Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Marriage and Celibacy (PG-13)

Had a great discussion tonight with Fr. Nick - a Romanian priest from Worcester (not Fr. Triantafillou...a different Fr Nick) - about Marriage and Celibacy.

I think one of the main things that I took away from it was, on the marriage side of the discussion, the need for unconditional love, selflessness, and self-sacrifice, which I already knew about.

Fr. Nick said something very thought provoking: "It isn't for nothing that sex is done naked."

What his point was, was that the more intimate you get with someone, the more you know everything about them, including the "right" words to say to hurt them. He saw an enmitous couple once that knew each other so well that they knew the perfect insults that would anger and hurt the other. Fr. Nick's point was that a married couple needs to take that intimate knowledge of each other and use it for good and the upbuilding of the other.

"Coincidence" from Great Vespers last night

Today is the Feast of St. Andrew the First-Called Apostle. We did Great Vespers last night and Orthros and Divine Liturgy this morning. Last night, after bringing the reliquary and icon of the saint in procession around the church (2/3 of the way through Vespers), Fr. Makarios and Deacon David venerated them and went back in the Altar. As Fr. Makarios venerated the reliquary, the choir "happened" to be singing the end of the following hymn (bold is my doing):

Hail, spiritual heaven, ever telling the glory of God; the first to submit fervently to the call of Christ, and immediately to join him; set aflame by him you were seen as a second light, and by your beams you enlightened those in darkness, as you imitated his loving-kindness. Therefore we celebrate your all-holy festival, and with great joy kiss your reliquary, from which you pour out salvation for those who ask, and God’s great mercy.

Coincidence? I think not.


Had a great Thanksgiving break! Did not go home. I have finished the unedited version of my blog, but now it is up to my fellow-travelers to edit it for web-appropriateness (take out names/embarrassing incidents). It should be up in the next couple days. It is long, but very awesome! Stay tuned!

Sunday, November 21, 2010

A brief outline of Sunday, November 21, 2010

8:00 AM - Good morning! Shower. Prep for Church
9:00 AM - Arrive at Holy Cross Chapel - a one minute walk up the hill from my room - and walk in to beautiful chanting of the Praises (the penultimate section of Orthros), both of the Resurrection, and of the Entry of the Theotokos. Great Doxology. Divine Liturgy with Father Peter and Deacon Demetrios, with a great sermon by senior Nicole Hillas.
11:30 AM - Lunch in the HC/HC cafeteria with the Mamalakis family and Sophia, while we talk, laugh, and celebrate Dr. Mamalakis ("Dr. Phil")'s birthday.
12:30 PM - Help the Mamalakis kids to the vans, carrying Georgie in piggy-back mode. Back to the cafeteria, talk with some friends.
1:00 PM - Leave the cafeteria
1:37 PM - Last time I looked at my clock before my PLN (Post-Liturgical Nap)
4:59 PM - Wake up from my PLN. It was dark outside, which was kind of depressing, but I felt rested :)
5:45 PM - Go to cafeteria for a delicious fish/rice/oatmeal/LIFE cereal dinner
7:00 PM - Leave the cafeteria and hang out in the first floor girls' lounge with some friends, John creeping me out with a mannequin hand, and me making womb jokes (I had a false hand, but I left it in the womb). Fun times with Emily from school, and Katie and Anna who were visiting, all three of whom I met at Project Mexico, and John and John. Creeping people out in the JC Room, as well as George, Chris, Sophia and Adam who were cleaning up the caf.
8:00 PM - Read emails
9:00 PM - CrossRoad conference call with Mariam, Rachel and Eleni. One of the best conference calls in a long time. I ranted for 50 minutes on how liberal and unOrthodox (with a big AND small "o") my sociology textbook is. Talked about everything else under the sun (or under the darkness, since the sun wasn't shining), from toothbrushing to sex to Antiochian Village to college to CrossRoad to sleep. We did Small Compline somewhere in there (some would call it "TeleCompline," but Mariam, Rachel and Eleni don't like that term).
11:30 PM - Hung up, and went upstairs to catch the end of Compline and the reading of the Lives of the Saints in the dorm chapel (they had started later than usual, b/c of a soccer game tonight)
12:12 AM - left the dorm chapel, saw Angeliki, Thomas and Teddy who had recently come back from the GOYA retreat at Camp Nazareth - which I wish I could have gone to, but then I wouldn't have had the awesome convo at TeleCompline, and I would have had severely less time with my international "wombmate" friend who visited from Thursday night until Saturday afternoon.
12:55 AM - Blog
1:14 AM - Finish blogging, attach hymn and picture. The quote in the picture was said sometime during the "7:00 PM" section of the blog.
1:20 AM - Good night, world!

Λαμπαδηφόροι παρθένοι, τὴν Ἀειπάρθενον, φαιδρῶς ὁδοποιοῦσαι, προφητεύουσιν ὄντως, ἐν Πνεύματι τὸ μέλλον· ναὸς γὰρ Θεοῦ, ἡ Θεοτόκος ὑπάρχουσα, πρὸς τὸν ναὸν μετὰ δόξης παρθενικῆς, νηπιόθεν ἐμβιβάζεται.

The virgins carrying lanterns are brightly paving the way* for ever-virgin Mary;* and truly in the Spirit* they prophesy the future; for she is led* to the Temple from infancy,* going with virginal glory. She is indeed* Theotokos and the temple of God.

-Hymn of the Praises for the Entry of the Theotokos
 Tone 1, to the melody Τῶν οὐρανίων ταγμάτων; For the Celestial Orders.
 This was one of the first hymns I heard when I walked into church this morning. BEAUTIFUL!

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Really cool pro-life video

Please check this out...it's awesome and inspiring!
http://byztex.blogspot.com/2010/10/man-adopts-50-children-to-save-them.html

Friday, November 12, 2010

All Saints Greek Orthodox Monastery - Long Island, NY

I have a lot of stuff to blog about. I guess I should do one thing at a time. I've been really busy studying for midterms so I haven't had time to blog, but I really wanted to go into more detail about the trip to All Saints Monastery on Long Island from October 29-31.

After 5:00 Paraklesis on Friday night, I wolfed down some food, loaded my suitcase/pillow/sleeping bag into the van, and eight of us set off for Long Island. We left around 7 pm, and arrived around midnight, after hitting a lot of traffic. This monastery is unique out of all the monasteries I've been to, in that they pause every three hours to do a service. Two pluses of this is that it punctuates the day with prayer, AND church is never long. Most services are ten minutes long. Orthros is the longest daily service, at about 50 minutes, but Sunday Orthros and Liturgy was three and a half hours, as is to be expected. Their basic schedule is:

6:00 PM - Vespers, dinner, Small Compline
8:30 - sleep
12:00 AM - Midnight Office
3:30 AM - Orthros (Matins)
6:00 AM - First Hour
9:00 AM - Third Hour
12:00 PM - Sixth Hour
3:00 PM - Ninth Hour
And then start the new liturgical day with Vespers at 6.

So, we got there just in time to hear the greater part of the Midnight Office, which lasted for about 30 minutes. It was providential and convenient that we arrived at midnight, because the nuns were up for prayer, and they could let the girls inside. The girls slept upstairs where the nuns sleep, and that area is locked during the night. The guys slept downstairs, on the floor of the refectory (τράπεζα), and we had to move our stuff out when we needed to use the space for something else (such as coffee hour or hosting other pilgrims).

Around 12:30 we went to sleep and woke up around 3:20 to go to Orthros, went back to bed an hour later, and then got up at 5:50 for the First Hour, went back to bed around 6:15, and got up at 8 to start the work day. A friend and I studied Philosophy until 9 (when church started) because we had a midterm that week. After the Third Hour (around 9:15) we had a delicious breakfast, and then got the list of jobs and started working. When the nuns greeted us right before breakfast, Mike - the brother of Sister Theonymphi ("Bride of God") - said, "hey, dudes! or...dudettes." It was so cool that Mike is close enough with the nuns to say casual stuff like that.

Another memory that I have from the monastery is something that happened right after Orthros on Saturday morning, around 4:30. We had gotten out of church, and were getting ready to go back to sleep. The saints of October 30 are a martyred brother and sister, Zenobius and Zenobia. Many hymns had been chanted for them during Orthros, and Sister Theonymphi - in her characteristic, always-cheerful voice - said something along the lines of, "Mikey, do you remember Zenobius and Zenobia? They were brother and sister and they were martyred together :)" We all laughed.

Another nice touch to the monastery is "Miss Mary," who is an elderly woman whom the nuns take care of. She's a character. I think she's in her 80's, she's in a wheelchair, and (in addition to English), she supposedly speaks a dialect of Russian, but when the nuns tried saying a few "Russian" words to Russian people, the people had no idea what they meant. Miss Mary also calls Mikey (Sister Theonymphi's brother) "Mickey." She's a joy to be around, a very sweet old lady. She always made us laugh. She has her quirks...who doesn't? :)

So Saturday was a work-filled day. I helped Emily clean out some crab grass by the sewer drainage thing, so that they could plant real grass there, and then I helped level out the "silly hill" ("Operation SH" [Silly Hill]), which was a big mound of dirt left over from something that had happened at the monastery, and we had to make the Silly Hill not exist anymore. We succeeded so the Silly Hill is no more. We also paused around 11:00 AM for Paraklesis, because a Philoptochos (ladies' society) from a nearby parish was visiting. We ate lunch while the nuns sang some Orthodox folk songs in Greek. They were beautiful. In the afternoon, I helped garden a little bit, and then went inside to study some more for Philosophy. At 6:00 we had Vespers, dinner, and Small Compline, and hung out for a little bit before going to bed. That evening, the nuns also let us record them singing some of the above-mentioned folk songs. Some describe "το μοναστηράκι μου" (my little monastery), or "Ζοή αγνή οράια...ζοή μοναχική" (O pure and beautiful life...monastic life). Both the content and the performance were beautiful. Sister Theonymphi sang melody and Gherontissa Photini held ison (drone). (I apologize for my misspelling of Greek words...my Greek spelling is not very good).

When I tried to get people up at midnight, they were all cranky, and they had sternly warned me not to turn the light on as I had the previous night. After trying a bit, I gave up and went over to church. I was the only one there. Around 7:00 we all got up and packed, because on Sundays their schedule is different...they do pre-Communion prayers, Orthros and Liturgy at 8:00 so pilgrims can come. The First, Third and Sixth Hours are read back-to-back around 11:30, when Liturgy finishes. The chanting was sooo beautiful. After Liturgy, I had a nice conversation with the priest and Presvytera (priest's wife) who come to the monastery on Sundays. I don't remember their names, but they were very interesting to talk to and very nice. They helped found the monastery, along with the late Sister Ypomoni ("Patience"), who died about a month ago. They are retired from a parish on Long Island and now serve the monastery on Sundays and Feasts.

A friend and I both had the same idea while we were there...wouldn't it be cool to be the priest at that monastery...to live one minute away and be able to come and serve all the services, to have the daily interaction with the nuns and the pilgrims...that would be so cool!

I'm home in Pittsburgh for the weekend and I'm about to head off to OLSH, my high school, to pay a visit for a couple hours. Again, sorry for the delay in blogging. I really recommend going to All Saints Monastery if you can!