322. Great and Holy Friday Morning: Some Practical Lessons to be learned from Holy Week

Some advice:  For the remaining three days of this Holy Week, do not read this Blog. Or rather: Do not read this Blog in place of going to church. To prepare for the services, ok, but then go to church, or if you can’t do that then worship Live-stream. The Royal Hours These four services […]

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319. Holy Wednesday Night Matins for Holy Thursday and Holy Unction

Note that we’re still on our Holy Week “topsy-turvy” schedule, always “anticipating” the next appointed service. As I said, despite my not understanding this, somehow it feels just right for this Week when the whole world gets turned upside down. Holy Gospel: Luke 22:1-39 Jesus and the disciples are in the upper room at the […]

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318. Holy Wednesday Morning Divine Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts

In case you’ve tuned in late to this series: These posts are “repeats” (with a little reworking each year) of my Holy Week posts of the past five years – which are based on talks I gave for about 25 years at Holy Week services when I was pastor of Saint Nicholas Church, Cedarburg, Wisconsin. […]

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317. Holy Tuesday night: Bridegroom Matins of Holy Wednesday

Before we get into the Gospel story… Tonight at the end of the Aposticha we hear the Hymn of Kassiane, a Ninth Century nun and hymnographer. She was one of several young women interviewed by Emperor Theophilos as a prospective bride. The story says he was so flummoxed by Kassiane’s beauty that he said something […]

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316. Holy Tuesday Morning: Divine Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts

Ukraine I’m writing this article on Holy Monday morning, in sorrow. Have Ukraine’s Orthodox brothers and sisters in Russia given them a break for Holy Week? No, they have not. Their missile strikes and and shelling have in fact increased. Have they allowed time this Week for innocent Ukrainian civilians to escape the horrors of war? No, […]

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