Mirandas Easy Paper Dove (PDF download)

“Monday was Russian Orthodox Epiphany, and roughly 30,000 Muscovites lined up to dunk themselves in icy rivers and ponds, city officials said. The annual ritual baptism, which is believed to wash away sins, is enjoying a boisterous revival after being banished to villages during the Soviet era.

This seems like an interesting religious/aesetic version of the same impulse behind the swedish sauna and the tradition of “polar bear clubs” in various cold climates. I’m curious about the origins of this practice, and also generally in the idea that this would be an annual recurring practice.

There also seems to be a increasing level of Russian nationalism associated with the icy plunge:

These days, it is a ritual with high production values. Several sites in Moscow were furnished with no-slip carpeting, heated tents and supervisors with megaphones. Politicians have seized on it as a photo opportunity; the theatrical ultranationalist Vladimir V. Zhirinovsky took his plunge this year at Bottomless Lake, a Moscow River tributary, flanked by 15-foot tubes of fluorescent light.

‘It has become a show — not only that, but a patriotic show,’ said Boris F. Dubin, a sociologist with Moscow’s Levada Center. The immersion ritual satisfies a public hunger, he said, for ‘something that is truly Russian, ancient, real. For what distinguishes us from other people.’ “

Adam at A Wee Blether reads a church bulletin and has a revelation:

“As the darkness deepens and winter comes, each week we light one more candle to speak of our hope for the coming light. Much has been made of the symbolism of the Advent wreath, each candle given a particular meaning. Actually, it is the action of lighting one more candle in the darkness that bears its deepest meaning.”

As Rick McCall, professor of liturgics at EDS, likes to ask, “Why did Christians start putting candles on the altar? So they could see.”

Why do we add more candles at Advent? Because it’s getting darker.

There should probably also be echoes of the Easter Vigil candlelighting, in slow motion.

All the other meanings assigned are mnemonics for what’s happening in the lectionary.

Miranda finished her seminary degree and is now finished with school for the foreseeable future (hooray!), and was ordained to the Holy Order of Deacons in June. We moved to our new home in Hopkinton, New Hampshire at the end of June, and Miranda started her new position as Assistant to the Rector at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, Hopkinton, in July. At the same time, I quit my full time job to take a turn as stay-at-home parent.

Since then, we’ve all been exploring our new town, adjusting to our new roles, and finding our places in the community around us. There’s still a lot of that to do.

But now, here we are come to Advent. The first snow of the year is falling outside my window. Time to start again.

Happy New Year.

We had our wake on Friday (see earlier posts here and here for more background). It was attended by a small handful of folks, most of whom came later in the evening. We ended up hosting it in our living room once again, as the other available spaces seemed too big, and having it at home simplified our childcare logistics considerably. (As it worked out, the boy was soundly asleep before anyone else even arrived, so we were both able to be present for the whole time that anyone else was there).

I did end up rearranging the room considerably, putting the two couches facing each other, with the icon at the far end, and a good chunk of open space in the middle, which made the room feel much less claustrophobic than last year. That and baking significant quantities of hot cross buns took most of the day, but I was really happy with how things came out.

This year, people used the sharing time to process the main holy week liturgies that they had been to so far in the week, and to work through some of the thoughts and feelings that those liturgies had brought up.

I mentioned before that I think of this as a supplemental liturgy, perhaps akin to the more familiar Maundy Thursday vigil that some churches keep overnight. It struck me this year that it might be a helpful thing to offer to a core Holy Week liturgy team in a parish, to give them some calmer time to process without having to be doing anything. It could also work well (perhaps with light modification) as an open chapel during the day on Holy Saturday, or possibly even spanning the time between the end of the main Good Friday liturgy and the beginning of the Easter Vigil.

If you’re interested, there’s a few more pictures on the new Doing Public Work Flickr account.

All in all, I’m very happy with how it came out this year. Next year, we’ll be somewhere new, likely somewhere with it’s own way of doing Holy Week. It will be interesting to see if and how this might fit into a new context.

Addendum: My friend Terry has a post up with a picture of another burial icon by Miranda, made for the Episcopal Church of the Advocate in Chapel Hill/Carrboro, NC. In addition to the wake, they use the icon at last station of a stations of the cross which walks through Carrboro and ends at in the town cemetery. Afterwards the flowers are distributed to the graves around.

Christ is risen from the dead,
trampling down death by death,

and upon those in the tombs
bestowing life!

Alleluia, Alleluia!

Happy Easter to all! Regular posting will resume Sunday evening.

Our son G., who is nearly 3, loved it because there were a lot of other–mostly bigger–kids there. Many of them had come early to help bake the bread, and so when we moved up to the sanctuary, the kids brought up the bread and the wine as a group, and then were invited to stay up around the altar during the Eucharistic prayer. G., quite the extrovert, loved this as well, and spent his time up there being held up by one of the older girls, waving to the congregation (some of whom waved back), spinning around, jumping, and generally having a great time as part of a pack of kids.

The kids had communion first, and then the rest of us went up, and the kids went back to sit with their parents. G. was quite indignant about this, he wanted to stay up there, or be with the other kids.

As they started stripping the altar, he was also saying that he wanted bread. I thought he maybe wanted more bread, or that he was upset because he didn’t also get bread when he was with us. As it turned out, though, it appears that he didn’t get communion at all, that somehow he got missed in the shuffle of the pack of kids, and then when we went up, we thought he had already got some with the other kids.

This came out at home as I was trying to get him to sleep–well past his normal bedtime. I almost had him down, when suddenly he remembered that he hadn’t had any bread at communion. He was instantly in tears and inconsolable. I felt terrible–of all the days to be left out of sharing in the bread! I tried getting some pita from the kitchen to give him, but even in a completely dark room, without even looking at it or touching it, he refused it as not being the right thing, and only got more upset.

Fortunately, it turned out that M. had a wafer left in the communion kit she uses at the hospital for her chaplaincy internship, which very quickly resolved the situation. G. was communicated, and thus fed, happily snuggled up and fell asleep a few minutes later.

. . .

I grew up in the Roman Catholic Church, where children join in communion only after instruction and preparation, and eventually a First Communion. In the Episcopal Church, communion is open to all who have been baptized (and some places now are experimenting with removing even that restriction). G has been receiving communion for over two years already. It was surprising to me at first, right after his baptism. I wondered at offering such a thing to an infant who did not understand what it was. I have since had the joy to be shown again and again that an infant, a young child, can indeed understand enough about shared food, a community gathered around a table. Enough to run to the altar to claim his share in Christ’s body, and enough to shed tears and lose sleep when denied that share, even inadvertently.

And how much do I understand, really? And insofar as I think I have any understanding now, it has come not from instruction received, but in participating again and again, week after week, in churches familiar and strange, home and away, again and again remembering that we are called to eat and become Christ’s body.

G. already has a significant head start on me there.

Maundy Thursday: Mass celebrated twice.

XXXV On the fifth weekday everything that is customary is done from the first cockcrow until morning at the Anastasis, and also at the third and at the sixth hours. But at the eighth hour all the people gather together at the martyrium according to custom, only earlier than on other days, because the dismissal must be made sooner. Then, when the people are gathered together, all that should be done is done, and the oblation is made on that day at the martyrium, the dismissal taking place about the tenth hour. But before the dismissal is made there, the archdeacon raises his voice and says: “Let us all assemble at the first hour of the night in the church which is in Eleona, for great toil awaits us to-day, in this very night.”

2. Then, after the dismissal at the martyrium, they arrive behind the Cross, where only one hymn is said and prayer is made, and the bishop offers the oblation there, and all communicate. Nor is the oblation ever offered behind the Cross on any day throughout the year, except on this one day. And after the dismissal there they go to the Anastasis, where prayer is made, the catechumens and the faithful are blessed according to custom, and the dismissal is made.

Night Station on the Mount of Olives.

And so every one hastens back to his house to eat, because immediately after they have eaten, all go to Eleona to the church wherein is the cave where the Lord was with His Apostles on this very day.

3. There then, until about the fifth hour of the night, hymns and antiphons suitable to the day and to the place are said, lessons, too, are read in like manner, with prayers interspersed, and the passages from the Gospel are read where the Lord addressed His disciples on that same day as He sat in the same cave which is in that church.

4. And they go thence at about the sixth hour of the night with hymns up to the Imbomon, the place whence the Lord ascended into heaven, where again lessons are read, hymns and antiphons suitable to the day are said, and all the prayers which are made by the bishop are also suitable both to the day and to the place.

Stations at Gethsemane.

XXXVI And at the first cockcrow they come down from the Imbomon with hymns, and arrive at the place where the Lord prayed, as it is written in the Gospel: and He was withdrawn (from them) about a stone’s cast, and prayed, and the rest. There is in that place a graceful church The bishop and all the people enter, a prayer suitable to the place and to the day is said, with one suitable hymn, and the passage from the Gospel is read where He said to His disciples: Watch, that ye enter not into temptation; the whole passage is read through and prayer is made.

2. And then all, even to the smallest child, go down with the Bishop, on foot, with hymns to Gethsemane; where, on account of the great number of people in the crowd, who are wearied owing to the vigils and weak through the daily fasts, and because they have so great a hill to descend, they come very slowly with hymns to Gethsemane. And over two hundred church candles are made ready to give light to all the people.

3. On their arrival at Gethsemane, first a suitable prayer is made, then a hymn is said, then the passage of the Gospel is read where the Lord was taken. And when this passage has been read there is so great a moaning and groaning of all the people, together with weeping, that their lamentation may be heard perhaps as far as the city.

Return to Jerusalem.

From that hour they go with hymns to the city on foot, reaching the gate about the time when one man begins to be able to recognise another, and thence right on through the midst of the city; all, to a man, both great and small, rich and poor, all are ready there, for on that special day not a soul withdraws from the vigils until morning. Thus the bishop is escorted from Gethsemane to the gate, and thence through the whole of the city to the Cross.