It's one thing to talk about icons. But it's something else to see the icons in a Greek Orthodox church, and to see how the Orthodox interact with them liturgically. As a part of my preparations for the icon class I had started attending services at St. Luke's. It was sort of like field research. And so it was that I found myself at St. Luke's one Sunday for their Palm Sunday service.
V. Rev. Fr. Anastasios Gounaris
Rating: 4|Votes: 6
Holy Week is not a celebration of long ago events. It is the reliving of Christ's Passion and Resurrection in the present. The hymns of the week repeatedly use the present tense and the word "today" because Christ's saving Passion and life-giving Resurrection are a present day reality and hope -- not some far away historical.
Rating: 1,5|Votes: 2
As the time of the Savior's Passion drew near, when it was especially necessary to believe in the Mystery of the Resurrection, Jesus was sojourning on the other side of the Jordan. Here, He raised from the dead the daughter of Jairus and the son of the widow. At this time, His friend, Lazarus, contracted a grievous illness and died. Then Jesus, even though He was not present there, said to His disciples, Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep (John 11:11), and again a little later, Lazarus is dead.
In terms of our Lord’s ministry, this miracle – the raising of Lazarus from the dead – this miracle is the “miracle of miracles.” This is the moment when everyone knows who He is.
Archbishop Andrei (Rymarenko)
Rating: 8,5|Votes: 2
But what shall we do if sin completely enslaves our soul, as if covering it with a tombstone; and so day after day goes by and passions start to exude their sinful stench, just as with Lazarus? What should we do then? Well, then we need confession, the sacrament which Christ established after His Resurrection, when He said to His disciples, “Receive ye the Holy Spirit: Whose so ever sins ye forgive, they are forgiven” (Jn. 20:22-23).
