+JMJ+
“It is fitting and right to call you blessed, O Theotokos: you are ever-blessed and all-blameless and the Mother of our God. Higher in honor than the Cherubim and more glorious without compare than the Seraphim, you gave birth to God the Word in virginity. You are truly Mother of God : you do we exalt.”
Please post any uses, history and other information about this wonderful prayer!
One tradition associated with this prayer is the making of a bow or prostration to the floor after reciting or singing it.
The Old Believer Orthodox and Eastern Catholics say this prayer regularly with their “Entrance and Departure Bows” whenever they enter or leave a Christian home or a Church (this practice is so reverential and meaningful that all Christians can and should adopt it, in my humble view!).
I knew a Greek-Catholic priest who, whenever he entered our home, wouldn’t even say “hello” to us before he went to our icons to make his prayers there first.
One can have a small icon somewhere in the foyer before which one may perform these bows.
One makes the Sign of the Cross three times with the Prayer of the Publican and then recites the above prayer to the Most Holy Theotokos, at the end of which one makes a prostration to the floor (but a bow from the waist on Sundays and during the holy 50 days from Easter to Pentecost.
One then gets up and makes a further three bows to “Glory be to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit” (+ bow) and then the rest of the Doxology with another + bow after the “Amen.” Then another bow after "Lord have mercy (2 or 3 times - the Old Rite does two only), Lord Bless (+ bow).
Then the final dismissal:
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, by the prayers of Thy Most Pure Mother, of Saint (your name-saint, followed, if you wish by the Saints of the day) of my Holy Guardian Angel and all Thy Saints, have mercy on me and save me, for Thou art Good and the Lover of Mankind. Amen (+bow or prostration).
These prayers are said before and after entering a Church or Christian home, including our own. After these prayers, we then greet others with: "May Christ save and protect you and your family! With the Feast of (name the Feastday if it is on such that you are visiting), we greet you! (The Old Believers have a very highly developed sense of social mores coupled with deep piety - after dinner, for example, and during the after-dinner prayers, one person says “Lord have mercy” 12 times slowly while everyone else forms a line to approach the person who prepared the dinner to thank them by kissing them three times on the sides of the face . . .).
Just as it is customary for Latin Catholics to bow or genuflect during the Angelus or the Nicene Creed when the Incarnation of OLGS Jesus Christ is mentioned, so do Eastern Christians bow or genuflect to the Most Holy Theotokos after this beautiful prayer, revealed by Heaven itself.
Alex
