HOLY WEEK HELP: "HELP ME!"

Our daughter and her young children have been able to help her priest husband with the Holy Week services in their empty church...

O Lord, my God, I call for help by day, I cry out in the night before You.

Let my prayer come before you; incline Your ear to my cry!

-Psalm 88 (87 Septuagint)

She sent me this sweet picture of my little granddaughter reaching up trying to give Jesus a kiss at the end of the Bridegroom Orthros service last night.  

My granddaughter couldn't quite reach and called out, "Help me!"  Out of the mouths of babes.  

Or, as Mommy noted: "Sweet and profound".

Some of you celebrated Easter (at home) this past Sunday, but those of us who are Orthodox are currently observing Holy Week (at home).  

I've been watching and praying our Bridegroom services the past couple of nights on Youtube, which is our new-Coronavirus-normal for awhile.

Earlier in the evening, I had listened to an excellent podcast on Ancient Faith Today Live, hosted by Fr. Tom Soroka: "Holy Week Under Quarantine" - link here - with guest Dr. Nicole Roccas, author of Time and Despondency.  I highly recommend the podcast and the book!

Dr. Roccas talked about trying to find positives about what we can do during this time of isolation, instead of dwelling on "what we can't do".  

She specifically brought up that this is a good time to acknowledge how we in North America (she lives in Canada) are very fortunate:  that our current inability to attend services and partake of Holy Communion is only an anomaly here, a temporary "new normal", whereas that privilege is an impossibility in many countries that are suffering persecution - or have suffered persecution in the past. She encouraged listeners that "Maybe as we grieve our inability to receive the Eucharist we can remember those around the world who are unable to gather in even the best of times."

Dr. Roccas' comments made me think of a book about a Russian priest, Fr. Arseny, which we read as a family years ago.

FATHER ARSENY, translated by Vera Bouteneff. A narrative comprised of encounters with Father Arseny, a former art historian and priest imprisoned in the Gulag. He became Prisoner No. 18736 in the brutal 'special sector' of the Soviet prison camp system. In the darkness of systematic degradation of body and soul, he shone with the light of Christ's peace and compassion. I wept, reading this aloud to our teens.  We all loved this book.

So. What else can we do during Holy Week?

-Spend time as a family while journeying towards Pascha at home.

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-Go here to my past post with some ideas for quiet activities specifically for Holy Week.

-Listen to saints stories and Orthodox books for children read by Chrissi Hart, here on AFR's Under the Grapevine podcast.

-Decorate eggs: go here for my post, Why Eggs for Easter?

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-Pray together and read the Psalms.

-Be thankful for smart phone technology such as FaceTime and Skype and digital live streaming on YouTube, which can bring us "virtually" to our churches and family and friends.

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