Let Us Froy Ta the Lord

fiW-Y w)1"-L''|\rF7 t'7al' )4, f'ou ( Again and Again, Let Us Froy ta the Lord

"\\rirat I tell you three times is way to a new pattern of rr'orship? true."-The Hunting of tlrc Snarh, All I could discern as a new Ler.r,is Carroll Orthodox Christian was the entirely different feel of the n an old Anglo-Saxon manual is a Liturgy from that of any Western formula for the blessing of fields. liturgy I had known. At its best, It instructs the farmer to do the Divine Liturgy seemed to be various actions, such as cut four timeiess, almost another state of pieces of sod from a fieid (to represent mind that I hoped would go on the four evangelists) and drip holy forever. \flren the angels sing water, oi1, and honel,on the pieces rvith rhe choir, we simply forget three times, thrice repeating a blessing about the clock and earnestly hope for An Orthodox service, however, in -fhe and thrice repeating a paternoster. the senice to continue. This feelis not part because of its unique celebration sod is then brought to the church a matter of emotion, but the mental each Sundar', in-u,ites something more to be blessed during four masses, atmosphere delibcratel,v inctiL:ated conscioush' unrestricted. The prepara- followed by many other thrice-invoked by the rhvthms of the serr.ice. One tion of Great Vespers on Saturday and prayers ofblessing, before being rhl,thm is unmlstakable. In all the the fasting preceding the Liturgl' on returned to the field. It is a charming Iitanies, present and repeated, chanted Sunday implicitly build to a climax. It story of a charm r,,,herein the God- and invoked, is the call for nterq. The is as if the Divine Liturgy culminates centeredness of the farmer stands out pra),er "Lord have merc-v" runs like a in the fullest possible array of prayers, as much as the intricacy of the ritual. golden stream throughout the u'ords missing nothing. "It only happens However, one aspect of the ritu2i.l of the Liturgy, and yet each request is once," the senice seems to say on the strikes a modern reader as peculiar, different. day of Resurrection, "so we had better not to say magical-the repetition. Something about the repetition of repeat each prayer to make sure, This ritual element of repetition, so this phrase, something about what absolutely sure, that we did it." This prominent in the Divine Liturgy, happens to the mind when it is desire of the Liturgy to be comprehen- deserves its own attention. repeated, holds a secret. In no Western sive and majestic is evident in other liturgy had I been asked to do so many ways, too. The shape of this full array A Foreign State of Mind things in triplicate-much less to ask of prayers is not simple. An Orthodox I think I was not unlike many new to for the Lord's mercy well over thirry Liturgy often wraps around itself and Orthodox services in wondering why times. The direction, by contrast, of a returrls. It circles in a spiral upwards. we should pray to the Lord "again and Western liturgy was linear: the worship- Because of this motion, and because of again." Surely He heard us the first per said things once and progressed its dramatic use of the senses, we are time. The newcomer's encounter with to the next item of business. It was dealing with an action which aims at a Orthodoxy can be perplexing in so formal, efficient, sequential. Even part of our soul that is not analytical. many ways. Icons, incense, and vest- the best Roman Catholic mass aims The shape of the Liturgy itself asks for ments are enough: repetition of straight and true like an arrow. There less strictly rational participation while prayers in the Liturgy only makes is, of course, repetition in Catholic involving more of the whole self. the experience considerably more masses, but less so within the liturgy In comparison, there are definite foreign. However, such a reaction- itself. It is found more notably in the losses, for example, when one misses prominent when my mind was keen repetition of the whole mass-typically through inattention a segment of a to get on with things-concealed its two or three times in a Sunday. Such Protestant or Catholic service. To miss own truth. Was not a certain habit repetition of the whole in turn invites the words is to miss a vital step one of mind being frustrated? \Arhat simplicity of the parts, not to say must be vigilant to catch, lest the expectation was being asked to give brevicy. prayer or action be irretrievable. The

zB ACAIN \ror.. zo. No. r Orthodox service is more forgiving. If the church building, the vestments, or demerits of the post-Vatican II mass, you forget to pray for "freedom from the anaphora, and more, but the we can at least say that it is modern wrath" at one moment in the liturgy, repetition of thinss like the cherubic and streamlined, a product of our own you will be given another chance, at hymn he takes for granted. Further- century's imaginative outlook. A the very least. Or, if you are mentally more, the Liturgy of his day (eariy contemporary liturgist would not feel sharp during the Liturgy, you could eighth centuryr) lacked several of the impelled to explain why his litr-rrgv says even pray the same prayer, such as "for litanies wherein overt repetition does something only once. a peaceful death," for yourself at one take place, for example the litany of But rvriters as recent as the Victori- turn, for your parent at another, and peace and the litany after the great ans knerv the value of accumulation for a sick friend at the third. The entrance. This ma_v poinr to a Liturgy in langr-rage. The rolling prose of a repeated prayer allows for a ne'u, of the early Church that lacked the Nerrrnan or a Dick+ns or a Ruskin recipient even if the words are the repetition so prominenr in our own. matches a \-ictorian drawing room- same. Indeed, the repetitions in Our experience oI repetition may owe full of hean' things in rich colors. Our principle coax us away from focusing as much to the accretion of prayers Byzantine liturgical inheritance is not our prayers solely on ourselr'es; it over time as anything else. unlike that Yictoriar-i drawing room. would be too dull, not to menrion A century earlier than Germanus is Few corners of the liturgy (or the scandaious, to place ourseh.es squarely St. Maximus the Confessor's work l/ze church building) are left free from at the center of each pra,ver. Church's Mystagogy. Here, too,'rve find coloq sound, or pralrer. Seventy icons The lure of solipsism is never far, rich erposition on the Creed, the Our are better than ser,en, and there is and it calls to mind an anecdote told Father, the kiss of peace, and the like, alrr'avs room for one more saint. by Bishop Kallistos \{rare. A young but the theology of repetition is not Returning to the fathers' reflections monastic lvent to his spiritual father a matter for reflection. As with our on the Liturgr', it is not until Nicolas and asked the following question, with Anglo-Saxon farmeq we might simply Cabasilas in his fourteenth-centun' some exasperation in his voice: "How be faced .tith a cuitural divide. Early Commentary on the Dixine Liturgy that many times must one pray the Our and late anriquirv take repetition for we see a conscious nod to "the inner Fathcr-in a single day? I have not granted; it does not seem to need kingdom." In discussing the state sinned in the past hourl" The spirituai discussion. Numerological issues and of mind the Liturgy seeks to form, father then gently clarified what it numerical srmbolism garner attention. Cabasilas carefully adds to the idea means to repeat the Our Father and and lots of it (mostlr'in rr'avs foreign to that the Liturgy should simph'remind said, 'You may very well haue sinned in us). But the psy'choiogv of repetitior-r us of the historical truths of saivation. the past houg but more importantly, remains a dormant theme. It is more than pedagogl'. The Divine we pray notjust for our orvn sins, but And why revive it? The fathers might Liturgv initiates a richer participation for the sins of all humanity. It is the skirt the issue not so much because in the dirine life. The service attempts, OurFather, not the M) Father." The it is unimportanr as because ir is in his yietr,, to banish all distracting repetition of prayers, even if verbatim, assumed. It is only fair to ask our o'wn thoughts and cultivate fitness of emphasizes that it is notjust "oneself age, habituated against repetition, to soul by regulating the dispositions, praying for oneself," but ail of us explain itself in turn. Would a iiturgi- thoughts, and feelings aroused in praying for each other. cal commentator today feel the need worship: to explain rvhy our liturgies, especially Patristic Footprints the Western variants, are so stream- The aim of setting all this fliturgicai \Arhen we turn to the great early lined, so pruned? The desire for verbal symbolism] before us is to influence patristic commentators on the Liturgy, economy is as assumed by our recent our souls the more easily thereby; we notice how few concern themselves centuries as resplendenl repelirion was not merely to offer us a simple with repetition in any explicit sense. during earlier eras. picture but to create in us a feel- There are notably few patristic foot- A peek into Strunk and \A,4rite's irg. . . . This goes on throughout prints to trace. Dionysus in his Ecclesi- Elements of Sgk (a manual of college the liturgy, in order that fthe divine astical Hierarclzy offers a profound rvriting from about 1910) gives a sacrifice] may not be forgotten, and examinarion of the connection wonderful illustration of the modern our thoughts be not distracted by between the earthly liturgy and the desire for verbal sleekness: there must anything else before it has led us to heavenly liturgy, but says little about be no excess verbiage! \{rhat wor-rld the holy table. repetition as such. St. Germanus' On Strunk and \A4rite have done to the Diuine Liturg is similarly uncon- Cranmer's Book of Common Prayer, with The kind of feeling suitable to the cerned with the matter. He gives its doubled language? To a Sarum or Liturgy, Cabasilas explains, is "fervent brilliant commentaries on each part of Tridentine Mass? \{rhatever the merits attention." Repetition is not meant to

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end-it pral's continually. \\e merel,v join in nith rvhat was always occurring' How beautiful it is to steP into the church when the chanting has already begun and to leave as it continues. The prayers of the saints and angels before the Lord do not crank uP and wind down iike a machine turned on and off. The,v are as endless as the waves of the ocean itself. The repetition of our liturgical prayers is in the end fathomless. They lvork and wear us down. 81' grace, the liturgical prayers also give the soui a (or kind of patina and depth. There is no lull a soul into reverie. The assembled Simplv through rePetition mistaking a rePeated as St' worshippers cry for mercY-a single stillness, a topic for another time) lve Phrase, Peter knows. To renounce Satan three response to the varied petitions of the can approximate eternity. The world over gives no doubt as to the priest-and that cry comes out with of poetn- tells the same tale in familiar times catechumen's desire. To fuIlr' irnmerse alert reverence. At its best, our Ortho- images. \\hen TeunYson begins his 'Break. the infant three times is a triple jov' dox repetition carries a sober force. poenr. bleak, break / On thy fanner rvas cold grel stolles. O Sea," he has caught Perhaps the Anglo-Saxon Repetition and EternitY in three rrords the never-ending waves. not far wrong. these repetitions establish firm Lastly, there is a certain kind of math lvloreover-and this is one of the All our world of flux' Horvever, [o lhe madness of repetition. To say mysteries of poetry'-the repetition of facts in can never steP into the "Lord have mercy" once, attendvely, words, meter, and sounds does some- just as one same river twice, there truiv is no exact suffices for a well-aimed prayer. It thing crucial to the rational mind. at any point in the Liturgy. makes a point. To say it twice or three Such rhythms satisff it. The effect repetition of the in the times creates a trajectory. To say it of a meter or a refrain is to quiet the The placement PraYer the harmony with which it is even more makes the tr{ectory reason and open up more recePtive liturgy, with which it is unmistakable-the points form a line. faculties. The imagination and the sung, the intensitY in subtle waYs' The The prayer, simply by its manifold emotions become more Pliant. The spoken, all vary as Nicholas Zernov repetitioqs in the Liturgy, suggests a senses become alert to another world. litanies themselves, metaphor, line aiming towards eternity. Eternal In the case of the Divine LiturgY, indicates in a lighthearted we rePeat the repetition can mean tlvo very differ- our deeper soul, our ?oo?rs, opens uP. are like a corkscrew: go deeper the further ent things, however, It can mean a Muyb" this time, the soul will catch the prayers, but they Muyb. repeated action of the will and heart peace Christ offers when the priest we progress into the Liturgy. be heard this time, and which is new each time; or, it can mean says, again and again, "Peace be with the prayers will echo eterniry, for they and form a habit or disposition of soul. you a11." How many times will he have maybe they witl is ever old and ever In the latter case, *. ,rL "Lord have to say it before it is heard, what doubts address a God who mercy" not so much with fiew content and doors must the Lord walk through new + each time but to form a state of sowl. to give us such peace? Prayer here slips below the layer of It is this antiphonal atmosphere of rational content and seeks to permeate call and willing response which the the whole person. It is hard to make Orthodox Divine LiturgY so often an enduring mark on the soul any suggests. We have stepped, for a time, other way. Being creatures in time, into an eternal service making its such as we are, the closest way to eternal cry to the Lord for His mercy. approximate eternity is to repeat As -y parish priest likes to saY, the "again and again." service does not begin and it does not ::"t.,t