Sunday after the Exaltation of the Cross

Icon for the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross

Welcome back everyone, hope that you are well! It's getting decidedly fall-ish in my part of the world, and I do love this time of year, although I'm mourning the end of summer, for sure. I'm trying to see the positives in cozy fall weather and fun autumn activities like apple picking and pumpkin shopping, so keeping my spirits high! 

It was an interesting week in my little Byzantine adventure over here. Settle in with your coffee or tea and let's chat!

🍵

Last Wednesday, September 14th, was the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, and I happened to be off from work that day. I noted in our monthly parish bulletin that there was Divine Liturgy that day at 10 am, and excitedly I set off to attend. I had never attended a weekday Divine Liturgy (is it like daily Mass?) and I was ever so curious.

Well. 😂 I had an interesting experience, to be sure! I arrived at the church, and nearly didn't even go in, because there were no other cars in the parking lot and I was sure that I had made a mistake when I consulted the bulletin. But I figured I would try the door, and curiously, it was open. As soon as I entered that informal space at the back of the building, I could hear chanting, so I knew that somehow, I had in fact been right. When I entered the sanctuary though, I quickly tuned into the fact that it was a small crew for weekday Divine Liturgy. It was me, the lovely lady who was singing, and Father. That's it. 😬 I felt a little awkward, because I'm still so new to the Divine Liturgy, and the liturgy was taking place in Ukrainian (which I knew was likely to be the case), but I figured I would get what I could from context and just being present. I set myself up in the back and just breathed in being in that space, which I absolutely love.

In the spot before the iconostasis where the current seasonal icon is usually set up, there was a display with a cross and flowers. I was curious about liturgical colors in the Byzantine rite, so I did a little research:

Sure enough, the cloth surrounding the cross display was red. I'm already mourning the loss of rose pink for Advent, but we'll talk about that in a few months. 😅 

Quickly, Father became aware of my presence, and he *came down off the altar* to hand me a sheet with the readings and Propers on it in both Ukrainian and English, and pointed out where we were, telling me that they were so happy that I was there. After he went back to the altar, they switched to English so that I could follow along with them.

🥰

I felt very welcomed and at home. Occasionally, they switched back to Ukrainian for short stretches, but I easily followed along with the English side of my sheet. What wasn't on the sheet, I found in the Divine Liturgy missal book thingy. 😎 Slowly but surely, I'm figuring things out there.

At the end of the liturgy, there was a special session of bowing and recitations in front of the cross for both Father and our tiny congregation. 

Back out in the hallway after liturgy, Father greeted me and asked if I was able to follow along. I assured him that I was, and we chatted briefly about the kids and about how weekly envelopes work in that parish, which I had been wondering about.

It was LOVELY. The richness in that tradition is still keeping me entranced and engaged. In the future, I'm not sure how I'll handle weekday Divine Liturgy opportunities. They went out of their way to make me feel at home, which I appreciate more than I can ever fully express, but the thought did cross my mind that it may be a better fit for me to go to daily Mass, especially when the feast days overlap in both traditions, like this one does. Plus, the schedule for daily Mass often works better with my work schedule, as I'm not often fully off from work during the week (though usually working from home 1-2 days). So the jury is still out on that one, but this weekday jaunt with something new was a very enjoyable adventure. 

The following Sunday was officially the Sunday after the Exaltation of the Cross on the Byzantine calendar, but at my son's Catholic high school it was the day for his class liturgy, so we went to Mass over there this week. I missed the Divine Liturgy, for sure, but it felt comfortable being back at Mass, and I was happy to be with Henry for this special event. Later the same day, we did head to our Byzantine rite parish for the big Ukrainian festival/fundraiser they were hosting, and picked up pierogies, sauerkraut and sausage for dinner. This was a collaborative effort of the three Byzantine rite parishes in our region, and the church hall was PACKED! It was nice to see.

Next week we will be back at Divine Liturgy, and our march towards Advent continues! Do they do Advent in the Byzantine rite? 🤔 We're going to be finding out soon, and I can't wait!

Sunday Before the Exaltation of the Cross

My adorable icon of the Nativity of the Theotokos      

Hello friends! Hope you're doing well this lovely        September day. This past weekend fell between two of the Great Feasts in the Eastern tradition: The Nativity of the Theotokos (Mother of God) and the Exaltation of the Cross. The Exaltation of the Cross falls on September 14th in both the East and the West, actually. But in the East, it is considered one of the twelve Great Feasts.

I am enjoying my set of small icons of the Great Feasts. I keep the current one propped up on the kitchen table, so that we can all see it, and I can pray with it there on the days when I'm working from home. This tangible reminder of the liturgical calendar is really special to me.

I have yet to catch a weekday Divine Liturgy because of my work schedule, unfortunately, but I'm hoping that will change coming up here for the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross. More on that next week!

But this week dawned rainy again as the kids and I made our way to Divine Liturgy. I love seeing the same Great Feast icon up near the altar as the little one we have on our kitchen table. *heart* 

In the homily, Father talked about crosses, how Christ's was literal and ours figurative in the form of challenges that we face each day. He also spoke about how Jesus lives in each of our hearts as we navigate all of this, He is always there.

It was a lovely liturgy, and afterwards during the announcements, Father reminded us that next weekend is the big Ukrainian festival in our area. The three local Byzantine rite parishes are all contributing, but our parish hall will be the venue. There will be a raffle and theme baskets, plus plenty of delicious Ukrainian food for sale, all to benefit the Ukraine. We're planning on attending, and are very excited, our first parish festival! We stayed and chatted with everyone after the liturgy, as has become our custom, and we're slowly getting to know people there. It's a nice feeling. I still don't know exactly where this is all headed, but I'm very much enjoying the journey.

Of swinging from pews & tantrums in the aisle - Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross 2014...

I generally like to tie the theme of these liturgical day posts around the readings, but that would assume that I actually *heard* the readings, soooooo...that can be a problem on weekends like the one I just had. :) In looking back through my Magnificat, I see that the second reading and Gospel were very dramatic in tone (the "at the name of Jesus, every knee should bend" reading from Philippians, and "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son" from John) so that fits with the tone of my weekend, I suppose. ;) Let's discuss.

This weekend marked the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, a nice highlight to celebrate during Ordinary Time. We decided to attend the vigil Mass this week to accommodate a Sunday morning trip to the cider mill, and instead of our regular parish we went downtown to a beautiful historic church that Mike loves.

Well. It seems to me that our daughter, little Miss Sassafras Anne, behaves much poorer when we're all together at Mass. When I have the kids by myself, she toes the line pretty well. Usually. You know how that goes. So anyway, we arrive just before Mass starts, and I was all looking forward to some quiet time to pray and recollect. This church has a large and beautifully detailed crucifix near the front of the sanctuary by the votive candles, and I thought that would be perfect to use as a meditation aid for this particular feast. Doesn't that sound lovely?

Unfortunately, the moment we cross the threshold of the holy water font, Anne announces:

"MOMMY! I have to go to the bathroom!"

I try to talk her out of this so that we can at least have Mass underway before we have to depart again, but she will not be dissuaded. We find an empty pew, and Henry says that he also has to go. A real party, no? I head to the back with both kids while Mike gets our stuff settled into our pew. I couldn't find the restrooms at first, then discover that there is only a single stall unisex situation. Henry hustles in.

*long suffering sigh*

I stand with a squirming Anne outside the door until he is done, and then she and I go in. Only for her to sit on the toilet for perhaps 30 seconds before declaring that "the pee pee isn't coming!" Wherefore art thou, pee pee? It was hiding, apparently. And no amount of persuading was getting it to unmask itself.

I got her reassembled and washed up. By the time we get back to the pew to join Mike and Henry, Mass has begun, and the congregation is singing the Gloria. And then the real fun begins. :-\ I was looking forward to seeing the red vestments and any other special liturgical enhancements for this particular feast, but my attention was totally distracted by Anne's attempt to swing from the end of the pew out into the center aisle. Immediate ceasing of this activity brought about truculent responses and dramatic evasive body movements. When my quiet but stern lecture to her on proper church behavior resulted in the ever popular Toddler Makes Body Go Limp While You Struggle To Corral Them As They Begin To Scream maneuver, Mike scooped her up and brought her to the back vestibule for a spell. Since he holds her and won't let her down to run around, Anne *hates* this, as you might imagine.

By this point, it was the homily, so I had completely missed the readings. But I had a nice break with just Henry by my side to listen to that and recite the Creed. Mike and Anne came back around the time of the collection, during which time Anne refused to put the money in and it had to be wrenched out of her fist. When I got the money out of my purse, she noticed her forgotten little pink Lalaloopsy purse on the pew beside it. Before I can stop her, she grabs it and dumps the contents out onto the pew. Clattering out we had:

A Brillo pad;
A headband;
A keyring in the shape of an alpaca;
A plastic cracker with slice of cheese affixed;
A plastic piece of cake;
A purple toy cell phone complete with picture of Dora the Explorer on it.

She rummaged through the stuff just long enough to make a lot of noise with it, and then turned her attention to the giant pulpit positioned to our left. This church has an old style raised pulpit that's in the center of the congregation, and I've only seen it used during Christmas Eve Mass. Anne decided that it would be super fun to go over there and explore the bottom of it, which we didn't necessarily have a problem with, but then she started running in circles around the base. Yeah, NO. Her retrieval went over like a lead balloon to the surprise of absolutely no one, and by this point I was counting down the liturgical acts until we could hightail out of there. A shame, but such is the way of things when a toddler is in tow.

And the cider mill thing that we rearranged everything for? Let's just say that I'm repressing the memories from that little outing, and so are poor Mike and Henry. Going anywhere with a 3 year old runs this risk, and our luck just ran out this weekend.

When we got back from that disaster on Sunday, I decided to run some errands to try and perk myself up, and I brought Anne along so that Mike could get some lesson prep work done at home. I will say that she was actually pretty good for this trip, with the exception of trying to boycott sitting in the cart at Target, saying she's "a big girl now!"

#WHYGODWHY

I remedied this little situation with good old fashioned bribery, and everything was fine from that point on. We made it to Target, Carter's and the craft store, all without incident. Our last stop was at the liquor store to pick Mommy up a treat for later. ;-) We got there at approximately 12:02 pm, and in New York alcohol can't be sold until after noon on Sundays, so the place with mobbed with anxious football fans. :0 It was a humbling commentary on my weekend as I stood in line with two magnum sized bottles of wine, and my toddler shouts over to me from her perch at the display of mini sized $1.00 bottles of vodka:

"MOMMY! THEY HAVE THE CHERRY WHIPPED CREAM KIND YOU LIKE!!"

...and I don't even blink before replying:

"Ok Honey, grab two!"

:0

And so that was my weekend, dear reader, how was yours? I have lots of dance news, but I'll save that for tomorrow. Belly Dance Tuesday! Come on back tomorrow afternoon if dance posts interest you. :)