Bible readings are punctuated by the Priest blessing the faithful
with the censer and a lighted candle proclaiming "The Light of Christ
illumines all!". This blessing symbolises the light of Christ's
Resurrection, which illumines the Old Testament Scriptures and the entire life
of mankind. This is the very Light with which Christians are illuminated in the
life of the Church through Holy Baptism.
The Prayer of St. Ephraim is read after the singing of
the evening psalm "Let my prayer rise in Your sight as incense. The
augmented litany is chanted, and the Presanctified Gifts are brought solemnly
and to the altar table. This is when the following special entrance hymn is
chanted:
Now the
powers of heaven do serve invisibly with us.
Lo, the King
of Glory enters.
Lo, the
mystical sacrifice is upborne, fulfilled.
Let us
draw near in faith and love, and become communicants of life eternal.
Alleluia,
Alleluia, Alleluia.
The Prayer of St. Ephraim is read again, accompanied
with a litany and a special prayer before Holy Communion (Eucharist). "Our
Father Who art in heaven ..." is sung and the faithful receive Holy
Communion to the singing of:
"O
taste and see that the Lord is good. Alleluia"
The communicants "depart in peace" with
thanksgiving to God for His Coming. The special dismissal prayer asks God for a
successful fulfillment of Lent and to worthily celebrate the Great Feast of
Pascha - the Resurrection of Jesus Christ our Lord.
O
Almighty Lord ... Who has brought us to these all-holy days for the
purification of the soul and body, for the controlling of carnal passions ...
and the hope of the resurrection ... enable us to fight the good fight, to
accomplish the course of the Fast, to preserve inviolate the Faith ... to be
accounted victors over sin ... and uncondemned, to attain unto and to adore Thy
Holy Resurrection...
The evening reception of Communion is fulfilled after
a day of prayer and fasting, with the total abstinence from food and drink at
least from the early morning hours of the day - not an easy task.
The Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts is one of the
great masterpieces of Orthodox piety and liturgical creativity. It reveals the
central Christian doctrine and experience in its form and content; namely that
our life must be spent in prayer and fasting in order to be in communion with
Christ who will come like 'a thief in the night'. It tells us that all of our
life, and not only on fast periods, is completed with the Presence of the
Victorious Christ who is risen from the dead. It witnesses to the fact that
Christ will come at the end of the ages to judge the living and the dead, and
to establish God's Kingdom "of which there will be no end". It tells
us that we must be ready for His arrival, and to be found watching and serving;
in order to be worthy to "enter into the joy of the Lord".
The Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts is one of the
most beautiful and meaningful liturgies in the Orthodox Christian Church.
Adapted
from Fr Thomas Hopko's Orthodox Church in America
and Fr
Nicholas M. Elias's Greek Orthodox Church, Athens
Source:
http://www.orthodoxchristian.info/pages/Gifts.htm
The most important thing to know about the Great Canon
The Great Canon was written by a holy man to teach
himself the right way to live. We cannot benefit from it unless we make it a
priority to stand in prayer, in the church, and listen to it, with a great
desire and expectation for God’s grace to teach us and heal us. Our theology is
first and foremost – experienced and prayed, and not only “studied”.
Source: http://www.orthodox.net/greatlent/great-canon-of-andrew-of-crete-explanation.html
The Text of the Great Canon of St. Andrew of Crete for Monday
Source: http://www.pravoslavie.ru/docs/greatcanon_sts-8a99f6.pdf
General Themes of The Great Canon of St Andrew of Crete
Where shall I begin to lament the deeds of my wretched life? What
first-fruit shall I offer, O Christ, for my present lamentation? But in Thy
compassion grant me release from my fallsMon:1.1
Come, wretched soul, with your flesh, confess to the Creator of all. In the
future refrain from you former brutishness, and offer to God tears of
repentanceMon:1.2
The end is
drawing near, my soul, is drawing near! But you neither care nor prepare. The
time is growing short. Rise! The Judge is at the very doors. Like a dream, like
a flower, the time of this life passes. Why do we bustle about in vain? Mon:4.2
Thou art the Good Shepherd; seek me, Thy lamb, and neglect no me who have
gone astray Mon:3.5
Do not be a pillar of salt, my soul, by turning back; but let the example
of the Sodomites frighten you, and take refuge up in Zoar.(Genesis 19:26)
Thu Ode 3:5
I have reviewed all the people of the Old Testament as examples for you, my soul. Imitate the God-loving deeds of the righteous and shun the sins of the wicked.Tue Ode 8
Source: http://www.orthodox.net/greatlent/great-canon-of-andrew-of-crete-explanation.html
The Great Fast: Not being a stranger to ascetical discipline
Monday marks
the beginning of Great Lent in the Orthodox Church (which liturgically begins
at Forgiveness Vespers on Sunday). Though Great Lent is kept with rigor in
Orthodox Tradition, there is nothing unusual asked of believers – nothing that
we do not do on many days throughout the rest of the year. We fast; we pray; we
give alms; we attend services, etc. But we do these with greater intensity and
frequency during the Great Fast (the more universal name of the season). As
preparation for the feast of Pascha, the “feast of feasts,” all of these
disciplines drive the point of the Christian faith further and deeper.
Much of
modern Christianity lives as a stranger to ascetical discipline. Few Christians
fast, and the fasting of many others has forgotten the traditions of earlier
generations. Various historical factors have turned the Christian life into a
set of beliefs rather than a way of life. Monasticism seems exotic to many.
There is
nothing exotic about asceticism. The New Testament assumes fasting and similar
activities as normative for the Christian life. The Pharisees observed that the
disciples of Jesus did not fast. When Christ was asked about this omission
(something that seemed entirely unusual in the Judaism of the time), He
responded:
Can the
friends of the bridegroom mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? But the
days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they
will fast (Matt. 9:15).
The days
in which “the bridegroom is taken away” are the days in which we live. Fasting
is normative. Fasting is part of the practice of continual repentance – the
proper attitude of the Christian heart. Repentance is not a single action taken
in response to having done something wrong – repentance is a state of the heart
– the state of brokenness and contrition:
A broken
and contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise (Psalm 51).
To a
large extent – this is the goal of the Christian way of life – to cultivate a
heart of repentance. King David is called “a man after God’s own heart,” not
because he was without sin (he was an adulterer and a murderer). He was a man
after God’s own heart because when confronted with his sin – his heart is
broken. He makes no defense and offers no excuse.
St. Paul
offers this admonition:
I appeal
to you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a
living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.
Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your
mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable
and perfect. For by the grace given to me I bid every one among you not to
think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober
judgment, each according to the measure of faith which God has assigned him
(Romans 12:1-3).
No other
single passage, it seems to me, manages to gather as many aspects of the Lenten
life (and thus daily life at all times). Our bodies become “a living
sacrifice.” I can only wonder which sacrifice St. Paul had in mind (there were
many different ones in the Old Testament). Or it may be that the sacrifice of Christ
is now the dominant image for him. But our bodies, now “crucified” with Christ
are offered up in what St. Paul calls our
“spiritual worship” logike latrein.
To offer
our bodies as a sacrifice, through fasting and prayer, is itself lifted up to
the level of worship, and interestingly our logike worship (“spiritual” is
perhaps a more accurate translation than “reasonable” as some render it –
though it would also be quite accurate to translate it as “natural” or “the
worship that is proper to us as human beings”). It is a struggle to fast, to
present our bodies as a “living” sacrifice. This is so much more than a “one
time” offering: it stretches through the days and nights of this great season.
St. Paul
then admonishes us not to be conformed to the world but to be transformed by
the renewal of our mind (nous) which could easily be rendered “heart.” Fr. John
Behr describes the passions, in his The Mystery of Christ, as “false
perceptions,” our own misunderstanding of the body and its natural desires. Thus
renewing our minds is an inner change in the perception of our selves and our
desires, or in the words of St. Irenaeus (quoted frequently by Behr) “the true
understanding of things as they are, that is, of God and of human beings.”
I find it
of great importance, that St. Paul concludes this small admonition by pointing
us towards humility (as he does as well in Philippians 2). It is in embracing
the cross of Christ, in emptying ourselves towards God and towards others that
our true self is to be found and that our minds are renewed. We cannot look
within ourselves to find our true selves. “For he who seeks to save his life
will lose it.” Rather the true self is found when we turn to the other and pour
ourselves out towards them. We find ourselves by losing ourselves in the
beloved. This is the love that makes all things possible for us.
The Fast,
like all things in the gospel, is ultimately an act of love. It is an act of
love for it is a training in the sacrifice of self. Having denied ourselves in
such small things (such as abstaining from various foods and drink), we learn
to deny ourselves in much larger things – such as pride and anger, self-love
and envy. By God’s grace such efforts are molded into the image of Christ – who
Himself began His ministry with a fast of 40 days – and this for love.
By Fr. Stephen Freeman
Source: https://blogs.ancientfaith.com/glory2godforallthings/2010/02/15/the-great-fast/
What St. Elisabeth Convent has to say about Great Lent
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