If there is another Sunday, or indeed any day of the year, that has so many different names signifying so many different aspects of the day, I don’t know what it is.
Awake, O sleeper →
One of the more moving Good Friday devotions is the practice in the Eastern Church of venerating Jesus in his tomb. On the evening of Good Friday, an icon of the body of Christ, printed on or woven into cloth, is placed at the front of the church, and the faithful crawl on their knees from the entrance to the icon to venerate the shroud.
The shroud remains entombed through the night, surrounded by candles, as Jesus sleeps in the tomb, awaiting his resurrection on Easter morn.
And yet …
True riches →
Here in the most frustrating (which is not to say the least fruitful) Holy Week of my life, I have been thinking back to Holy Weeks past.
The Prayer of St. Ephrem the Syrian →
Over 25 years ago, when Amy and I were attending Epiphany of Our Lord Byzantine Catholic Church in Annandale, Virginia, I first encountered the Prayer of St. Ephrem the Syrian.
St. Ephrem, a fourth-century deacon, in fact wrote many prayers and hymns, which is why he was declared a Doctor of the Church in 1920. But over the centuries, this single prayer has become so integral to the Lenten observance of Eastern Christians, both Catholic and Orthodox, that it has gained the singular title of the Prayer of St. Ephrem.