THE SPRITUALITY of the PRAISE According to the Rite of the Coptic Orthodox Church ______
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
THE SPRITUALITY OF THE PRAISE According To The Rite Of The Coptic Orthodox Church ______________________________________________ H.G. Anba Mettaous PREFACE In The Name of The Father and of The Son and of The Holy Spirit, One God, Amen. Praise is the work of angels who are always standing before the Throne of Grace praising God without tire or boredom, because it is their utmost pleasure, fullness and joy to praise their Creator. Praise in the church is the highest level of prayers and talking to God. It is actual participation with the Heavenly hosts in praising God the Creator. St. Gregory the Theologian says in his wonderful Liturgy: “Who gave those on earth the praise of the Seraphim, accept our voices with the unseen, count us with the heavenly hosts...” The Praise is the precious heritage of the fathers kept in our Holy Church, it satisfies our prayers in our soliloquy to God, it consists of praise, glorification, thanks, requests...etc. The believer who learns the Praise, its awesome tunes and different ways, becomes a pillar in the church, and is 6 considered a talented servant carrying one of the dearest mysteries of the church. In addition, there are lots of doctrines, rites, and spiritual contemplations in the Praise. In this book, I wanted to highlight the Rite of the Praise and its procedures, its contents concerning the Hauses, Psalys, Theotokayas and how they include Orthodox fatherly teachings, theological expressions, beliefs, doctrines and rites. I included some detailed explanations and meditations for the Midnight Praise, The First Haus, which is he Praise of Victory after the miraculous crossing of the Red Sea, also a detailed interpreting for the Second Haus, which is Psalm 135, full of thanksgiving to the Gracious Lord. Then the Third Haus, which is the Praise of The Three Young Saints in the furnace. In the Praise for the Saints, I mentioned the story of their lives briefly in order to know a bit about everyone of them, because we benefit a lot from their lives and faith. The blood of the martyrs is considered the seeds sown for the church, also the struggle, devoutness, sweat and tears 7 of the saints are the water which watered the tree, i.e. the church, and makes it flourish, blossom and gives fruits. Then we talked briefly about the Doxologies, which are praises of the Saints, said after their lives... After, comes the Fourth Haus, which is the three last Psalms. Finally we mentioned: 1. A general idea about the Epsalys 2. The arrangement of the praise in each occasion in the Coptic Church according to the Coptic year 3. The Seven Theotokias used in the Praise 4. The strong relationship between St. Mary, the Mother of God and the Fathers and Prophets of the Old Testament mentioned in the 8th part of the blessed Sunday Theotokeya (a research not dealt with by anyone before.) 5. The spiritual and theological explanation of The Lobsh 6. An explanation of the Defnar or expositions 7. Finally a brief article about ending the praise and starting the Matin Incense. 8 We ask our Good Lord, to Whom we offer our praise and glorification, to make this book a means of blessing and development in the life of praise of whoever reads it, and a means of spiritual revival to the Rite of Praise in our Coptic Orthodox Church, which is guided by The Holy Spirit, through the prayers of H. H. Pope Shenouda III. Glory and Praise be to God Forever in His Holy Church, Amen. Anba Mettaous 1980 9 SECTION ONE CHAPTER ONE The Praise: A word said about a group of praises preceding raising the Vesper and Matin Incense Psalmody: Is the book containing the prayers of the Praise and it is divided into: an annual Psalmody and the Kiahk Psalmody Haus: A Coptic word meaning praise Epsaly: A Greek word meaning chanting Theotakia: A Greek word meaning glorification (to the Mother of God) Lobsh: A Greek word meaning explanation Doxology: A Greek word meaning glorification by words Defnar: A Greek word meaning a brief history Adaam: A tune especially for Sunday, Monday and Tuesday praise Watos: A tune especially for Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday praises The main two tunes in the Coptic Church music are the Adaam and Watos taken from the first words in the Monday and Thursday praise. 10 Praise Is A Part of The Church As the church is considered the Living Body of Jesus Christ, praise is one of its functions, as a witness of the continuous Resurrection, it is living in Christ’s Mystery. Praise in itself is a kind of transfiguration by which the church expresses its salvation, gained by the hope in fulfilling every righteousness. Thus praise is known as sharing the unseen hosts and the victorious church in heaven, as a practice to the everlasting Kingdom of God. Praise started in the Church since the first day the believers gathered together. The Book of Acts explains the daily life in the church “So continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart, praising God and having favour with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved.” (Acts 2:46,47) Relation Between The Praise and The Holy Liturgy The Coptic Orthodox Church cares a lot about the prayers and praises in the Liturgy. It specified long hours day and night, as they are considered the entrance to service and accepting the mysteries, as well as deserving the grace flowing from those praises. Or as some say, the praise is preparing for the entry of Christ the King to the church. This preparation starts from the previous night for the Liturgy in the Vesper 11 prayers, then the Midnight Prayer and its praises, then the Matin prayer and its praises. The Church is teaching us how to prepare ourselves from inside also to receive Christ The King. A soul who does not practice prayers, pleadings and thanksgiving in submission and obedience, is not worthy of the powerful grace gained from the Sacraments. The elderly fathers considered the prayers of Vesper the Praise. Watching in vigil and praying is the race, while partaking of the Holy Communion is the prize and reward. The experience believers say, that the person who comes to church at midnight, attends the Midnight Prayer, the Praise, the Holy Liturgy and finally partakes of the Holy Communion, feels a blessing and grace a lot more than the person who comes during the Liturgy and partakes of the Mysteries. In fact, every prayer, praise or struggle in repentance offered to God is because of His Great mercy and grace, which is a fruit of the Mysteries that sanctifies our bodies, souls and hearts. This is enough to protect us from any self-righteousness. 12 The Praise as a Divine Sacrifice We need to know that praising is a mere angelic service, which makes us equal to angels concerning honour. It is a total heavenly work, which we read about in Revelation, either regarding the angels; the four incorporeal creatures; the twenty-four priests; the hundred and forty-four thousands or the thousands and myriads who were saved through the Blood of the Lamb. They either praise with thanksgiving songs or the golden violins. Here we notice that praising is a community with the heavenly spirits, in which we acknowledge standing before God and entering into His presence, where a human being starts accepting God’s mercy, compassion and love. Feeling all this grace during praising, a person cannot do anything except raising their heart and mind as a sacrifice of thanksgiving. “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.” (Rom. 12:1) Praise opens the closed doors before the soul to receive God’s gifts, which infuriates the love inside the heart, and consequently worshipping God totally without any hindrances. Thus, praising is a means of offering living sacrifices in the New Testament, to Him who offered Himself an accepted sacrifice on the Cross to God the Father. 13 If praising in church is practiced as a Divine service and prayer, where the work of the Holy Spirit is obviously seen, thus it is considered a divine sacrifice offered by the Spirit, and so, we have to be very accurate and pay special attention to this service. “Let my prayer be set before You as incense, the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice.” (Ps. 141:2) The Intercession of Jesus Adds Value to our Sacrifice A person’s natural feeling always yearns to God and to the utmost perfection; he can never find rest in just prayers and asking things of God. In order to find rest we should give, and we cannot feel that we are giving something adequate to God except by giving ourselves. “Therefore, when He came into the world, He said: ‘Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body You have prepared for Me.’” (Heb. 10:5) Prayers and praising were made by God- through Jesus Christ- an open gate for us to complete our love to God, which we previously lost. “Therefore by Him let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name.” (Heb. 13:15) Securing the Sacrifice of Praising Against Obliquity 14 There is a great danger that praising might become just a dry, daily routine, going off the track rather than giving one’s self as a sacrifice.