This is my wife and I's first Pascha in the Orthodox church. We are now officially catechumens and, God willing, will be received into the Church this year at Pascha.
I have always loved the Vespers services for the very reasons you mention - more intimate, less of a crowd, candlelight, and all that goes with it. This week we are doing the Great Canon split into four evenings, with the small compline at the end of each evening. My legs are sore!
Tonight (Wednesday) is part three of the Great Canon, followed by the Presanctified Liturgy. It will be a long service.
I cannot wait to partake of my first true Eucharist. It seems like I've been waiting a long time! But it will be here soon, glory to God!
Thank you such a beautiful description. I wish there was a church near me to experience this. Closest in feeling and aesthetic is a Benedictine monastery. Hard(at this age) to drive over an hr to get to an Orthodox church.
I am the cantor at a little Orthodox mission parish in northern Alberta. We've been meeting and praying together for five years. I read your book "At the Corner of East and now" back in 2007, but there were no Orthodox churches near us, and we put it on the backburner. We found a Ukrainian Catholic church, but realized it wasn't *exactly* Orthodox, and in 2020 in the midst of covid drove 5 hours in a blizzard to be baptized.
It's been years of piecing together yearly itineraries of visiting priests, adjusting to different jurisdictions, booking hotels, learning music, starting a choir, all with advice from priests over the phone or over burgers before Divine Liturgy the next day.
This year we had given up on having Pascha, after two sweet years of hosting a priest who was willing to spend at least a few days prior to the Feast of Feasts with us. This year there was no one.
Until almost two weeks ago - we got a call, and a priest and his wife and children is heading our way "for a few months". Weekly services. We are so afraid to hope, and so ready to not be so responsible, even if it is only a few months.
Last night, instead of Akathist, we decided to do the Compline with the Canon of St Andrew. Choir practice ended, most had to go home (it is approaching blizzard levels of snow here right now).
My daughter and her husband and plump baby were talking with the girl who runs our little bookstore as i plunged into the text, knowing i had a 40 minute drive home at the end. As i chanted, chatter calmed down and more people slipped up the stairs into our church space. My son in law took a turn chanting while my daughter and i made a small choir.
I looked and saw two young men, and motioned to the stand, and they each took turns when it came to the psalms.
I quietly asked Max to turn out the lights and turn on the candleabra. He did, then lit a few candles. My husband slipped in, done work.
A few old friends joined the group. The prostrations were a surprise after so long with our standard reader's services and akathists, but as we prayed, we softened.
I know Lent started on Monday, but it felt like it only started after Compline.
Thank you.
This is my wife and I's first Pascha in the Orthodox church. We are now officially catechumens and, God willing, will be received into the Church this year at Pascha.
I have always loved the Vespers services for the very reasons you mention - more intimate, less of a crowd, candlelight, and all that goes with it. This week we are doing the Great Canon split into four evenings, with the small compline at the end of each evening. My legs are sore!
Tonight (Wednesday) is part three of the Great Canon, followed by the Presanctified Liturgy. It will be a long service.
I cannot wait to partake of my first true Eucharist. It seems like I've been waiting a long time! But it will be here soon, glory to God!
I highly recommend your book The First Fruits of Prayer - A forty-day journey through the canon of St. Andrew.
Thank you such a beautiful description. I wish there was a church near me to experience this. Closest in feeling and aesthetic is a Benedictine monastery. Hard(at this age) to drive over an hr to get to an Orthodox church.
"I find it’s dairy that I miss the most in Lent."
Yes, my very first Pascha, the thing I wanted most in my Pascha basket and which I ate first was some Frosted Mini Wheats with MILK over it.
Thank you – this is beautiful. As a Protestant – albeit a very Orthodox-curious one – I love compline.
I am the cantor at a little Orthodox mission parish in northern Alberta. We've been meeting and praying together for five years. I read your book "At the Corner of East and now" back in 2007, but there were no Orthodox churches near us, and we put it on the backburner. We found a Ukrainian Catholic church, but realized it wasn't *exactly* Orthodox, and in 2020 in the midst of covid drove 5 hours in a blizzard to be baptized.
It's been years of piecing together yearly itineraries of visiting priests, adjusting to different jurisdictions, booking hotels, learning music, starting a choir, all with advice from priests over the phone or over burgers before Divine Liturgy the next day.
This year we had given up on having Pascha, after two sweet years of hosting a priest who was willing to spend at least a few days prior to the Feast of Feasts with us. This year there was no one.
Until almost two weeks ago - we got a call, and a priest and his wife and children is heading our way "for a few months". Weekly services. We are so afraid to hope, and so ready to not be so responsible, even if it is only a few months.
Last night, instead of Akathist, we decided to do the Compline with the Canon of St Andrew. Choir practice ended, most had to go home (it is approaching blizzard levels of snow here right now).
My daughter and her husband and plump baby were talking with the girl who runs our little bookstore as i plunged into the text, knowing i had a 40 minute drive home at the end. As i chanted, chatter calmed down and more people slipped up the stairs into our church space. My son in law took a turn chanting while my daughter and i made a small choir.
I looked and saw two young men, and motioned to the stand, and they each took turns when it came to the psalms.
I quietly asked Max to turn out the lights and turn on the candleabra. He did, then lit a few candles. My husband slipped in, done work.
A few old friends joined the group. The prostrations were a surprise after so long with our standard reader's services and akathists, but as we prayed, we softened.
I know Lent started on Monday, but it felt like it only started after Compline.