Author: Stephen Brannen

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Comparing the Liturgies of East and West

In the first decades of the Church, Christians (both in Jerusalem and the cities where the Apostles preached) would have used essentially the same liturgical form of worship. Over time, as the Church grew to include various people groups and their languages, the original Eucharistic service from Jerusalem was developed and adorned by those various peoples according to their unique musical and artistic expressions, poetic traditions, and senses of beauty, dignity, and piety. Continue reading “Comparing the Liturgies of East and West”

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A Reasonable Philosophy for the Western Rite

“Congregations and parishes, or larger administrative units, may be received…and be permitted to retain and use all such Western liturgical rites, devotional practices and customs that are not contrary to the Orthodox faith and are logically derived from a Western usage antedating the Papal schism of the eleventh century.” This is from the 1958 Western Rite edict of Metropolitan Antony of the Antiochian Archdiocese of North America. Continue reading “A Reasonable Philosophy for the Western Rite”

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Eastern Wisdom in Western Verse

In both the Eastern and Western traditions, the Church year is centered around Jesus and the redemptive story of his life, death, and resurrection. The Scriptures read in the Liturgies, the various prayers, and also the hymns that are sung generally correspond to the seasons of the year, and the seasons themselves correspond to events or periods in the life of Jesus. The season of Lent takes the Church with Jesus both into the desert where he fasted for forty days and also on his last journey to Jerusalem (and ultimately to the cross and his glorious resurrection). Several themes and lessons of the Lenten season are emphasized in the Liturgies, but two of the most prominent are repentance and spiritual struggle.

These are the overarching themes in two songs that come to us from St. Andrew of Crete (8th century) through the translation and poetical rendering of Fr. John Mason Neale (19th century).  Continue reading “Eastern Wisdom in Western Verse”

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How the East and West Begin Lent

In accordance with my stated theme for this blog, I want to very briefly compare the beginnings of Lent in the Eastern and Western traditions, focusing especially on their similarities. There’s enough that superficially appears different about the way the two traditions begin the Lenten journey that to the casual observer, they may appear to have different spirits. But in comparing the Eastern Forgiveness Sunday and Clean Monday with the Western Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday, there’s actually much commonality to find. Continue reading “How the East and West Begin Lent”

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Pilgrims of History

What’s the difference in a pilgrimage and a vacation? This past November I made trip to the British Isles that was maybe a little of both. Among the places I visited were the shrine of St. Alban (the first martyr of Britain), the shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham (one of the most venerated Marian apparition sites in medieval Europe), and the shared burial site of Sts. Patrick, Columba, and Brigit of Ireland. Though I prayed at each of these sites, I often couldn’t help feeling like I was a tourist more than a pilgrim, especially after hearing of the devotions that Christians of the past would keep at these holy places, like walking the last ‘holy mile’ to the Shrine at Walsingham barefoot.

Continue reading “Pilgrims of History”

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The Beginning of Pre-Lent

Lent. It’s a heavy portion of the Church’s year. It is too important a season just to jump right into, so both the Western and Eastern traditions have allotted time in the liturgical calendar to prepare for it. In the West, there are three Sundays in this season, and they are counted down by their distance from Pascha. In Latin they are called Dominica in septuagesima, in sexagesima, and in quinquagesima, that is the Sundays falling closest to seventy days before Easter, sixty days, and fifty days, respectively. The first of these, Septuagesima Sunday, is a turning point in the Church year.

Continue reading “The Beginning of Pre-Lent”

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Ever More Fullness

When we’re first born into this world, the whole content of the world for us is simply our parents’ love: their voices in our ears, our rocking back and forth in their arms, locking eyes with them and reciprocating smiles. Soon the world broadens into proprioception, new sensations, and the discovery of objects around us. Before long we have a sense of ourselves as distinct selves in the world, and that world continues growing larger, populated with other selves, with animals and places and even ideas and concepts. In school, the world starts being divided up into “subjects,” and we learn to categorize what’s around us. Stories and experiences trigger our imaginations to fill in details, invent new scenarios, and conjecture about what reality might be like. Curiosity and imagination drive us to continue learning about the world as we grow up.

Continue reading “Ever More Fullness”