Undusted Texts

"From time immemorial the ecclesiastical hierarchy has exercised this right in matters liturgical. It has organized and regulated divine worship, enriching it constantly with new splendor and beauty, to the glory of God and the spiritual profit of Christians. What is more, it has not been slow - keeping the substance of the Mass and sacraments carefully intact - to modify what it deemed not altogether fitting, and to add what appeared more likely to increase the honor paid to Jesus Christ and the august Trinity, and to instruct and stimulate the Christian people to greater advantage. The sacred liturgy does, in fact, include divine as well as human elements. The former, instituted as they have been by God, cannot be changed in any way by men. But the human components admit of various modifications, as the needs of the age, circumstance and the good of souls may require, and as the ecclesiastical hierarchy, under guidance of the Holy Spirit, may have authorized....All these ...

"It follows that the separated Churches and Communities as such, though we believe them to be deficient in some respects, have been by no means deprived of significance and importance in the mystery of salvation. For the Spirit of Christ has not refrained from using them as means of salvation which derive their efficacy from the very fullness of grace and truth entrusted to the Church." --Vatican II, Unitatis Redintegratio §3 As the extra ecclesiam nulla salus doctrine is currently understood, we do not despair of the salvation of the non-Catholic baptized.  We acknowledge that the Spirit works through those aspects of the Faith they share in common with the Church.  The Church has the fullness of the faith: this cannot be denied.  When other Christians break away from the Church, they deny different aspects of this fullness; however, they hold on to some parts of the Faith, some vestiges of the Church, and these are enough to bring salvation.  (I refrain ...

Though I don't know if I've ever just reposted something, I think this is a fantastic event for the Roman liturgy: the addition of the name of St. Joseph by Pope Francis into all the Eucharistic Prayers, not just Eucharistic Prayer I (the Roman Canon), into which his name was added by Pope Bl. John XXIII. For more information, see Fr. John Zuhlsdorf's post. St. Joseph the Betrothed, pray for us!

In some way, liturgically, each week we celebrate Holy Week anew. The most obvious way this principle is seen is in the liturgical celebration of Sunday, the Lord's Day, the Day of the Resurrection.  Disregarding feasts, Sunday liturgies (in the widest sense: I am not solely referring to Eucharistic Liturgies) are more festive than the liturgies throughout the rest of the week.  "Every Sunday is a little Easter," I have heard it put frequently.  This is why, during Lent, Roman Catholics popularly partake of whatever food or activity they fast from (or "give up") throughout most of the Forty Days.  Every Sunday we celebrate Pascha. The second most obvious case of this principle is in the liturgical celebration of Friday, the Day of the Cross.  Friday is the most somber day of the week, liturgically: on Friday, we are all called to fast.  Each Friday recalls Good Friday, the day Our Lord Jesus Christ died on the Cross for us.  It is the day of pena...

As we celebrate the Sabbath (still the Greek term for Saturday) each week, how should it draw our minds to Christ? The Sabbath began as a day of rest, the day on which the Lord "rested" from His work of creation.  In memory of that, it became the Lord's Day, the day when the Jews were likewise called to rest from their work.  Though now Sunday, the Day of the Lord's Resurrection, has taken the place of the Sabbath as the Lord's Day, our day of holy rest, we know that Saturday was originally the day of rest. Yet how much could God really rest on any day?  If there were not energy coming from God to us at all times, wouldn't we cease to be, we who are contingent beings?  And could God ever even need to rest?  He is omnipotent, after all.  We, though, weak as we are, need to rest, so God may have been giving us a model to follow, the model of holy rest.  The Sabbath was made for man, after all. That does not solve the problem, though, of a God Wh...

"Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth.  I did not come to bring peace but a sword." -- Mt 10:34 Since today's Gospel reading (Mt 10:32-11:1) contains Christ's statement that He brings a sword, and since we frequently call Him "Prince of Peace," I thought today would be a good day to post a poem attempting to reconcile this seeming contradiction in Christ. He brings peace, yet gives a sword:  How to reconcile these?  But one man who's divinized  will be a sign of conflict:  Yet a people divinized  will be truly a race of peace.  Thus peace He gives to each man  and 'til ev'ry man has peace  swords will come on peaceful men:  from a man goes peace to men.    Text ©201 3 Brandon P. Otto .  Licensed via CC BY-NC.   Feel free to redistribute non-commercially, as long as credit is given to the author.

 It is hard to doubt that monasteries (and I mean this in a wide use of the term: any community (or even person) who lives apart from the world and prays for the world) have been a key aspect of the Church for millennia, at least since the time of St. Antony the Great.  Monasteries began as hermits who lived near each other and had some community.  Eventually this expanded into communities who lived and prayed together.  In the West, this then expanded into the different religious orders, while in the East the forms of monastic life stayed more or less has they were in the early centuries of the Church. How are monks (again, in a very wide use of the term, including both men and women) helpful for the Church?  In two ways: through their witness and through their intercession.  Monks have a knack for being witnesses even when they try to remain closed off from the world: the faithful still hear of them, find them, seek their advice, and ask for their ...

The Octoechos or "the Book of Eight Tones" (lit. "Eight-Tone") is a liturgical book used in the Byzantine Rite.  It is the book of propers for Matins/Orthros and Vespers each day of the week and for Sunday Divine Liturgy.  Its use is roughly equivalent to times of "Ordinary Time" in the Roman Rite: it is the book used when the two movable seasonal books (the Triodion for Great Lent and its preparation and the Pentecostarion for Easter, Ascension, and Pentecost) are not being used.  It is used in conjunction with the Menaion (the book of immovable feasts, such as Nativity, Theophany, Dormition, and saints' feast days) and the Horologion (the book of the basic texts of the Divine Office/the Hours).  The only free version of the Octoechos I have found on-line is a copy from the Monastery of the Myrrhbearing Women , a women's monastery of the Orthodox Church in America (OCA) in Otego, NY, as adapted for Canada and posted as a PDF on the websi...

  Fr. Steven Hawke-Steeples, S.J., a Ruthenian Jesuit liturgist Throughout the world, but especially (I think) in the Americas, the Jesuits are heavily involved in the lives of Byzantine Catholics.  This is not to say that other Roman religious orders do not play a role (after all, His Grace Bishop John Kudrick of Parma was originally a Third Order Franciscan), but I see the Jesuits having a predominantly large role among Roman Catholics assisting Byzantine Catholics. What are some examples?  From my own life, at the Ruthenian mission that I attend, there are five priests that assist the community: two of them are Jesuits.  One of the great Byzantine liturgists of the present day is Archimandrite Robert Taft, S.J.  A Polish-American priest being considered for sainthood for his mission work among Eastern Catholics in the Soviet Union is Servant of God Water Ciszek, S.J.  The head of the Slovak Catholic Church is Metropolitan Ján Babjak, S.J.  T...

  "The beholder of ineffable revelations * and recounter of the highest mysteries of God, * the son of Zebedee, * who set down in writing the Gospel of Christ, * hath taught us to theologize * concerning the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.   The harp of heavenly songs played by God, * the recorder of mysteries, * the divinely eloquent mouth, * doth beautifully chant the hymn of hymns; * for, moving his lips as though they were strings, * and using his tongue as a plectrum, * he prayeth that we be saved.  Proclaiming with thy thunderous tongue * the hidden word of divine wisdom, * O beloved of God, * thou ever criest out, continually moving thy lips: * In the beginning was the Word! * And thou instructest every man in the knowledge of God. " -- Stichera at the Lamp-Lighting Psalms at Great Vespers for St. John the Theologian "All the Evangelists, indeed, were holy, all the Apostles, except the traitor—all were holy; yet Saint John, who wro...

"And they took hold of him and brought him to the Are-op′agus, saying, “May we know what this new teaching is which you present?  For you bring some strange things to our ears; we wish to know therefore what these things mean.”  Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new. So Paul, standing in the middle of the Are-op′agus, said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious.  For as I passed along, and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription, ‘To an unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.  The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by man,  nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all men life and breath and everything.   And he made from one every na...

"For the highest of human tasks is for a man to allow himself to be completely persuaded that he can of himself do nothing, absolutely nothing." --Søren Kierkegaard, "Man's Need of God Constitutes his Highest Perfection," Edifying Discourses , Vol. IV "For it is not the man who commends himself that is accepted, but the man whom the Lord commends." --2 Cor 10:18 In modern psychology, self-esteem is the big fad.  If we do not feel like we are perfect, if we don't feel like we can do everything, we are considered as broken and in need of fixing.  We supposedly cannot function in the world without being puffed up with self-esteem.  Pseudo-psychology says the same thing: by believing in how awesome we are, we draw good things to ourselves.  (Just think of The Secret and the "law of attraction.")  Yet how true is this drive to self-esteem? In self-esteem, the goal is to "commend ourselves," as St. Paul would say.  But...

" Thy Kingdom come. By this sweet word we obviously offer God this prayer: Let the opposing battle front be broken and the hostile phalanx be destroyed. Bring to an end the war of the flesh against the spirit and let the body no longer harbour the enemy of the soul. Oh, let them appear, the royal force, the angelic band, the thousands of rulers, the myriads of those who stand on Thy right hand, that a thousand warriors may fall on the front of the enemy! Strong, indeed, is the adversary, formidable, yea, invincible to those bereft of Thy help. Yet only as long as man is fighting alone; when Thy Kingdom comes, the pangs and sighs of sorrow vanish, and life, peace, and rejoicing enter instead." --St. Gregory of Nyssa, On the Lord's Prayer III

"As a hart longs for flowing streams, so longs my soul for thee, O God." --Ps 42:1 "Listen to something else that is to be observed in the deer. It kills serpents, and after killing the serpents its thirst is inflamed all the more intensely. Having killed the serpents, it runs to the brook more speedily than ever. The serpents signify your vices. Destroy these wicked serpents, and you will have greater longing for the fountain of truth." --St. Augustine of Hippo, On Psalm XLI,I §3

"I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth." --1 Cor 3:6 This verse is really all that can drive my work on this blog.  I see no fruits of my labor: a few views here and there, mostly from image searches (which is strange, considering that almost no images have ever originated from me).  I have no stories of people affected by my posts, whether conversions or renewals of faith.  I plant, I sow seeds, I water...yet I can cause nothing.  All of the many, many hours that have gone into this blog feel wasted.  It seems like I am a failure as a Christian: I have not seen conversions happen from my efforts, I have not seen renewals of faith.  I do not go out an speak to random people on the streets like extroverts do: my best work is done inside, alone.  My God-given gifts are more book-based, yet they seem like God-rejected gifts, for they seem to do nothing.  All of my work feels like it's for naught. Yet I continue to work.  Wh...

"Greet one another with the kiss of love."--1 Pet 5:14. The "kiss of love" (ἐν φιλήματι ἀγάπης, with the kiss of love), is something that all Christians are called to give each other, according to St. Peter. While it is a common idea that we do not need to give each other a literal kiss if it is not a common practice in our culture, the idea of showing Christian love to each other in a physical expression still exists today, especially in the liturgical "kiss of peace" that has been brought back in the Roman Sacred Liturgy of the past century and which is often reserved to hierarchs in the Sacred Liturgies of the Eastern Churches. The "kiss of love," though, could, in a less literal way, be interpreted as applicable to specific groups of Christians as well, and that is what I wish to discuss here. Though I am by no means a student of ethnology, sociology, and "cultural anthropology," I would risk the possible scientific falsity...

"The highest light is God, unapproachable and ineffable, neither grasped by the mind nor expressed in language. It illumines every reason-endowed nature. It is to intelligible realities what the sun is to sense-perceptible realities. To the extent that we are purified it appears, to the extent that it appears it is loved, to the extent that it is loved it is again known." --St. Gregory the Theologian, Oration 40.5

The Rosary is a well-known prayer in the Western Christian tradition, and I have often heard the Akathist Hymn to the Theotokos, composed by St. Romanos the Melodist, described as the Byzantine equivalent.  However, there is actually a prayer much closer in style to the Rosary in the Byzantine tradition: the Prayer Rule of the Theotokos.  This rule was, according to tradition, revealed by the Theotokos in the 8th century, and it used to be prayed by all Christians; over time, however, it fell out of use.  St. Seraphim of Sarov and his spiritual descendant St. Seraphim Zevzdinsky began to revive this practice, and Philip Rolfes, blogger at The Master Beadsman and maker of prayer ropes for various traditions (Rosaries, Komboskini/Chotki, Mequtaria, etc.), compiled information on various forms of this rule (see this post and the following four for his work).  He also created a system for praying only 5 mysteries a day rather than the full 15 that the original version...

"Everything to do with the church is like an inner fire enkindling us, and looking after it is the best work of all. The humblest job, be it only to clean the floor of the house of God, is a nobler work than all the others. Everything you do in the house of God should be done with love and reverence. You must do nothing trivial there, only necessary duties. For where else could you find greater joy than in the place where our Lord is dwelling, surrounded by cherubim and seraphim and all the heavenly spirits!" --St. Seraphim of Sarov

"Let us award the victory to Christ in his struggles. Let us erect our own trophies for Christ's warfare. Let us not soil the tunic of faith which grace has woven. Do not dishonor the gift which you have received from Christ. Recognize the Giver and protect the gift. If you were guarding a pearl or royal purple, would you not exercise custody until death? But now you are not merely entrusted with custody of pearls, or royal purple, or property; the Lord's body itself has been entrusted to you. More than that, I say you have become the body of the Lord, you are a member of Christ. Put on Christ, in Paul's words: You have been baptized in Christ, you have put on Christ (Gal 3:27). Do not betray Christ's members. You have become the dwelling place of the Spirit and a member of the King of the heavens. Let us, then, honor the gift with virtues! Let us practice temperance; let us exercise generosity. Let us practice almsgiving. Let us shake off the poiso...

Last night, my fiancée and I, both for the first time, had a martini.  When I asked her what she thought of it, she made a comment that my overly-theological mind immediately connected to Pope Bl. John Paul II's Theology of the Body [TOB], which I have been studying this semester. She said that she liked the first taste and the last taste of the martini, but not the middle taste.  She liked the taste when the martini first touched her taste buds, she disliked the burning sensation that she called the "pre-aftertaste," and she liked the aftertaste.  Upon hearing this, my mind immediately went to the three ages of man discussed in TOB. The three chapters of Part One of TOB (Cycles 1-3) discuss a triptych of sets of statements by Christ in the Gospels, each relating to marriage.  The first is Christ's rejection of divorce via an appeal to man's beginning in Mt 19:3-8 (TOB 1:2).  The second is Christ's comment about adultery in the heart in Mt 5:27-28 (T...

"For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace."--Rom 8:5-6                                                                          "Yea, my King,"  I began—"thou dost well in rejecting mere comforts that spring  From the mere mortal life held in common by man and by brute:  In our flesh grows the branch of this life, in our soul it bears fruit.  Thou hast marked the slow rise of the ...

In the Byzantine tradition of the Hours (the Divine Office), the basic psalmody in each hour is static, except for changes during Great Lent.  However, monastic tradition included variable psalmody readings that result in praying the entire Psalter at least once a week (depending on the time of the year).  These readings are exceedingly long and rarely prayed in their fullness, except possibly in monasteries.  However, they still provide a pattern of shared psalmody for the Church. I put together this chart not so much for use in the Hours (though the readings can be prayed there) but for personal use, so that one can pray along with the Church.  I myself will often only pray parts of each reading, maybe a stasis or two, but it is still immensely fruitful, first of all because it is the Word of God, second because it is a tradition of the Church.  This chart can only be used when the Byzantine psalter divisions are known.  According to this system, t...