I’m utterly exhausted. Midnight mass didn’t finish until 1.30am and then we were back in the church for the Dawn mass at 6.00am and the Day mass at 11.00am. Now I’ve just finished eating about 20 kilos of ham, turkey and pudding at the family Christmas lunch. I need to find a bed and have a nice long digestive snooze.
Just got back from midnight matins + Divine Liturgy. Three hours of standing, woohoo! It’s not quite as bad as Pascha, but close.
I was very impressed with the chanters tonight; they sung the entire Polyeleos at matins (Psalms 135 and 136) along with the psalm verses specific to Christmas, which exceed the length of the Polyeleos proper. The repeated refrains are very good at inducing an altered state of consciousness and making one lose track of time.
Let me guess, yBeayf, you’re Orthodox. What flavor? Sorry, I’m irredeemably irreverent.
I served as a chalist at the late night service at my church. The bishop was the celebrant, as we are the cathedral church for our Episcopal diocese. You know you’re getting older when a “senior” person like that is younger than you are. (I’m not quite fifty-one). I also served this morning, on Christmas Day.
I’d really like to learn how to handle the task of being the thurifer, as I love the smell of the incense. Every time I get the chance to see the stuff being prepared I talk to the guy about it. Swinging that thurible would take some wrist strength and manual dexterity though.
My heart is with ROCA (Russian Orthodox Church Abroad), though I’m currently and semi-permanently attending an Antiochian church. They’re all the same, anyways.
Bah, Roman-rite thurifers have it easy – just a little flick of the wrist and a delicate wave of the body of the censer, and that’s it. Byzantine clergy have to whip the entire length of the censer back and forth. I don’t know how they do it – their right arms must be like iron.