Feasts (Page 3)
The Blessing of Foods on Pascha
This year we are unable to gather at the cathedral to have our Paschal food blessed. Below is a brief order of blessing that can be done at home before the home meal on Pascha day. Sing the following three times: Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and upon those in the tombs bestowing life. After having finished singing, the head of the family reads the following prayer for the blessing of meat: O Lord…
Nativity Message of Archbishop Benjamin
NATIVITY OF OUR LORD 2019 To the Reverend Clergy and Faithful of the Diocese of the West Dearly beloved: Christ is Born! Glorify Him! There shall come forth a Rod from the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots… The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. The cow…
Archpastoral Message of Metropolitan Tikhon
Archpastoral Message ofHis Beatitude Metropolitan TikhonNativity of Our Lord God and Saviour Jesus Christ2019 To the Honorable Clergy, Venerable Monastics, and Pious Faithful of the Orthodox Church in America, My Beloved Brethren and Blessed Children in the Lord, Christ is born! Glorify Him! As we celebrate the Birth of Jesus Christ in the flesh, and His baptism in the River Jordan, we call to mind the important roles that his mother, the Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary, and his Forerunner, John the…
Pascha 2019 Photographs
In the early moments of Sunday, April 28, 2019, the cathedral clergy and faithful celebrated the bright and saving day of the Lord’s Resurrection – Pascha – Easter. Christ is risen! Photographs courtesy Matushka Sophia Sokolov.
Looking Ahead to Holy Week & Pascha
Looking Ahead to Holy Week & Pascha April 20 – April 28, 2019 On Lazarus Saturday (April 20), we enter into the special and sacred time of Holy Week and Pascha. Each and every one of us is called to truly “lay aside all earthly cares,” i.e., all activities and concerns that distract from the great mystery which is happening for us and to us. It must be an experience that transcends the fulfilling of an annual religious obligation or…
Pentecost 2018
On Sunday, May 27, the great and last day of Pentecost, the feast of the Trinity, we celebrated our patronal feast day. A gallery of photographs is available!
Pentecost: The Feast of the Church
With the descent of the Holy Spirit upon Christ’s disciples, the time of salvation, the Divine work of redemption has been completed, the fulness revealed, all gifts bestowed: it belongs to us now to “appropriate” these gifts, to be that which we have become in Christ: participants and citizens of His Kingdom.
Meeting of the Lord
On February 2nd, the Church commemorates an important event in the earthly life of our Lord Jesus Christ (Luke 2:22-40). Forty days after His birth the God-Infant was taken to the Jerusalem Temple, the center of the nation’s religious life. According to the Law of Moses (Lev. 12:2-8), a woman who gave birth to a male child was forbidden to enter the Temple of God for forty days. At the end of this time the mother came to the Temple…