Let us get ready

Church of Nativity - The silver star marks the birth of OUR LORD

Our lives are filled with cycles and The Orthodox Church liturgical calendar is rich in rituals of celebration in a cyclical way. All of our intuitive desires for ritual celebration are properly fulfilled in the Orthodox Church in her cycles of prayer, fast and feasts. The holy celebrations of Christ’s Nativity begins quietly with the 40- day fast- a time to prepare both the body and the soul. Now, we are towards the end of this fast and so close to meeting The Lord!

 

The Five Days of Pre-feast

The five days just before Christmas are of particular importance. These days have very special liturgical hymns and celebrations that are similar to the yearly Holy Week services.  The Troparion sung repeatedly during this period says: “Make ready, O Bethlehem; for Eden has been opened for all.  Prepare o Ephratha, for the tree of life has blossomed forth in the cave from the Virgin; for her womb did appear as a spiritual paradise  in which is planted the divine Plant, whereof eating we shall live and not die as Adam. Christ shall be born, raising the image that fell of old.”

Although some people complain about Christmas music before Thanksgiving, Orthodox Christians have traditionally started chanting sacred hymns about Christmas in November. Fr. Alexander Schmemann explains:

As Orthodox Christians, we begin the celebration of the Nativity of Christ — on December 25 — with a time of preparation. Forty days before the feast of the birth of Our Lord we enter the period of the Christmas Fast: to purify both soul and body to enter properly into and partake of the great spiritual reality of Christ’s Coming. This fasting season does not constitute the intense liturgical season that is characteristic of Great Lent; rather, Christmas Lent is more of an “ascetical” rather than “liturgical” nature. Nevertheless, the Christmas fasting season is reflected in the life of the Church in a number of liturgical notes that announce the coming feast.

Within the forty days preparation the theme of the approaching Nativity is introduced in the services and liturgical commemorations, little by little. If the beginning of the fast on November 15 is not liturgically marked by any hymn, five days later, on the eve of the Feast of the Entrance of the Theotokos into the Temple, we hear the first announcement from the nine hirmoi of the Christmas Canon: “Christ is born, glorify Him!”

With these words something changes in our life, in the very air we breathe, in the entire mood of the Church’s life. It is as if we perceive far, far away, the first light of the greatest possible joy — the coming of God into His world! Thus the Church announces the coming of Christ, the Incarnation of God, His entrance into the world for its salvation.

The video  http://myocn.net/christmas-music-will-take-heaven/ features a beautiful selection from the Canon for the Nativity in the Flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ, chanted in Romanian in a neo-Byzantine style. The music is accompanied by images of church life.

 

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day

Having sung many hymns of anticipation during the 40-days of fast, the feast itself comes to us in full liturgical splendor. Special divine services celebrated on Christmas Eve take many hours to complete in their entirety. We spend the morning of December 24th, a solemn day of prayer and fasting, celebrating Matins, Royal Hours, Vespers and the Liturgy of St Basil, the Great. Finally, on the night of December 24th, awaiting the first star of the dark winter sky, the Vigil Service of Great Compline, Litiya and Matins is sung. The celebration culminates on Christmas morning and the reception of Holy Communion, truly uniting us to the Newborn Savior, Christ the Lord.

In the Orthodox Church the celebration of Christmas does not end on December 25th, but continues for a full week, with many additional Nativity hymns, sung each day. Then the winter feast cycle continues immediately with the preparation for, and celebration of, Christ’s Baptism (Theophany- January 6th), after observing the New Year Eve's service and the special celebration for the Circumcision of Our Lord (January 1st).

 “Life Transfigured”