I keep seeing the above image on social media. As far as I know, given my admittedly limited knowledge of Western liturgical practice, this formulation, and the related notion of the 12 Days of Christmas, is entirely congruent with the celebration of Christmas in the Western tradition. However, many of the people I’ve seen sharing this are Byzantine-rite Eastern Orthodox Christians—and the formulation doesn’t really work in this liturgical context. Continue reading
As I noted in a previous post, last Sunday we opened the Lenten Triodion and so began the cycle of pre-Lenten Sundays that will lead us to Great Lent proper in a couple of weeks. Each week has a specific theme: last week’s was the parable of the Publican and the Pharisee, while today focused on the parable of the Prodigal Son—perhaps one of the best known passages of the New Testament. In addition to the hymnography specific to each week, there are some texts only sung at the Matins services of these pre-Lenten Sundays. Last week I discussed the special post-Gospel stichera “Open to me the doors of repentance, O Life-Giver…” We begin the other notable addition this Sunday. After the Polyeleos (Psalm 134/5 & 135/6) we sing Psalm 136/7:
Yesterday in the bookstore a conversation arose about the Royal Hours. For those who aren’t familiar with this service, it’s a special amalgamation of services from the daily office (the 1st, 3rd, 6th, and 9th hours, plus the Typika), which is served only three times a year: on Holy Friday and the Eves of Christmas and Theophany. (1) All the hours and Typika are done back-to-back, and there are some other differences in how they are served, such as the censing patterns. More obviously and importantly, there are also major differences in content in each of these Royal Hours services; they aren’t just the normal versions of the services called for in the daily office. Rather, the hours are much expanded with thematic hymnography and Scripture readings; even the selection of the Psalms forming the backbone of the services is different.
In our conversation at the bookstore, someone opined that the Royal Hours were boring. I disagree, but this perspective is understandable: it’s a long service (even the somewhat abbreviated version of Royal Hours for Theophany at the seminary took about an hour and a half, the same time as our normal Sunday Liturgy) with a lot of reading. If you’re not one of the readers, there’s not much to easily participate in; there are hymns called to be sung, but unless you’re in the choir, you likely don’t have the texts in front of you. And for many people, the structure of the service is rather unfamiliar. Much of your ability to even follow a service like this is going to depend on the quality of choir and, especially, of the readers. My own training as a reader (2) at the seminary emphasized the primary importance of making the text audible and, above all, intelligible; however, in many parishes readings are often done in ways that make it difficult to do either. Continue reading
Loving the Word 