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Saints Peter and Paul Orthodox Newsletter September, 2013

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

238. Father, the prayers for a woman on the day after giving birth refer to uncleanness. That’s upsetting to new mothers. Another person asked: Why do we still have those Churching prayers? Those concepts are from the Stone Age! We shouldn’t do that any more! 234. I know that the Canons say that menstruating women should not come to Church or be communed. Is this Canon still in force in our modern world? Because of the high regard the Orthodox Christian Church has for the miracle of birth and of motherhood, it offers the same rite of purification to women who give birth today as was given to the Mother of God when she gave birth to Christ our Savior. Historically, in our Church tradition, on the day after the birth of a child, the priest comes to the mother and offers prayers of thanksgiving for her health and speedy recovery, and offers a blessing for the health of the child and for its protection from evil and a prayer asking for for the mother and everyone in the household who has touched her. In the Law, touching blood (or any bodily effluvia – that is anything which flows out of our bodies) would cause anyone to be rendered impure. We don’t have a good word for this idea of impurity. We’ll discuss it below, in depth. On the eighth day after birth, children are customarily brought to Church by their godparents for naming and for . In the contemporary Church in North America, in order to accommodate the wishes of parents to be present at the rites for the newborn, the baptism is often held on the fortieth day after giving birth. On the fortieth day the mother comes to Church to be purified with prayer and for absolution of her sins and to be re-admitted to Holy Communion with our Lord and His Church. The newborn child is then brought into the Church to be Churched, or offered to the Lord. This rite follows the New Testament example of the Virgin and our Lord Himself and their obedience to the Old Testament Law. Saint Luke gives an exact account (2:22-40) of our Lord’s being brought to the and His being recognized as the Messiah by Saint Symeon. The Greek text of Saint Luke’s Gospel says “when the days of their purification were accomplished” and not ‘her’ purification. This reminds us that the newborn child was also considered ‘unclean’ or ‘impure’ until it was baptized and brought into the temple and presented to God. The Lord who created the universe also submitted to His own Law, out of love, obedience and respect for His Father. In the Old Testament times, these prayers at the time of Churching the child and its mother were accompanied by an offering. In Old Testament times, exhaustive lists of what you should give when you ask for a blessing are written – the offering you make with your request – a ram, a sheep, a lamb, a dove. You remember the offering the Virgin Mother of God was to make when she presented Our Lord in the Temple. She was “to bring to the priest at the entrance to the tent of meeting a year-old lamb for a and two young pigeons or two doves for a . But if she cannot afford a lamb, she is to bring two doves or two young pigeons, one for a burnt offering and the other for a sin offering. In this way the priest would make atonement for her, and she would be clean.” [Leviticus 12. 6-8] She and Joseph were poor and they could offer only the two birds. Of course, God didn’t eat these offerings and sacrifices, but they were there for the use of the priests and Levites (Old Testament deacons) and their families. According to Scripture, if a man is worthy of doing the work, he’s worthy to be paid for it. The Apostle Timothy quotes Old Testament Law when he cites Deuteronomy (25:4) and writes: “You shall not muzzle an ox while it treads out the grain,” and, “The laborer is worthy of his wages.” (I Tim: 5:18).

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On February 2nd of every year, we solemnly celebrate the 40th day after Christ’s birth, on the feast we call the Meeting or Presentation of the Lord in the Temple. Despite the fact that in the celebration of the feast the theme of the Meeting of the Lord with Symeon in the temple is preponderate over the theme of the purification of the Virgin, this feast is considered to be a great feast of the Mother of God. Until recently, the Western Church called this feast the Purification of the Virgin Mary. In the scripture readings for the Vigil of the feast, we hear the Old Testament reading (composite from Exodus 12, Leviticus 12 and Numbers 8) of the prescription that every firstborn male child be consecrated to God because of the Lord’s having delivered Israel from Egypt by slaying all the firstborn sons of Egypt, and for that reason all males shall be circumcised on the eighth day, and after an additional thirty three days of purification, the mother shall bring into the temple a lamb or two turtledoves and two pigeons, shall be purified and made clean from sin. And the offering will redeem the firstborn son. And we hear the reading from the Prophecy of Isaiah (6:1-12), which tells how the angel brought a live coal to the mouth of the prophet to purify his lips so that he might preach the Word of God to the people who would ignore it and be brought to ruin. And those who remain faithful would be greatly multiplied, which parallels the prophecy of the Righteous Symeon (Luke 2.34). We hear, in the hymnography of the feast, how Saint Joseph brought the offering of doves and pigeons for the purification of the Virgin who had not known man, yet gave birth to the Son of God, and how the Creator of the World was brought as a child into the temple on the fortieth day in order to fulfill His own Law. Held in the arms of the Righteous Symeon, who prophesied (Luke 2.35) that the sword which would pierce the Lord’s side would also pierce the heart of the Virgin, this prophecy was fulfilled when the Ever-Virgin Mother saw her Son die on the Cross (John 19.35). In her extraordinary example of humility, the Mother of God submitted herself to all the ordinances of the Law, though she had given birth to the Creator of the Law, in order to show discipline and respect. The Mother of God, who is the Ark, the Temple which contained God, and who in childbirth unites earth and heaven, comes to the temple to be purified so that she may again worship freely there. The Virgin Mary, descendant of the great King David, can only afford to offer two birds for the sacrifice. The price of redemption of her Son, five shekels (Numbers 18:15-16), is paid in the five wounds by which He redeems all of mankind. The Virgin Mother did not feel the pains of childbirth, according to the ancient texts, but she feels the pain like a sword piercing her heart as she watches the spear pierce the side of her crucified Son. In response to the Pure and Spotless Virgin’s exemplary obedience to the Law by coming to the temple to be purified, Orthodox Christian women today also come to be purified through the prayers and absolution of the priest. And as the Virgin came to the Temple to be readmitted to its worship by presenting her Son as an offering to God, ‘redeemed’ or bought back by the sacrificial offering made by Saint Joseph, women today come to be re-admitted to full sacramental Communion with our Lord in the Church, bringing their children to be ‘presented,’ ‘offered up’ and consecrated to God, redeemed by the sacrificial offering made by our Lord, who offered Himself up, once, on behalf of all and for all. In the Churching, although the priest prays to God to cleanse and forgive her, the woman is not being absolved as if giving birth in itself is considered to be a sin. The prayers do ask that the woman be absolved of impurity or uncleanness, but this word should not be understood to mean defilement, dirtiness or sinfulness as a result of having given birth. Remember that abstaining from weekly Holy Communion is a sin, even more so is an abstention of forty days. The Churching does convey the forgiveness of the Church, so there is no need for the mother to come to confession (unless she has other sins she wishes to confess).

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In order to understand why something as holy and wonderful as the event of a mother’s giving birth to a new life can be considered ‘unclean’ and in need of purification, we must look carefully at the close connection between the Old Testament ideas of the holy and of the clean and the ‘unclean’. If we study the concept of ‘uncleanness’ in the Old Testament, we find that contact with three things cause ‘impurity’: 1) contact with physical uncleanness (such as dead and decaying flesh, bodily evacuations and secretions, diseases, and certain animals), 2) contact with, or commission of, moral or ethical uncleanness, and 3) contact with ritual ‘uncleanness’. The first two are clear enough. But the third type of uncleanness, contact with something holy, is difficult to understand. Since a holy person, place or thing is specially apart for the service of God, or as God’s ‘property’, it is removed from common use, it is filled with divine power, and contact with it is potentially dangerous to unauthorized persons who have not taken the proper ritual precautions in approaching it. [As we fast and confess before receiving Holy Communion, for example.] The holy thing is removed from ordinary life and surrounded by ritual protections similar to those governing an unclean object. The holy thing is isolated because it is so close to God, while the unclean thing is isolated because it is so remote from Him. Common things may be put to ordinary uses because they are neither holy nor unclean, but ritually neutral. In the Old Testament, cleansing from contact with the ‘unclean’ has three elements: waiting in isolation for a period of time (one, three, six or more days), purification through , fire or some other cleansing agent, and finally a - removal of the stain by the prescribed ritual (usually an offering and sacrifice) in the temple. In the Old Testament, “there is nothing casual or optional in the demand for cleanness. It is a matter of national life and . Uncleanness in Israel causes the Lord to turn away His face, and without His saving presence the nation is doomed to isolation, exile and destruction. The same sense of the vital necessity of preserving the cleanness of the nation is seen in Lev. 15:31: ‘Thus you shall separate the children of Israel from their uncleanness, lest they die in their uncleanness when they defile My tabernacle that is among them.’” (Interpreter’s Dictionary of the ) So, the Old Testament distinction between the holy and the unclean is not only a religious division, but a division which runs through the whole universe, dividing people, animals, objects and places into two categories which could never be brought into contact with each other. Old Testament priests constantly had to be vigilant about keeping these two contradictory aspects of separate from each other. New Testament priests struggle with the same vigilance. Some theologians, especially modern Protestants who don’t have ritual or ceremony, like to think that these Old Testament ideas of ritual holiness and uncleanness were gradually replaced with a moral conception of purity in the New Testament. But what actually happened was that the idea of moral purity grew right alongside the ideas of ritual purity and holiness. Protestant theologians do not see in how many ways the Early Church preserved ancient concepts of the Law, modifying them to suit, and passing them down to us. They like to think that the New Testament washed away the entire body of the old Law, especially the purity laws, and the laws about food, and re-focused the emerging Church’s sight on the idea that uncleanness comes from sin alone, and cleansing comes only from turning away from wickedness. But we Orthodox see that certain Old Testament ideas, especially the ideas about holiness and cleanness, still persist in the mind of the Church. The idea that women should not come to church in the 40 days after childbirth was still common even in some Protestant churches as late as the 1940s.

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So, the woman who gives birth is ‘unclean.’ She is not defiled, dirty or soiled, but her isolation because she is ‘unclean’ is necessary because she came into contact with an unbaptized infant, and more especially because of coming into contact with the Holy, with birth, with creation. Another source says that this isolation is required because in the Old Testament mind, the loss of blood (or bodily fluids) diminishes the life force, and blood is ‘the life of the body’, and its loss results in separation from God, so purification is required to restore that integrity. Uncleanness arises not from conception or birth-giving, but in the shedding of blood in the delivery, and mother and child are separate from the rest of mankind until their integrity is restored through time, cleansing and the sacrifice of prayer. This notion of purification and absolution being necessary because of the shedding of blood is in harmony with another approach and explanation. For these pious minds, there is no getting away from the fact that the prayers for the forty days specifically say ‘absolve from sin.’ The purification of the mother and child after childbirth is necessary because of sin, sin resulting from the way we humans give birth. Because of the sin of Adam, God commanded that we should give birth in pain and blood, and end our lives in death. So because of contact with blood and seed in the birth cycle and because of the sinful human nature in which we all participate, that purification and absolution are necessary after childbirth. Because the Virgin’s birth was without blood and seed, the transmission of death was blocked, too, thus allowing the death without corruption and the resurrection of the Ever-Virgin Mother and her son, our Lord. There’s no escaping the idea that for both Jews and pious , the shedding of blood is a seriously disturbing event. Read, for example, the canons and Service for the Re- of a Church In Which Blood has been Shed. On the level of the pious faithful, if a child cuts himself on his way to take communion, he or she should not approach the chalice. If a child receives a cut after having received Communion, the blood is absorbed on a cloth which must then burned…. For this reason, children were not permitted to go out and play on Sundays. The shedding of blood which requires purification and abstention from Communion is cited as one of the reasons why Orthodox priests do not shave their beards. Remember that this is also part of the vow of the Nazarenes – our Lord Himself is always portrayed iconographically with a full beard. This idea of contact with blood requiring cleansing, absolution and purification does not conflict with the idea of holiness and the ‘unclean’, but rather complements and completes it. The uncleanness of a woman after childbirth is not a result of anything the mother has done. Though we use the Old Testament word and practice the Old Testament separation, we in the New Testament Church see instead that because giving birth is a creation of new life, it is such a holy act that purification is required because of coming into contact with the Holiness of the Creator. And at the same time, it is birth which causes us to be reminded of the sinfulness of all men, and the command of God that we, as a result of sin, give birth in pain and blood. It’s a paradox that we are reminded of the sin of Adam at precisely the time when we are nearest to God the Creator. The same explanation for why women were separated from the Church after child-birth explains why they were excluded during their monthly cycle (menorrhagia). In many places, especially in the New World, this latter exclusion is no longer enforced. It also explains why the Orthodox Church could never have women priests - they would be unable to enter the Church and unavailable for x number of days out of each month... It is not exaggeration to say that mothers become co-workers with Creation at the time of giving birth. In fact, the Church says that because there is nothing more important than the mother’s relationship and intimate constant caring for the newborn, that the mother should stay in with the child during the 40 days. Perhaps there is also an idea that the holiness of contact with God the Creator 6 Saints Peter and Paul Orthodox Church Newsletter September, 2013 during childbirth would be contaminated by contact with the outside world. That the mother is not admitted to the Eucharist during those 40 days (except in the case of emergency) is another sign of her special closeness to God at that time, and not a sign of sin or uncleanness. Still, because of her separation from the Eucharist during that time, it is necessary for her to be re-admitted to Holy Communion through the absolution implicit in the prayers of Churching. Perhaps because of his intimate contact of the mother with the newborn, the father too traditionally did not come to Church until the fortieth day. The prayers which are offered on the day after birth do point out that all in the household who came into contact with the mother and newborn child ask for forgiveness for this contact with this holy and new creation. Just to restate this whole discussion - we are not defiled by coming into contact with the holy. Rather, our impurity, our sinfulness, our lack of preparation, our status in life risks robbing holiness of its integrity. Take for example the priest, who is appointed to touch the holy things: set apart from other men as part of God’s lot, or inheritance, or property, if you will, the priest is required to come in contact with the holy and so has to maintain his own preparation by regular recitation of the prayers, by maintaining moral purity, and by . Only then will he be spared the fate of Uzzah in 2 Samuel 6:8, who only put out his hand to steady the Ark of the Covenant when the oxen pulling its cart stumbled, and he died. By coming into contact with the holy when we are not prepared for it, when we are not assigned and ordained to do so, when we are unworthy of it, we risk condemnation and death as we all say when we recite Saint John Chrysostom’s prayer before Communion, “and let not this participation in Thy holy mysteries be to judgment upon me, or unto condemnation, O Lord, but to the healing of my soul and body” and “unto the remission of sins and unto life eternal .” Some theologians speculate that giving life, because of its unique status as co-creators, and the special connection to all of creation in a unique way - that life-bearing is reserved to women, just as the liturgical priesthood was reserved to males. Just a word about the second element of Churching - the consecration of the Child to God. After the prayers and purification of the mother, the priest takes the infant in his arms, raises it up and makes the sign of the cross with it, and says, “The servant of God (name) is Churched in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. He (she) enters into Thy house to worship towards Thy holy temple.” The priest brings the child into the center of the Church, lifts it up again, making the sign of the cross with the baby and says, “The servant of God (name) is Churched in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. In the midst of the Church shall he (she) sing praises unto Thee.” Then the priest brings the child in front of the Royal Door of the sanctuary. He lifts it up again and again makes the sign of the cross with the child and says, “The servant of God (name) is Churched in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” If the infant is a boy, he brings him into the sanctuary and around the altar, and back out before the iconostasis. If the child is a girl, she goes only as far as in front of the iconostasis. In conclusion, the priest says or sings the prayer of Saint Symeon, “Lord, now let your servant depart in peace...” and gives a final blessing to all. The priest customarily lays the child on the ground. After making three bows, the godparent of the same gender as the child ‘redeems’ the child, picking it up. The times involved with the events surrounding birth and the Churching are significant too. For example, the child is baptized on the eighth day - which is about the time it takes for two important events to occur in the child’s life - the development of the clotting factor in the blood (important if the child is to be circumcised), and the development of antibodies and resistance to disease transmitted through the mother’s milk. The other example is the significance of forty days for the mother - it is usually between 30 and 40 days that the healing of the mother’s body takes place - it takes that long for 7 Saints Peter and Paul Orthodox Church Newsletter September, 2013 her stretched out joints to return to their places, and the torn membranes to completely heal and stop bleeding. Some texts say the Churching can take place at 40 days or whenever the mother has stopped bleeding. In any case, we see that this is not just some arbitrary ancient custom without any reason or necessity. Because of this close connection to God the Creator, the act of giving birth is an intimate act of Communion with God. This helps us understand the abhorrence Orthodox Christians have towards abortion since the earliest centuries of the Church’s history: if the creation of new life is a Communion with God the Creator, then abortion is as blasphemous as spitting Holy Communion onto the floor or throwing it to the dogs. For those who say this churching is discriminatory against women, remember that the child is also unclean as are all who came in contact with it, and that and the ‘nocturnal emissions’ of males also cause ‘uncleanness’. The act of marital conjugation also carries the stigma of ‘unclean’, as it is not to be done the evening before receiving Holy Communion, and is in fact prohibited during all fasting days and fasting periods. In the ‘old world’ these canons are more strictly enforced, and the isolation is complete. But in the ‘new world,’ when we are ritually ‘unclean’ we may attend Church services, but should not receive Holy Communion, antidoron or holy , and not venerate the icons or the relics of the saints. The Orthodox Church in America’s publication about Men and Women in the Church, opposes the teaching about Women and the Cup of Communion, and it cites Saint John Chrysostom’s Homily on Titus 1:15, where he says “to the pure all things are pure.” Saint John says that those who condemn the attitude of separation are themselves unworthy of the Christian Faith. He calls them superstitious and the supporters of myths.” (page 43 in “Women and Men in the Church,” Orthodox Church in America, Department of Religious Education) There are significantly more prayers found in the unabridged service books used by the Church that deal with the uncleanness of a male who has a seminal emission (either involuntary or voluntary) than there are prayers that deal with the uncleanness of a woman who has just given birth. For example, there is a ten-page service that is to be read by a priest “who has been tempted in his sleep,” which is a gentle euphemism for a priest who has had a provocative dream or a nocturnal seminal emission. But the position of the Church itself is eminently fair: it treats both men and women the same— through our fallen nature and sin our bodies and souls become unclean and we need to ask God for cleansing purification and . That is what these prayers of the Church are meant to do. See: The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, “Clean and Unclean” and “Sex”. A Dictionary of Greek Orthodoxy, Father Nicon D. Patrinacos. Our Lady the Theotokos, Father Constantine Callinicos. The Life of the Virgin Mary the Theotokos, Holy Apostles Convent.

241. Father, are all weddings now celebrated outside the Liturgy, or are they now done together with Communion, like are? In the earliest times of the Church, in the first few centuries of the existence of the Church, it is true that baptisms were celebrated with the Eucharist. It may be that on those occasions, it was done as all one service, as evidenced by the singing of they hymn, “As many as have been baptized into Christ.” We do not know if marriages were celebrated the same way. No text of such a service exists. It is easy, though, even today, to see how the first part of the marriage, which includes a gospel reading, might replace the first part of the Eucharistic liturgy. However, there is no indication that this was ever permitted as a replacement for the normal Liturgy. And there is every indication that this practice stopped fairly early in the history of the liturgical life of the church. 8 Saints Peter and Paul Orthodox Church Newsletter September, 2013

In the last few years, some people have come to think it would be useful to celebrate the sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist together. The same is true of Marriages. No one knows why this has happened. Some think it’s an expression of ‘archaeological liturgics’ – that is, ‘because it was done that way historically, it’s better, so we should ‘go back’ to it’. In some places (in the American Carpatho- Russian Orthodox Archdiocese of the USA, for example), celebrating the Marriage and Liturgy together is already done as a matter of course. It is not permitted in the Orthodox Church in America.

245. I saw girls serving at the altar in one Roman Catholic Church. Can my daughter serve at the altar now? If your daughter, an Orthodox Christian, becomes a , and her abbess appoints her to serve in the altar, she might serve there. Otherwise – no. Just because the Romans permit new things doesn’t mean that we Orthodox are bound by the pronouncements and actions of their Pope, if implemented by their .

246. The priest at the Roman Catholic Church faces the people during their service. They changed that long ago. When will our church change? Why should the Orthodox Church mimic what the Romans or the Protestants do? We have celebrated the Liturgy for over 2000 years with the priest, the leader of our congregation, coming to the altar from the place where Liturgy is celebrated, and going to the High Place, facing the people, and then continuing the Liturgy facing God’s throne. Why should it be better for the priest to stand with his back to the Holy of Holies? Change is not always for the best. The sense of Holiness which was present in the old Liturgy of the Roman Catholic Church has been lost due to the many changes Rome made in order to ‘modernize’ her liturgy. If we copy what our neighbors do, we invite the same catastrophic destruction of the feeling of the holiness of the Liturgy. The Roman Pope Francis recently commended the Orthodox Church for having preserved intact the holiness of the Liturgy: “In the Orthodox Churches they have kept that pristine liturgy, so beautiful. “We have lost a bit the sense of adoration. They keep, they praise God, they adore God, they sing, time doesn’t count. God is the center, and this is a richness that I would like to say on this occasion in which you ask me this question.”

247. Since Jesus was Jewish, shouldn’t we all be Jewish too? Jesus came to fulfill the Law of the Old Testament, not to abolish it. He came also as the fulfillment of all Prophecy. For those reasons, we have left the old Jewish tradition and Law and begun the life in the New Covenant or New Testament. The Church struggled for a long time about how much of the Law should be followed and how much could be ignored, and settled things for us. Now, those who keep this idea, that we should be Jewish, or more Jewish, or closer to the Old Testament Law, are called Judaizers and this is a heresy, or an erroneous teaching among Christians. There is a principle called the principle of continuity / discontinuity. In the time of our Lord, most of His followers were Hebrews, as He was. Another thing to remember is that if we follow part of the Old Testament Law, we become responsible for keeping all the laws of the Old Testament, which is a very heavy burden.

248. Why can’t we use things we’ve seen in other Christian (but non-Orthodox) Churches in our Church? Why can’t we put flowers on the altar? (echo of question 246, above) 9 Saints Peter and Paul Orthodox Church Newsletter September, 2013

a) Why can’t we use things we’ve seen in other Christian (but non-Orthodox) Churches in our Church? What custom or tradition or item would you like to import? What reason do you have for desiring this importation? Our Tradition is already quite full and if you search, you may find the same thing already in place in our Church. Another reason why things or ideas may not be imported into our worship is that the meaning of the item or idea may run contrary to what we know as our tradition. Sometimes these things may seem like little things, but they can carry more meaning or weight than we realize or know, and they may over-run or over-whelm our tradition. Some people say that such and such non-Orthodox custom or tradition is beautiful or nice and so it should be imported and used in our Churches. Just because it is ‘nice’ or ‘pretty’ or ‘clever’ is not enough reason to bring it into the Church. The word ‘nice’ (believe it or not) is very rarely found in Holy Scripture, and only then in the newest translations. In fact, ‘nice’ is used as a derogatory term – Ecclesiastes 6.9 says: “Just dreaming about nice things is meaningless—like chasing the wind. “... These ‘imported’ customs seem attractive, but fade in popularity and are quickly relegated to the status of ‘fad’. In fact, the one who has the authority to import ideas or items is the , and in less important matters, the priest. You really ought to ask your bishop and your priest about this use of non-Orthodox things in our churches. b) Why can’t we put flowers on the altar? In the Orthodox Church, the altar is the throne of the Living God, the place where God sits, the place where glory dwells. Only He can be on the altar – in the form of His Holy Word (the scriptures) and in His presence in His Body and Blood. Things which are to be blessed, for example icons or crosses to be worn around the neck, or wedding rings, may be placed on the altar for a few moments, but do not remain there. In some places, icons to be blessed remain on the altar for 40 days and nights. We do not have this custom. Nothing else rests on God’s throne. The clergy are encouraged not to lean on the Altar table, and are dissuaded from placing their books on the Altar table. Laymen are forbidden to touch the Altar table. Only those things which are sanctified or to be sanctified (like icons, for example) may be placed on the holy Altar, and then, only temporarily. As for flowers, we may not place them on the altar because once they are cut, they are removed from their life source – they are dead and have begun to decompose. To place live flowers on the altar would mean putting a dirt-filled pot there. Dirt cannot be brought into the Altar, and not placed on the altar. We do, however, put cut and living flowers in the Church, to beautify it, but not in the altar. And we bless flowers, sweet smelling herbs and seeds on the feast of the Dormition of the Mother of God.

250. How many times do we have to have the house blessed? Isn’t it a little much to get it blessed every year? How long do you wear one set of clothes? You have to wash them regularly, don’t you? And how long can you live in a place without getting it dirty due to bits of string or paper or straw or mud or broken rubber bands or dead bugs falling to the floor, let alone laziness and other bad habits? And how long can you live in a place without getting it dirty due to your bad language, bad behavior, sinful, miserly and careless life? In fact, how often do you bare your soul so that it can be cleansed of the sins you commit while living in it? You even wash your car on a regular basis, don’t you? Why should the house be any different? Is it because you can’t see sins and offenses? That doesn’t make it any better for clean or healthy living. I would guess that you should want it blessed at least once a month! 10