Wishing you all the Bright Joys of the Fast!
May your journey to Pascha be Peaceful and Fruitful!
Great Lent/Holy Week/Pascha – Resource
Category: Reflections
The Endless End
Daybreak – Kauai 2023
…O Christ the true Light, who enlightens and sanctifies every person who comes into the world: Let the Light of Your countenance shine on us, that in it we may behold the Uncreated Light. ~ Excerpt from Prayer of the Hours; 1st Hour
Numinous Harmony
Foamy Lace – A Beach Microcosm – the Small within the Great!
The Holy Spirit binds together the separated spirits of each one of us. ~ St. Cyril of Alexandria
In her voyage across the ocean of this world, the Church is like a great ship being pounded by the waves of life’s different stresses. Our duty is not to abandon ship but to keep her on her course. ~ St. Boniface
…put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. ~ Colossians 3:14
Sometimes the stars sing me to sleep with their silentness. ~ Shared by Ellie
Where ocean meets shore,
foamy constellations ebb –
eclipsing star shells.
Briny bubbles burst
like salty supernovae
in the waxing tide.
To Merge, to Become –
Triadic Axials of
Harmonic Oneness.
The Sheep of His Pasture
This Icon of Christ the Good Shepherd is used with Fr. Serafim’s kind permission (Mull Monastery).
Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands. Serve the Lord with gladness: come before his presence with singing. Know ye that the Lord he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name. For the Lord is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations. ~ Psalm 100
Parish Youth Choir recently making a joyful noise unto the Lord, and singing praises!
Good Shepherd – Parish Altar Mosaic
Perceiving Divine Simplicity
Boulevard Snowdrop Flowers Signal the Nascence of Spring
Love all creation, the whole of it and every grain of sand within it. Love every leaf, every ray of God’s light. Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things. ~ Staretz Zosima; The Brothers Karamazov – by Fyodor Dostoevsky
…See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labour or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. ~ St. Matthew 6:28-29
All created things are marked with the seal of the Trinity... The contemplation of nature has two correlative aspects. First, it means appreciating the “thusness” or “thisness” of particular things, persons and moments. We are to see each stone, each leaf, each blade of grass, each frog, each human face, for what it truly is, in all the distinctness and intensity of its specific being. As the prophet Zechariah warns us, we are not to “despise the day of small things” (4:10). “True mysticism”, says Olivier Clément, “is to discover the extraordinary in the ordinary.” ~ Metropolitan Kallistos Ware; The Orthodox Way
Even during a simple walk, it’s a mystery how easily the Great can be seen in the Small. Whether it be stoic flowers bursting through cement cracks, or a cheery family of four snowdrops, popping up like unexpected company – on a grassy boulevard.
God’s beautiful gift of nature is all around us.
All we have to do is to see what we’re looking at.
Happy Saint’s Day Zoe! God grant you many years!
Hope’s Patient Persistence
Behind the Altar, facing Royal Doors’ Curtain
We have within us deeply rooted weaknesses, passions, and defects. This can not all be cut out with one sharp motion, but patience, persistence, care and attention. The path leading to perfection is long. Pray to God so that he will strengthen you. Patiently accept your falls and, having stood up, immediately run to God, not remaining in that place where you have fallen. Don’t let anything deprive you of hope. ~ St Nektarios of Aegina
…You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. ~ James 4:2-3
All of us sin constantly. We slip and fall… The Holy Fathers and the Saints always tell us, “It is important to get up immediately after a fall and to keep on walking toward God. Even if we fall a hundred times a day, it does not matter; we must get up and go on walking toward God without looking back.” What has happened has happened – it is in the past. Just keep going all the while asking for help from God. ~ Elder Thaddeus Vitovnica
We know God is with us, but sometimes there may be struggles to feel His Presence and Love, or even to pray. During times of spiritual dryness, it is the faithful perseverance in prayer which is the sweetest of all our prayers to God.
We slip.
We fall.
We rise.
We persevere.
We never give up.
We focus forward.
We don’t look back.
Our life is blessed… God’s gift…. We have a treasure in us – our souls…. ~ Elder Nikolay Guryanov
Come, Magnify Him!
Garden bouquet, picked for a friend this week: Heather, Viburnum, Pieris Japonica, Sword Fern
Light was first
Through the Lord’s
word Named day:
Beauteous, bright creation! ~ St. Caedmon
Greetings on St. Caedmon’s Day!
This 7th century British Saint heard angels sing, and recorded their heavenly hymn which became the earliest English poem in existence!
Previous Blisswood post shows the ruins of the ancient Whitby monastery where St. Caedmon lived.
After reading St. Caedmon’s Hymn from these Latin, Moore/Leningrad Northumbrian Dialects/Bodleian West Saxon sources and translations – this poem achingly called to me, asking to be adapted further.
I translated it into a more contemporary old English and put my adaptation to the ancient melody of the 13th century Byzantine Hymn: Defte Lai.
My version of St. Caedmon’s Hymn with Sheet music here.
Below is my version of St. Caedmon’s Creation Hymn, rusticly sung and recorded, accompanied by my faux-lyre (ukulele) using the chords: Fm; Cm; and B♭m.
Come magnify Him,
Creator of the firmament,
Author of each and all,
And glorify His purpose;
Love, Invincible.
Come and honour Him,
Protector of Fair Paradise,
Holy, Mighty, Immortal,
Architect, Omnipotent;
Father of Glory.
Blessed, Timeless, Lord,
Thou hast established Thy wonders,
Before middle earth* was formed,
Or adorned with Thought of Mind;
Lord, God Almighty!
For the sons of men;
Thou formed the Roof of Heaven!
* Middle earth (not just a Tolkien invention)- it means the world, the middle enclosure – which exists between heaven and hell. From Middle English middel-erde, and Old English middangeard.
I’m grateful for the heavenly hymn St. Caedmon has bequeathed to us, and his role in the early English Orthodox church… From his beginnings as a humble shepherd – to his subsequent life as a meek monk in a great, historic, monastery.
When the song of the lips becomes the song of the soul, we’re able to – bit by bit, acquire a small, uplifting, repertoire of prayerful Psalmody from the heart – by singing anytime praises to the Glory of God!
PTL
Aquarium Photo of Jellyfish ~ Shared by Ellie
Scripture Art – Psalm 148
Happy Family Day to my kith and kin… by blood, heart and Holy Spirit.
PTL = 🎵 Praise the Lord! 🎵
Amen!
Surfing the Chunder
Dawn Patrol on Kauai Beach – 2023
Chunder is a surfing term which means totally unsurfable waves.
Mullering means wiping out.
You don’t need to be polite with God, simply pour out your heart before Him. ~ Elder Sophrony of Essex
Never expect anyone to understand you, only God.
~ St. Gavrilia
I pray like this: “Father in heaven forgive me, Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me, Holy Spirit enlighten me.”
~ Gerontissa (Eldress) Galaktia
Let us remember
that pray’r is the first resort –
not the last resort!
🏄🏽♀️
The Beauty of the Wilderness
Celebrating the beauteous gift of simplicity!
Detail of Heath and Fir on Moss feature photo by Juliana, and shared along with a lovely verse from the Psalter.
The beauty of the wilderness shall grow lush… ~ 9th Kathisma, Psalter