Come, all who love to keep the feasts, come, let us form a choir!

[5Loaves]

S prazdnikom!

Come, all who love to keep the feasts, come, let us form a choir!
Come, let us crown the Church with songs, as the Ark of God goes to her
rest! For today heaven opens wide as it receives the Mother of Him Who cannot be contained. The earth, as it yields up the source of Life, is robed in blessing and
majesty. The hosts of Angels, present with the fellowship of the Apostles, gaze in great fear at her who bore the Author of life, now that she is translated from life to life. Let us all venerate and implore her: “O Lady, forget not your ties of kinship with those who keep in faith the feast of your all-holy Dormition!”

Having followed the obligation of our patrimony in the blest Forefeast of the Dormition to fast, pray, do works of mercy, seek the Holy Mystery of Penance/Confession, we behold this glorious Feast. I started to respond in another thread here, but truly I want to express the joy of the Feast free of argument.

Brother Phillip, I’m so sorry that you were/are not able to share with your community the joys of the festal services and Liturgy. May your wife and daughter be returned to health quickly, and you remain healthy. I’ll put you with my prosphoron and prayer intentions tonight when we celebrate the DL in our parish.

A friend from my Latin Church joined us last night for the Vigil at “my” Russian Orthodox parish… a glorious two hours of standing in humility and praise, of being anointed and the blessing of our flowers and herbs. It was his first time in an Eastern/Orthodox service. He’s a professional musician and was quickly singing right along which much of the prayers. We work together in the RCIA and I’m happy that he’s got a better idea of who I “am” now and who the Catholic Church is now. He is eager to go again, hopefully to DL at my parish.

I “broke the fast” with Eucharist with my Latin Parish early this morning so I’ve already had a bit of delicious dairy this morning… butter on toast… and look forward to some feasting after DL tonight at my Greek Catholic parish.

Saint Gregory PalamasYou alone carried in your womb the One in Whom is the treasury of all these gifts, and you became a miraculous habitation for Him. Now, having passed from mortality into immortality, and rightfully gone forth from earth to Heaven, into the Pre-eternal habitation to dwell with Him eternally. From that place you care for your inheritance, and with incessant supplications to Him, you move Him to mercy for all.

S prazdnikom!

 

[ciero]

S prazdnikom!

Having followed the obligation of our patrimony in the blest Forefeast of the Dormition to fast, pray, do works of mercy, seek the Holy Mystery of Penance/Confession, we behold this glorious Feast. I started to respond in another thread here, but truly I want to express the joy of the Feast free of argument.

Brother Phillip, I’m so sorry that you were/are not able to share with your community the joys of the festal services and Liturgy. May your wife and daughter be returned to health quickly, and you remain healthy. I’ll put you with my prosphoron and prayer intentions tonight when we celebrate the DL in our parish.

A friend from my Latin Church joined us last night for the Vigil at “my” Russian Orthodox parish… a glorious two hours of standing in humility and praise, of being anointed and the blessing of our flowers and herbs. It was his first time in an Eastern/Orthodox service. He’s a professional musician and was quickly singing right along which much of the prayers. We work together in the RCIA and I’m happy that he’s got a better idea of who I “am” now and who the Catholic Church is now. He is eager to go again, hopefully to DL at my parish.

I “broke the fast” with Eucharist with my Latin Parish early this morning so I’ve already had a bit of delicious dairy this morning… butter on toast… and look forward to some feasting after DL tonight.

S prazdnikom!

A Blessed Feast to you!!

 

[5Loaves]

A Blessed Feast to you!!

Got home a little over an hour ago. I’m still floating. We had three priests, four altar servers, three of whom are seminarians (Latin), and Deacon. If you could see how small our Holy Place is you’d know it must have been a challenge directing traffic back there. LOL I brought the same flowers and herbs from my garden to be blest tonight that were blest last night at the Orthodox Vigil, with a couple of additions. No one else brought anything to bless unfortunately, tho most of those there tonight were folks who only come for these non-Sunday Liturgies so they may not have known of the tradition. Our ever thoughtful deacon provided a bunch of rosemary and stock which every one could take home. I’ll bring it tomorrow for my Latin parish RCIA, just a little evangelization from the East. There were about twice the usual number of folks at the 8AM Mass there this morning. We sang “Hail Holy Queen” there which I always love-- I cannot help thinking of Sister Act whenever I hear it.

 

[HmSchlMommy]

I would like to join your choir. I have terrible pitch, so I’ll sing softly.

 

[5Loaves]

I would like to join your choir. I have terrible pitch, so I’ll sing softly.

LOL!
Hope you’re enjoying the Afterfeast of the Dormition of the Mother of God, singing with gusto.

 

[HmSchlMommy]

The fragrance of the flowers is filling our house! Father gave us all roses and we took a bouquet, too. We didn’t have any herbs this year. What kind did you take? Cleaning up the icon corner to make it as lovely as the flowers is one of the things I hope to accomplish today!

 

[5Loaves]

The fragrance of the flowers is filling our house! Father gave us all roses and we took a bouquet, too. We didn’t have any herbs this year. What kind did you take? Cleaning up the icon corner to make it as lovely as the flowers is one of the things I hope to accomplish today!

Ours smells great, too. At the OCA parish we were given basil. Boy did the temple smell great, and the car on the way home! My EC parish had stock and rosemary, both of which smelled great.

I brought my bouquet to RCIA last night and tonight at my Latin parish. A little chance to mention our EC traditions, and especially to emphasize that Monday was a major Marion feast! (The oldest Marion feast) which sadly falling on a Monday the obligation was abrogated for Latins in the US to attend Mass on the Feast and thus this great feast was apparently largely ignored there, tho there were as I mentioned about double the usual number of folks in daily Mass at my Latin parish on the Feast.

 

[Alexander_Roman]

As an Old Calendarist, I look forward to the Feast of the Dormition on the True . . .er, JU-lian Calendar on August 28th!

My friend, Fr. Bohdan Choly of Sts Cyril and Methodius UGCC in St Catharines, has, on either side of the iconostasis, shrines for TWO epitaphia, one of the Lord and one of the Mother of God.

The feast of the Dormition is a kind of “Church-wide” feast for the Ukrainian Church. All three Lavra-monasteries, in Pochaiv in the West, the Kyivan Caves Lavra in the centre and the Don Lavra in the East, are all named for the Dormition.

In Kyiv, there is a miraculous icon of the Dormition that hangs on ropes/chains above the Royal Doors and which is lowered from time to time so people may reverence it and be blessed by it (the same is true of the Pochaiv miraculous icon).

A magnificent Feast with magnififcent liturgical prayers and rites!!

May the Most Holy Theotokos intercede for us!

Alex

 

[5Loaves]

As an Old Calendarist, I look forward to the Feast of the Dormition on the True . . .er, JU-lian Calendar on August 28th!

A magnificent Feast with magnififcent liturgical prayers and rites!!

May the Most Holy Theotokos intercede for us!

Alex

Thank you! This only helps the whole glorious Feast last even longer!!!

BTW a handful of us ECs and a Coptic got together tonight at the “Twilight By the Lake” free “mixer” on the Cathedral Center of Christ the Light Plaza in nearby Oakland.

Our Coptic is on the True . . .er, JU-lian Calendar so she was fasting. I unfortunately couldn’t stop myself from moaning about how great the food was. Thankfully the next two, of three, of these free mixers on the Cathedral Plaza are fast free times on both calendars.

I’m sorry there was really nothing there for her to eat but literally a few crackers, but she came prepared for that likelihood. My Latin parish had its annual fund-raiser dinner a couple weeks ago during our fasting time and I likewise came prepared. I’m sorry she couldn’t eat anything but on the other hand she knew she was in a crowd, with us, who totally got it, and she didn’t need to do any explaining. I spend a lot of time with my dear Latin peeps and we all spend time in the secular world and they don’t really get it usually. It’s always nice to be around people who love and embrace the fasts, and can tease one another about it, too. (I had to txt her later and say that the food was really great! )

(A benefit of being on different calendars-- one of the guys was going home with her to get all her non-fasting foods. LOL)

Bishop Cordelioni got to meet all of us EC/Orthodox tonight during which time he mentioned his long friendship with Fr. Tom Loya (Light of the East radio… they were students together in Rome), and with the monks of HRM. whom I’d seen at his installation Mass, as well as a number of other EC Churches during his years in San Diego, all of which I knew about. He also mentioned, which I did not know about, that he’d gone many times when living there to Orthodox Churches. Hopefully one of these days he’ll cross the Bay to our little Bzy Cath Parish.