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Fatigue and love
It is
not true that between Orthodox and Roman Catholics there are only
disagreements. At least, there is a nice detail, for which these would
be ready to join. Orthodox like to Roman Catholics that these sit during
the service, and the Roman Catholic priests envy the Orthodox ones
because these may marry. All this lasts since long time.
I wanted
thus to go more directly into the field of some discussions, often
fierce, about religious life. For example, today one can often hear
rejoinders like: “the so long services of the Orthodox don’t make any
sense!” Of course, all these discussions are superficial, funny and come
from people who, as a rule, do not go to church; however many are
concerned with them.
From the very beginning we must say that the
Liturgy is the centre of Christian life. The Liturgy is Christ. This is
the perfect way through which God offers Himself to the men, in the
Eucharist. The length of the orthodox services is also due to the
conviction of the first Christians that the second coming of Christ will
be immediate – “parusia”.
The services were and are a waiting, but
also a coming, in the most veritable sense, of Christ. In those seven
existing praises of the Orthodox Church, the history of the universe and
the man is imitated and made actual again, from the creation until the
re-establishment of the eternal harmony. That is why, during them, there
are prayer moments, of catechism, that is education (when one reads from
the Old Testament, Apostles, or from the church decrees, that illustrate
the deeds and teachings of the Saints). In order that the fatigue do no
burden the prayer, there are moments when the believers may sit, these
being “the Apostle” and the “Kathismata”, which in fact from Greek means
“to sit”. When there is a service with vigil, they bless the “Lithia”,
bread with wine, and then it is given to the believers for eating, so
that they do not exhaust themselves.
In a word, the services of the
Orthodox are not so much inhuman. And afterwards, if we indulgently get
over the theology of our “oldies”, we can arrive at the Holy Fathers.
For instance, St Philaret of Moscow said “It is better to sit and think
of God, than to stand and think of your legs”. The same saying was
repeated as well by the great ascetic of the past century, St. Theophan
the Recluse. In the Egyptian Patrum (IV-V century), we find also an
extraordinary episode in this regard. It is said that once two brothers
came to avva Isaiah and asked him: “avva, if I see my brother dozing in
the church, what should I do, let him or wake him up to the prayer ?”
The Saint replied “I say you truly, brothers, if I see my brother
dozing, I put my knee under his head and rest him”.
This is the
meaning of the Christian live, as the Orthodox understand and as the
apostles understood it, to wait for Christ. In the garden Gethsemane the
disciples fell asleep trice, but did not go away. To offer to God twenty
minutes a week, as long as a Roman Catholic mass lasts, and those
pretentiously, is a natural result of the western consumerist society.
In the West the husband and the wife drive each their own car and one
doesn’t dare to make use of the other’s belongings. It is normal that
everyone has as well his own time, which he uses how he may wish. And
then if it happened that a tiny part from this time is to be offered to
God, than this is made like a sort of loan.
But the Orthodox have as
well the right to make use of their time how they want. Who then wants
to accuse them for the fact that they offer too much of their time to
God? If two lovers can, in the street, talk with each other during
hours, sometimes in the wind or rain, why then some people sitting
together with their God, Whom they love, and Who loves them astonish us?
There are moments when love defeats fatigue.