Holy Saturday

The first service belonging to Holy Saturday — called in the Church the Blessed Sabbath — is the Vespers of Good Friday. It is usually celebrated in the mid-afternoon to commemorate the burial of Jesus.

Before the service begins, a “tomb” is erected in the middle of the church building and is decorated with flowers. Also a special icon which is painted on cloth (in Greek, epitaphios; in Slavonic, plaschanitsa) depicting the dead Saviour is placed on the altar table. In English this icon is often called the winding-sheet.

Vespers begin as usual with hymns about the suffering and death of Christ. After the entrance with the Gospel Book and the singing of Gladsome Light, selections from Exodus, Job, and Isaiah 52 are read. An epistle reading from First Corinthians (1:18-31) is added, and the Gospel is read once more with selections from each of the four accounts of Christ’s crucifixion and burial. The prokeimena and alleluia verses are psalm lines, heard often already in the Good Friday services, prophetic in their meaning:

They divided my garments among them and for my raiment they cast lots (Psalm 22:18).

My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me (Ps 22:1).

Thou hast put me in the depths of the Pit, in the regions dark and deep (Ps 88:6).

After more hymns glorifying the death of Christ, while the choir sings the dismissal song of St Simeon, the priest vests fully in his dark-colored robes and incenses the winding-sheet which still lies upon the altar table. Then, after the Our Father, while the people sing the troparion of the day, the priest circles the altar table with the winding-sheet carried above his head and places it into the tomb for veneration by the faithful.

The noble Joseph, when he had taken down Thy most pure body from the Tree, wrapped it in fine linen and anointed it with spices, and placed it in a new tomb (Troparion of Holy Saturday).

The Matins of Holy Saturday are usually celebrated on Friday night. They begin in the normal way with the singing of God is the Lord, the troparion The Noble Joseph, and the following troparia:

When Thou didst descend to death 0 Life Immortal, Thou didst slay hell with the splendor of Thy Godhead! And when from the depths Thou didst raise the dead, all the powers of heaven cried out: O Giver of Life! Christ our God! Glory to Thee!

The angel standing by the grave cried out to the women: Myrrh is proper for the dead, but Christ has shown himself a stranger to corruption.

In place of the regular psalm reading the entire Psalm 119 is read with a verse praising the dead Saviour chanted between each of its lines. This particular psalm is the verbal icon of Jesus, the righteous man whose life is in the hands of God and who, therefore, cannot remain dead. The Praises, as the verses are called, glorify God as “the Resurrection and the Life,” and marvel at his humble condescension into death.

There is in the person of Jesus Christ the perfect unification of the perfect love of man toward God and the perfect love of God toward man. It is this divine human love which is contemplated and praised over the tomb of the Savior. As the reading progresses the Praises become shorter, and gradually more concentrated on the final victory of the Lord, thus coming to their proper conclusion:

I long for Thy salvation, 0 Lord, Thy law is my delight (Ps 119:174).

The mind is affrighted at Thy dread and strange burial.

Let me live, that I may praise Thee, and let Thy ordinances help me (119:175).

The women with spices came early at dawn to anoint Thee.

I have gone astray like a lost sheep, seek Thy servant, for I do not forget Thy commandments (119:176).

By Thy resurrection grant peace to the Church and salvation to Thy people!

After the final glorification of the Trinity, the church building is lighted and the first announcement of the women coming to the tomb resounds through the congregation as the celebrant censes the entire church. Here for the first time comes the clear proclamation of the good news of salvation in Christ’s resurrection.

The canon song of Matins continues to praise Christ’s victory over death by his own death, and uses each of the Old Testamental canticles as a prefigurative image of man’s final salvation through Jesus. Here for the first time there emerges the indication that this Sabbath this particular Saturday on which Christ lay dead — is truly the most blessed seventh day that ever existed. This is the day when Christ rests from his work of recreating the world. This is the day when the Word of God “through whom all things were made” (Jn 1:3) rests as a dead man in the grave, saving the world of his own creation and opening the graves:

This is the most blessed Sabbath on which Christ sleeps, but to rise again on the third day (Kontakion and Oikos).

Again, the canon ends on the final note of the victory of Christ.

Lament not for me, Mother, beholding me in the grave, the son whom you have born in seedless conception, for I will arise and be glorified, and will exalt with glory, unceasingly as God, all those who with faith and love glorify you (Ninth Ode of the Canon).

As more verses of praise are sung, the celebrant again vests fully in his somber vestments and, as the great doxology is chanted, he once more censes the tomb of the Savior. Then, while the congregation with lighted candles continually repeats the song of the Thrice Holy, the faithful — led by their pastor carrying the Gospel Book with the winding-sheet of Christ held over his head — go in procession around the outside of the church building. This procession bears witness to the total victory of Christ over the powers of darkness and death. The whole universe is cleansed, redeemed and re stored by the entrance of the Life of the World into death.

As the procession returns to the church building, the troparia are sung once again, and the prophecy of Ezekiel about the “dry bones” of Israel is chanted with great solemnity:

And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, 0 my people. And I will put my spirit within you and you shall live. … (Ezek 37:1-14).

With the victorious lines of the psalms calling God to arise, to lift up his hands, to scatter his enemies and to let the righteous rejoice; and with the repeated singing of Alleluia, the letter of the Apostle Paul to the Corinthians is read: “Christ our paschal lamb has been sacrificed” (1 Cor 5:6-8). The Gospel about the sealing of the tomb is read once more, and the service is ended with intercession and benediction.

The Vespers and Matins of the Blessed Sabbath, together with the Divine Liturgy which follows, form a masterpiece of the Orthodox liturgical tradition. These services are not at all a dramatic re-enactment of the historical death and burial of Christ. Neither are they a kind of ritual reproduction of scenes of the Gospel. They are, rather, the deepest spiritual and liturgical penetration into the eternal meaning of the saving events of Christ, viewed and praised already with the full knowledge of their divine significance and power.

The Church does not pretend, as it were, that it does not know what will happen with the crucified Jesus. It does not sorrow and mourn over the Lord as if the Church itself were not the very creation which has been produced from his wounded sides and from the depths of his tomb. All through the services the victory of Christ is contemplated and the resurrection is proclaimed. For it is indeed only in the light of the victorious resurrection that the deepest divine and eternal meaning of the events of Christ’s passion and death can be genuinely grasped, adequately appreciated and properly glorified and praised.

On Holy Saturday itself, Vespers are served with the Divine Liturgy of St Basil the Great. This service already belongs to the Passover Sunday. It begins in the normal way with the evening psalm, the litany, the hymns following the evening Psalm 141 and the entrance with the singing of the vesperal hymn, Gladsome Light. The celebrant stands at the tomb in which lies the winding-sheet with the image of the Savior in the sleep of death.

Following the evening entrance which is made with the Book of the Gospels, fifteen readings from the Old Testament scriptures are read, all of which relate to God’s work of creation and salvation which has been summed up and fulfilled in the coming of the predicted Messiah. Besides the readings in Genesis about creation, and the passover-exodus of the Israelites in the days of Moses in Exodus, there are selections from the prophecies of Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Daniel, Zephaniah, and Jonah as well as from Joshua and the Books of Kings, the Canticles of Moses, and of the Three Youths found in Daniel are chanted as well. After the Old Testament readings the celebrant intones the normal liturgical exclamation for the singing of the Thrice-Holy Hymn, but in its place the baptismal verse from Galatians is sung: As many as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. Alleluia (Gal 3:27). As usual in the Divine Liturgy the epistle reading follows at this point. It is the normal baptismal selection of the Orthodox Church (Rom 6:3-11). If we have been united with him in a death like his we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his” (Rom 6:5).

At this time the royal gates are closed, and the celebrants and altar servers change their robes from the dark vestments of the passion into the bright vestments of Christ’s victory over death. At this time all vestings of the church appointments are also changed into the color signifying Christ’s triumph over sin, the devil and death. This revesting takes place while the people sing the verses of Psalm 82: Arise O Lord and judge the earth, for to Thee belong all the nations.

After the solemn chanting of the psalm verses, to which are often added the hymn glorifying Christ as the New Passover, the Living Sacrifice who is slain, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world; the celebrants emerge from the altar to announce over the tomb of Christ the glad tidings of his victorious triumph over death and his command to the apostles: “Make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded. …” (Mt 28:1.20). This Gospel text is also the reading of the baptismal ceremony of the Orthodox Church.

The Divine Liturgy then continues in the brilliance of Christ’s destruction of death. The following song replaces the Cherubic Hymn of the offertory:

Let all mortal flesh keep silent and in fear and trembling stand, pondering nothing earthly-minded. For the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords comes to be slain, to give himself as food to the faithful.

Before him go the ranks of angels: all the principalities and powers, the many-eyed cherubim and the six-winged seraphim, covering their faces, singing the hymn: Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!

In place of the Hymn to the Theotokos, the ninth ode of the matinal canon is sung once again: “Lament not for me, Mother … for I will arise” (see above). The communion hymn is the line of the psalm: The Lord awoke as one asleep, and arose saving us (Ps 78:65)

The Divine Liturgy is fulfilled in the communion with him who lies dead in his human body, and yet is enthroned eternally with God the Father; the one who, as the Creator and Life of the World, destroys death by his lifeÄcreating death. His tomb — which still stands in the center of the church — is shown to be, as the Liturgy calls it: the fountain of our resurrection.

Originally this Liturgy was the Easter baptismal liturgy of Christians. It remains today as the annual experience for every Christian of his own dying and rising with the Lord.

But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him. For we know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him (Rom 6:8-9).

Christ lies dead, yet he is alive. He is in the tomb, but already he is “trampling down death by death, and upon those in the tombs bestowing life.” There is nothing more to do now but to live through the evening of the Blessed Sabbath on which Christ sleeps, awaiting the midnight hour when the Day of our Lord will begin to dawn upon us, and the night full of light will come when we will proclaim with the angel: “He is risen, he is not here; see the tomb where they laid him” (Mk 16:6).

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Holy Week

In the Orthodox Church the last week of Christ’s life is officially called Passion Week. In popular terminology it is called Holy Week. Each day is designated in the service books as “great and holy.” There are special services every day of the week which are fulfilled in all churches. Earthly life ceases for the faithful as they “go up with the Lord to Jerusalem” (Matins of Great and Holy Monday).

Each day of Holy Week has its own particular theme. The theme of Monday is that of the sterile fig tree which yields no fruit and is condemned. Tuesday the accent is on the vigilance of the wise virgins who, unlike their foolish sisters, were ready when the Lord came to them. Wednesday the focus is on the fallen woman who repents. Great emphasis is made in the liturgical services to compare the woman, a sinful harlot who is saved, to Judas, a chosen apostle who is lost. The one gives her wealth to Christ and kisses his feet; the other betrays Christ for money with a kiss.

On each of these three days the Gospel is read at the Hours, as well as at the Vespers when the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts is served. The Old Testamental readings are from Exodus, Job, and the Prophets. The Gospel is also read at the Matins services which are traditionally called the “Bridegroom” services because the general theme of each of these days is the end of the world and the judgment of Christ. It is the common practice to serve the Bridegroom services at night.

Behold, the bridegroom comes in the middle of the night and blessed is the servant whom he shall find watching, and unworthy the servant whom he shall find heedless. Take care then, 0 my soul, and be not weighed down by sleep that you will not be given over unto death and be excluded from the Kingdom. But rise up and call out: Holy, Holy, Holy art T hou O God, by the Theotokos have mercy on us (Troparion of the First Three Days).

During the first three days of Holy Week, the Church prescribes that the entire Four Gospels be read at the Hours up to the point in each where the passion of Christ begins. Although this is not usually possible in parish churches, an attempt is sometimes made to read at least one complete Gospel, privately or in common, before Holy Thursday.

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Lazarus Saturday and Palm Sunday

The week following the Sunday of St Mary of Egypt is called Palm or Branch Week. At the Tuesday services of this week the Church recalls that Jesus’ friend Lazarus has died and that the Lord is going to raise him from the dead (Jn 11). As the days continue toward Saturday, the Church, in its hymns and verses, continues to follow Christ towards Bethany to the tomb of Lazarus. On Friday evening, the eve of the celebration of the Resurrection of Lazarus, the “great and saving forty days” of Great Lent are formally brought to an end:

Having accomplished the forty days for the benefit of our souls, we pray to Thee, O Lover of Man, that we may see the holy week of Thy passion, that in it we may glorify Thy greatness and Thine unspeakable plan of salvation for our sake. … (Vesper Hymn)

Lazarus Saturday is a paschal celebration. It is the only time in the entire Church Year that the resurrectional service of Sunday is celebrated on another day. At the liturgy of Lazarus Saturday, the Church glorifies Christ as “the Resurrection and the Life” who, by raising Lazarus, has confirmed the universal resurrection of mankind even before his own suffering and death.

By raising Lazarus from the dead before Thy passion, Thou didst confirm the universal resurrection, 0 Christ God! Like the children with the branches of victory, we cry out to Thee, O Vanquisher of Death: Hosanna in the highest! Blessed is he that comes in the name of the Lord! (Troparion).

Christ –the Joy, the Truth and the Light of All, the Life of the world and its Resurrection — has appeared in his goodness to those on earth. He has become the Image of our Resurrection, granting divine forgiveness to all (Kontakion).

At the Divine Liturgy of Lazarus Saturday the baptismal verse from Galatians: As many as have been baptizedl into Christ have put on Christ (Gal 3:27) replaces the Thrice-holy Hymn thus indicating the resurrectional character of the celebration, and the fact that Lazarus Saturday was once among the few great baptismal days in the Orthodox Church Year. Because of the resurrection of Lazarus from the dead, Christ was hailed by the masses as the long-expected Messiah-King of Israel. Thus, in fulfillment of the prophecies of the Old Testament, he entered Jenrsalem, the City of the King, riding on the colt of an ass (Zech 9:9; Jn 12:12). The crowds greeted him with brancfies in their hands and called out to him with shouts of praise: Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! The Son of David! The King of Israel! Because of this glorification by the people, the priests and scribes were finally driven “to destroy him, to put him to death” (Lk 19:47; Jn 11:53, 12:10).

The feast of Christ’s triumphal Entry into Jerusalem, Palm Sunday, is one of the twelve major feasts of the Church. The services of this Sunday follow directly from those of Lazarus Saturday. The church building continues to be Vested in resurrectional splendor, filled with hymns which continually repeat the Hosanna offered to Christ as the Messiah-King who comes in the name of God the Father for the salvation of the world.

The main troparion of Palm Sunday is the same one sung on Lazarus Saturday. It is sung at all of the services, and is used at the Divine Liturgy as the third antiphon which follows the other special psalm verses which are sung as the liturgical antiphons in the place of those normally used. The second troparion of the feast, as well as the kontakion and the other verses and hymns, all continue to glorilfy Christ s triumphal manifestation “six days before the Passover” when he will give himself at the Supper and on the Cross for the life of the world.

Today the grace of the Holy Spirit has gathered us together. Let us all take up Thy cross and say: Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest! (First Verse of Vespers).

when we were buried with Thee in baptism, 0 Christ God, we were made worthy of eternal life by Thy resurrection. Now we praise Thee and sing: Hosanna in the highest! Blessed is he that comes in the name of the Lord! (Second Troparion).

Sitting on Thy throne in heaven, and carried on a foal on earth, 0 Christ God, accept the praise of angels and the songs of children who sing: BIessed is he who comes to recall Adam! (Kontakion).

At the vigil of the feast of Palm Sunday the prophecies of the Old Testament about the Messiah-King are read together with the Gospel accounts of the entry of Christ into Jerusalem. At Matins branches are blessed which the people carry throughout the celebration as the sign of their own glorification of Jesus as Saviour and King. These branches are usually palms, or, in the Slavic churches, pussy willows which came to be customary because of their availability and their early blossoming in the springtime.

As the people carry their branches and sing their songs to the Lord on Palm Sunday, they are judged together with the Jerusalem crowd. For it was the very same voices which cried Hosanna to Christ, which, a few days later, cried Crucify him! Thus in the liturgy of the Church the lives of men continue to be judged as they hail Christ with the “branches of victory” and enter together with him into the days of his “voluntary passion.”

http://www.oca.org/OCchapter.asp?SID=2&ID=71

I walk the front lawn, pretending
to be weeding. You ought to know
I’m never weeding, on my knees, pulling
clumps of clover from the flower beds: in fact
I’m looking for courage, for some evidence
my life will change, though
it takes forever, checking
each clump for the symbolic
leaf, and soon the summer is ending, already
the leaves turning, always the sick trees
going first, the dying turning
brilliant yellow, while a few dark birds perform
their curfew of music. You want to see my hands?
As empty now as at the first note.
Or was the point always
to continue without a sign

Louise Glück, 1992

>> [ Vespri

Vuoi sapere come passo il tempo?
Cammino sul prato davanti, fingendo
d’estirpare erbacce. Dovresti sapere
che non lo faccio mai, in ginocchio, mentre strappo
mucchi d’erba dal letto di fiori: in realtà
sto cercando il coraggio, qualche prova
che la mia vita cambierà, anche se
ci vuole un’eternità a cercare in
tutti i mucchi il simbolico
trifoglio, e l’estate finisce presto, già
le foglie mutano, gli alberi malati sempre
i primi ad andarsene, i morenti mutano
in giallo brillante, mentre qualche uccello scuro canta
la sua musica da coprifuoco. Vuoi vedere le mie mani?
Vuote ora come la prima nota.
O il punto era di continuare
sempre senza un segno?

trad. it. Cecilia Piantanida ]

NOTE

Louise Glück (1943 -). Nata a New York, Glück cresce a Long Island. La poetessa sviluppa un verso libero votato ad un’indagine filosofico-religiosa ed esistenziale, ancorato nella tradizione classica europea. Le poesie di Glück, mantenendo una cogente ma raffinata tensione stilistica svestita del confessionalismo più spinto e dell’intellettualismo gratuito tipico di certa poesia contemporanea, sono segnate da istanze gnomiche e immagini lapidarie che anelano a un lirismo universale dalle note grandemente evocative. Tra i suoi libri di poesia Averno (2006) finalista al National Book Award in Poetry 2006; The Seven Ages (2001); e Vita Nova (1999) vincitore del Boston Book Review’s Bingham Poetry Prize e del New Yorker’s Book Award in Poetry. Le sue altre pubblicazioni includono: Meadowlands (1996); The Wild Iris (1992), per cui la poetessa ha ricevuto il Premio Pulitzer per la Poesia 1992; Ararat (1990), e The Triumph of Achilles (1985). Nel 2008, Glück è stata selezionata per il prestigioso Wallace Stevens Award per la pratica poetica. Oggi è writer-in-residence all’Università di Yale.

]]> http://sowingseedsoforthodoxy.wordpress.com/2009/11/10/the-orthodox-faith-worship-the-daily-cycles-of-prayer-hours-compline-and-nocturne/ Tue, 10 Nov 2009 11:20:47 +0000 sowingseedsoforthodoxy http://sowingseedsoforthodoxy.wordpress.com/2009/11/10/the-orthodox-faith-worship-the-daily-cycles-of-prayer-hours-compline-and-nocturne/

[As stated in my About, I want to tell the world about the Orthodox faith. Up to this point, my blogs have somewhat unorganized to do that. Now God has given me a more coorinated way to do that. I will be sharing articles from the Orthodox Faith.

This will be a long series, but I trust it will be profitable to you in learning about the Orthodox faith. From time to time, I will also provide addition blogs of interest.  - Herman Art]

Hours, Compline and Nocturne

[As stated in my About, I want to tell the world about the Orthodox faith. Up to this point, my blogs have somewhat unorganized to do that. Now God has given me a more coorinated way to do that. I will be sharing articles from the Orthodox Faith.

This will be a long series, but I trust it will be profitable to you in learning about the Orthodox faith. From time to time, I will also provide addition blogs of interest.  - Herman Art]

Matins

The morning service of the Church is called Matins. It opens with the reading of six morning psalms and the intoning of the Great Litany. After this, verses of Psalm 118 are sung:

God is the Lord and has revealed himself unto us.
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

The Troparion is then sung and, if it be a monastery, various groups of psalms which differ each day are read. Once again there are hymns on the theme of the particular day. On major feast days, special praises and psalms are sung, which on the Lord’s Day sing of Christ’s resurrection from the dead. On major feasts and on Sundays, the Gospel is also read.

After the Gospel there is a long intercessory prayer followed by a set of hymns and readings called the Canon. These songs are based on the Old Testamental canticles and conclude with the song of Mary, the so-called Magnificat (Lk 1:46-55). The Great Doxology is chanted followed by the morning litanies. The troparion is also repeated once again before the congregation is dismissed to begin the activities of the day.

The Matins service of the Church unites the elements of morning psalmody and prayer with meditation on the Biblical canticles, the Gospel reading, and the particular theme of the day in the given verses and hymns. The themes of God’s revelation and light are also always central to the morning service of the Church. Sometimes, particularly in churches of the Russian tradition, the matins and the vesper services are combined to form a long vigil service. On special feast days, the blessing of bread, wheat, wine, and oil is added to the Vespers, even when it is served separately from Matins. The faithful partake of the blessed fold and are anointed with the oil as a sign of God’s mercy and grace.

http://www.oca.org/OCchapter.asp?SID=2&ID=62

[As stated in my About, I want to tell the world about the Orthodox faith. Up to this point, my blogs have somewhat unorganized to do that. Now God has given me a more coorinated way to do that. I will be sharing articles from the Orthodox Faith.

This will be a long series, but I trust it will be profitable to you in learning about the Orthodox faith. From time to time, I will also provide addition blogs of interest.  - Herman Art]

Funeral

The funeral service in the Orthodox Church, although not considered as specifically sacramental, belongs among the special liturgical rites of the People of God.

We have already seen that the Church has a particular sacramental service for the consecration of human suffering, and special prayers for the departure of the soul from the body in death. When a person dies, the Church serves a special vigil over the lifeless body, called traditionally the parastasis or panikhida, both of which mean a “watch” or an “all-night vigil.”

The funeral vigil has the basic form of matins. It begins with the normal Trisagion Prayers and the chanting of Psalm 91, followed by the special Great Litany for the dead. Alleluia replaces God is the Lord, as in Great Lent, and leads into the singing of the funeral troparion.

The troparion and the kontakion of the dead, as all hymns of the funeral vigil, meditate on the tragedy of death and the mercy of God, and petition eternal life for the person who is “fallen asleep.”

Thou only Creator Who with wisdom profound mercifully orderest all things, and givest unto all that which is useful, give rest, 0 Lord, to the soul of Thy servant who has fallen asleep, for he has placed his trust in Thee, our Maker and Fashioner and our God (Troparion).

With the saints give rest, 0 Christ, to the soul of Thy servant where sickness and sorrow are no more, neither sighing, but life everlasting (Kontakion).

Psalm 119, the verbal icon of the righteous man who has total trust in God and total devotion and love for his Divine Law — the verbal icon of Jesus Christ –is chanted over the departed, with its praises and supplications for life in God. It is this same psalm which is chanted over the tomb of Christ on Great Friday.

It is the psalm which sings of the victory of righteousness and life over wickedness and death.

My soul cleaves to the dust, give me life according to Thy word. (119:25)

Turn my eyes from looking at vanities; and give me life in Thy ways. (119:37)

Behold, I long for Thy precepts; in Thy righteousness give me life. (119:40)

Thy testimonies are righteousness forever; give me understanding that I may live. (119:144)

Plead my cause, and redeem me; give me life according to Thy promise. (119:154)

This entire psalm together with the verses and prayers that go with it, the canon hymns of the service, and the special funeral songs of St John of Damascus all are a meditation on life and death. They are, in the context of the new life of the Risen Christ who reigns in the Church, a lesson of serious instruction for those who are immune to the full tragedy of sin and its “wages” which are death.

Sometimes men criticize the funeral vigil for its supposed morbidity and gloom; they say that there should be more words of resurrection and life. Yet the vigil itself is not the Church’s “final word” about death. It is simply the solemn contemplation upon death’s tragic character, its horrid reality and its power as that of sin and alienation from God. The realization of these facts, which particularly in the modern age is so strikingly absent, is the absolute condition for the full appreciation and celebration of the victorious resurrection of Christ and his gracious gift of eternal life to mankind. Without such a preparatory meditation on death, it is doubtful whether the Christian Gospel of Life can be understandable at all.

Thus it is not at all ironic that the same Saint john of Damascus who wrote the joyful canon sung by the Church on Easter Night is also the author of the Church’s songs of death, which are indeed unyielding in their gravity and uncompromising in their bluntness and realism about the inevitable fact of the final fate of fallen human existence.

What earthly sweetness remains unmixed with grief? What glory stands immutable on the earth? All things are but feeble shadows, all things are most deluding dreams, yet one moment only, and death shall supplant them all. But in the light of Thy countenance, 0 Christ, and in the sweetness of Thy beauty, give rest to him whom Thou hast chosen, for as much as Thou lovest mankind.

I weep and lament when I think upon death, and behold our beauty created in the likeness of God lying in the tomb disfigured, bereft of glory and form. 0 the marvel of it! What is this mystery concerning us? Why have we been delivered to corruption? Why have we been wedded unto death? Truly, as it is written, by the command of God Who giveth the departed rest (Funeral Hymns).

As the funeral service is now nornally served, the Beatitudes are chanted after the canon and the hymns of Saint John, with prayer verses inserted between them on behalf of the dead. The epistle reading is from First Thessalonians (4:13-17). The gospel reading is from Saint John (5:24-30). A sermon is preached and the people are dismissed after giving their “final kiss” with the singing of the final funeral song: Eternal Memory.

It has to be noted here that this song, contrary to the common understanding of it, is the supplication that God would remember the dead, for in the Bible it is God’s “eternal memory” which keeps man alive. Sheol or Hades or the Pit, the biblical realm of the dead also called Abaddon, is the condition of forsakenness and forgottenness by God. It is the situation of non-life since in such a condition no one can praise the Lord; and the praise of the Lord is the only content and purpose of man’s life; it is the very reason for his existence. Thus, this most famous and final of the Orthodox funeral hymns is the prayer that the departed be eternally alive in the “eternal rest” of the “eternal memory” of God — all of which is made possible and actual by the resurrection of Jesus Christ which is the destruction of the Pit of Death by the splendor of Divine Righteousness and Life (see Ps 88; Hos 13:14; 1 Cori 15; Eph 4:9; Phil 2:5-11; 1 Pet 3).

The vigil of the dead should normally be fulfilled in the eucharistic liturgy in which the faithful meet the Risen Lord, and all those who are alive in him, in the glory of his Kingdom of Life. The fact that the funeral vigil, in recent years, has lost its preparatory character and has simply been transformed into the funeral service itself, separated from the eucharistic liturgy, is a sad fact which allows neither for the proper appreciation of the vigil itself nor for the full Christian vision of the meaning of Iife, death and resurrection in Christ, the Church and the Kingdom of God.

The fact that the divine liturgy, when it is preserved with the funeral vigil, is served before it and is made into something mournful, converted into a “requiem mass” offered “on behalf of the dead,” is also an innovation of recent centuries under old Roman Catholic influence which further distorts the Christian understanding and experience of death in Christ.

http://www.oca.org/OCchapter.asp?SID=2&ID=58

Le brigadier, à deux pas de l’école. Il somnolait, appuyé à la souche d’un arbre. Visiblement, il était hors service. Une voisine s’arrêtait pour discuter, alors que son chien, à bout de laisse, faisait ses besoins sur la pelouse de la coopérative d’habitation, tout juste en face. Je m’imaginais la petite dame vêtue de son long tablier fleuri, agenouillée dans les platebandes, tirant les mauvaises herbes jusqu’à la racine, et qui, cherchant appui de sa main gauche, tombait pile sur le crottin du petit Yorkshire Terrier.

Les enfants de la garderie. Ils se suivaient à la queue leu leu, chacun son bout de ruban autour de la main. Ils piaillaient une comptine, dont une seule petite fille, à la voix suraigüe, connaissait vraiment les paroles. Au mieux, et c’est bien cela qui était amusant, les autres formaient autour d’elle un petit chœur désaccordé. Il faut avouer, par le fait même, que la supposée chef d’orchestre organisait ses directives à un tout autre but. « On arrête, les amis! La lumière est rouge! Raphaël! Tiens, voilà un mouchoir! Mouche-moi ça, ce petit nez-là, mon cœur! »

Le livreur du dépanneur du coin. C’était la première personne que je croisais ce matin. Il avait déposé, dans le grand panier de plastique sur le devant de son tricycle, une petite caisse de plastique dans laquelle s’entassaient des cartons de lait. Il m’a frôlé, sur le trottoir, sans crier gare, et moi j’ai sursauté, évidemment, malgré le vacarme qu’il produisait à son passage. J’entendais presque un faux tintement de bouteilles de verre – car, règle générale, il livrait de la bière, surtout en fin de soirée, mais aussi à toute heure du jour, et si vous ne le voyiez pas, vous l’entendiez, vous parveniez même à le situer dans l’espace, parfois quelques intersections plus loin, lorsqu’il reprenait le trottoir, et que le contenu de son panier s’entrechoquait. Même au volant de son tricycle, il avait toujours une cigarette qui lui pendouillait à la commissure des lèvres. Il s’arrêtait devant un duplex, et d’une pichenette issue d’une chorégraphie, il jetait sa cigarette sur la chaussée. Il tirait vivement sur le premier carton de lait, celui qui collait aux autres. Il s’avançait jusqu’à la porte, sonnait et revenait, sans attendre qu’elle ne s’ouvre. Enfourchant son vélo, il s’allumait une autre cigarette.