وجبـــــــة روحيـــــ(†)ــــــــــة يوميـــــــــة

[Mary Naeem]

HG Bishop Youssef




During this time of the Holy Crucifixion and the Glorious Feast of the Resurrection, let us reflect upon the anticipated and completed sacrifices of the Lord Jesus Christ for our future spiritual glories. During the Glorious Feast of the Resurrection, let us all give thanks that we can partake in the resurrection of eternal life with the full knowledge that the Lord Jesus Christ has suffered for us all to conquer and abolish death, in order to bring us to His Father in Heaven with His great and perpetual love.

[Mary Naeem]

HG Bishop Youssef




The Book of Life will judge us all according to the measure of our striving and seeking of those eternal things.
May the Glorious Resurrection of our Lord implant in our hearts the desire to see the Lord Jesus Christ sitting at the right hand of God, our Heavenly Father.

[Mary Naeem]

“This holy and great Lord’s day
of Pascha we celebrate the actual
life – bearing resurrection of our Lord, and God, and Saviour
Jesus Christ”.

Shortly before midnight on Holy Saturday, church bells invite the faithful to take part in the flood of light and joy of the Resurrection of Christ from the dead.
At the end of the Small Panyhida, the Bishop or Priest will light his candle from the vigil lamp of the Sanctuary and will invite the light – formed children of the Church to receive light with these words: “Come receive light from the light, which is never overtaken by night, and glorify Christ, who has risen from the dead”. Then taper by taper and candle by candle the people give and take holy light, and the darkness of night is flooded by light, and everything calms down, and everyone’s soul becomes peaceful and their hearts beat with divine hope.

[Mary Naeem]

Darkness has no duration; No it can not have any duration!… NO! . .. Death cannot and is not permanent! … The Light from Light, the true God, whom we saw earlier powerless on the Cross, and dead with his arms crossed, and immobile, being buried by Joseph of Arimathea in his own grave, after having enlightened with His presence the Storehouses of Hades and after “He went and preached to the spirits in prison” (1Peter 3:19), He prevailed over death, granting light, joy, life and resurrection to suffering mankind.

[Mary Naeem]

And this sea of lit Easter candles, which is blown about by the spring night breeze, is the reply of the believers to the nonsense and empty words of disbelief and agnosticism, the answer to the wretchedness of doubt and of atheism….
The Gospel reading from the Gospel according to Mark ( 16:1-8) – the 2nd “Eothinon” Gospel – is the scriptural pronouncement that Jesus the Nazarene, the Crucified, “has arisen, He is not here”, in the strangers grave that is, which had given Him hospitality. This trumpet blast of the rising of Christ from the dead is given wing by the bright and joyful plagal first tone of our Byzantine music, and is announced to all the worlds visible and invisible: Christ is risen from the dead, by death He has trampled on death, and to those in the tombs He has granted life”… The night hears it and celebrates. The trees hear it and “clap their branches”… The “night-flowers” and the “holy –vine” (aromatic flowering plants) hear it and pour out their aroma from joy..

[Mary Naeem]

The “Paschalia” flower hears it, and decorates itself with all its beauty… The wind hears it, and whistles it on land and on the sea…. It is caught by the waves and is babbled to those whom they have enclosed in their wet embrace from centuries ago… It is caught by the whale which swallowed Jonah at one time, its whole being is shaken, and it rejoices that the “sign” has now become reality, and is proud that its word to the other whales and to “all the creatures that move in water” has come true in such a festive way. It is heard by the stars, and they polish their silver…
The moon the footstool of the Theotokos, hears it, smiles, and shines brighter… The animals hear it and jump around with joy…
It is taken by the bell-towers and they ring joyfully. The whole creation takes it and announces it everywhere, even right down to the nethermost regions, to the naked bones, the flesh that wasted away in expectation, to the souls that rest expecting and awaiting the rising of the dead ….

[Mary Naeem]

After “Christ is risen” the hymn of joy, has been chanted again and again, an old custom has it that the door of the church be closed, and the dialogue, used during the consecration of the church, starts up:
“Open your gates you princes, and be lifted you eternal gates, and the King of Glory shall enter.
Who is this King of Glory?
The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle. Open your gates you princes… (Psalm 23, Septuagint).
And at the end, at the third question, together with the reply “The Lord of might. He is the King of Glory!… “, the door is kicked wide open by the Bishop or Priest, who enters the Holy Temple with grandeur, chanting, in the joyful first Tone the most sweet “Canon” of the Resurrection, a composition of St John Damascene: “This is the day of Resurrection, let us be radiant O people, it is Pascha the Lord’s Paschal… “.

[Mary Naeem]

There is no sweeter, gracious, brighter, enjoyable festive or melodious hymn of the Orthodox Church than this “Canon”. where the Theology of two chief Fathers, Saint Gregory the Theologian and Saint John Damascene is interwoven. St. John Damascene was the one who also composed the stanzas to it, “Now everything is filled with light, heaven and earth and the nether regions.. “.
“Yesterday I was buried with you. O Christ, I will rise with you today with your resurrection…”.
“We celebrate the mortification of Death and the degradation of Hades, we celebrate another life, the first and eternal one, and jumping for joy we praise the cause, the only blessed one of the fathers, the most glorified God”.

[Mary Naeem]

“This chosen and holy day, the one after the Sabbath, the royal and sovereign one, is the celebration of celebrations, and festival of festivals…”.
“O Christ, the great and most holy Pascha; O wisdom and Word and power of God, grant us that we may most clearly participate in the never-ending day of your Kingdom…”.
And in between the stanzas of the Canon is chanted “Christ is risen”. and again “Christ is risen”, and again many times “Christ is risen”… So that the ear can satiate itself, that the soul burnt out by the furnace of the Cross of Great Friday can cool down and refresh itself, so that the redeeming message can saturate all the cells of the body, the joints, the kidneys, the heart….

[Mary Naeem]

At the chanting of the Praises (Ainoi) the veneration takes place; the veneration of the Gospel Book, which always is the image of the Risen Christ “in paper and ink”, and we exchange with the Priest the all-joyful greeting – Christ is risen!… Truly He is risen! kissing his right hand. This is our meeting with the Risen Lord. As He was met by the Myrrh-bearing women and the Apostles and their souls rejoiced, so we see Him in the all-holy Book of His word. We kiss His immaculate feet and hear with the ears of our soul, coming from His holy mouth the word “Rejoice” and our soul fills with happiness and joy, because the “Rejoice!” from the mouth of Christ is not a simple greeting, but a direct transmission of divine joy and well-being.