'A Spiritual Question'

 

Dear Parish Faithful & Friends in Christ,

 

GREAT LENT: The Thirty-Second Day

 

"Bread for myself is a material question; bread for my neighbor is a spiritual question."

- Nicholas Berdyaev

 

Those of us who are not poor or who do not interact with poor people with any kind of daily regularity, most likely fail to understand the generational "net of poverty" that is do difficult to extricate oneself from. 

I raise the issue this morning, because we received the latest issue of the St. Nicholas Uganda Children's Fund Newsletter. Our parish has been supporting this excellent ministry for some years now; a ministry organized and administered by Peter and Sharon Georges. I know that some of you are also individual supporters of this Uganda ministry. 

 

Peter and Sharon with a group of Ugandan students

I would like to share a simple paragraph from this latest newsletter that captures the plight of the poor and the barriers that poverty makes so hard to overcome. The paragraph has the situation in Uganda primarily in mind, but this is clearly a universal problem that is just as real in America:

 

The cycle of poverty, or poverty's trap, is a spiraling mechanism that is so binding in itself that it doesn't allow poor people to escape it. It is not merely the absence of economic means. It is created due to a variety of factors, including lack of quality education, insufficient healthcare, and poor infrastructure.

Impoverished individuals and families do not have access to the economic, educational, and social resources that would enable them to get out of poverty. The result is that the poor remain poor throughout their lives. In Uganda, where no schooling is free, parents are unable to provide what their children need to succeed academically - tuition, books, school uniforms, shoes - nor can they afford adequate healthcare.

The poverty trap leads to generational poverty.

 

We have an entire page dedicated to the St. Nicolas Children's Fund on our parish website:

https://www.christthesavioroca.org/stnicholasugandachildrensfund

As a footnote to add from the newsletter: In a country of 47,000,000 the current number of infected people stands at 175. Rather remarkable!

 

Saturday Evening Vespers and Christian Martyria

Dear Parish Faithful,


CHRIST IS RISEN!
INDEED HE IS RISEN!

"O Gladsome Light of the holy glory..."

Continuing a series of short meditations based upon Bp. Paul's talk on the content and shape of a contemporary Christian martyria (meaning witness), I would like to apply it to the Saturday evening service of Great Vespers.

Actually, the first topic that Bp. Paul addressed to those of us present last Saturday evening following the service, was the missionary content of the Great Vespers service, a real point of contact and a potential source of  appeal to an inquirer or non-Orthodox visitor to the church. 

In fact, His Grace shared his opinion that Great Vespers is the best introductory service to such an inquirer/visitor.  Its compactness has something to do with this, but he stressed primarily the content of the service.  This service proclaims the Gospel - it is "evangelical" - because it proclaims the Crucified and Risen Lord. This could be an element of strong appeal to a visitor hungering for the truth of the Gospel.

However, first and foremost, the service of Great Vespers on Saturday evening is for the members of the Church!  

Saturday evening Great Vespers is a splendid proclamation of the Death and Resurrection of Christ at the heart of the service.  Meaning that in addition to the basic structure of the service which remains the same, the hymnography (called stichera and aposticha) is devoted to glorifying the Crucified and Risen Lord.

Great Vespers not only prepares us for the Lord's Day on Sunday - the Day of Resurrection in our weekly liturgical cycle - but we actually enter into the Lord's Day at the service on Saturday evening. As it is written in the Scriptures:  "And there was evening and there was morning, a second day" (GEN. 1:8).  Liturgically, therefore, Sunday begins during the service on Saturday evening, following the biblical reckoning of time. Returning to the theme of the Death and Resurrection of Christ, a random selection from the eight tones will eloquently make the point:

We stand before Thy life-bearing tomb unworthily, O Christ God,
Offering glory to Thine unspeakable tenderness of heart.
Thou hast accepted the cross and death, O sinless One,
To grant resurrection to the world, as the Lover of man.   

—Saturday Vespers, Stichera, Tone 1

Descending from heaven to ascend  the cross,
The eternal Life has come for death -
To raise those who have fallen;
To enlighten those in darkness!
O Jesus, our Savior and Illuminator, glory to Thee!

—Saturday Vespers, Aposticha, Tone 8

As one of the expressions of an Orthodox Christian martyria in the contemporary world mentioned by Bp. Paul, we can leave the cares and attractions surrounding us, enter into the prayerful atmosphere of the church, and praise the Crucified and Risen Lord on Saturday evening as we prepare for the Lord's Day. At least, with some kind of pattern or regularity. This is our witness that the life of the Church comes first in our lives.

Certainly this is a "little cross!"  And it should be a "joyous cross" that we assume lightly and gladly.  We are, after all, according to St. John the Evangelist, "children of God!" 

I am not trying to twist anyone's arm, and I do not work through "guilting" anyone into anything.  I am simply trying to raise parish awareness of an integral part of our parish life and the liturgical cycle at the heart of our communal worship. And I have been doing this for years. In this way, we can grow beyond the usual (and to this day relatively small) "Vespers crowd" as our personal and communal martyria to the secular world's indifference toward Christ.  My appeal is to make the martyria concrete and practical in its effect. I believe this was Bp. Paul's point.

The Great Feast of Pentecost is approaching. Plan to be present at the Great Vespers of that Feast and celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit - the "Heavenly King, the Comforter, the Spirit of Truth, Who is everywhere and fillest all things."  This is "the last day of the feast, the great day" (JN. 7:37), meaning the fulfillment of the paschal mystery.

Let that be a beginning, a starting point for expanding your participation in the liturgical life of the Church by integrating the Lord's Day cycle into your life as an event to be anticipated and embraced with regularity.  Allow the Bible Study, the great Feasts and Saturday evening Great Vespers to assume a place in your lives that manifests the modest Christian martyria that nevertheless reveals a great deal about our life in the Church.