www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Parish Life & Evangelization How to Get People to Attend Vespers/Orthros?

Article 170 of the Pastoral Guide for the UGCC in the US:

Fr. Deacon Randolph,

I am glad the UGCC has adopted this provision, the Metropolia of Pittsburgh has not so far.

Fr. Deacon Lance

Well, said, Father Deacon Lance. With some of the responses I've seen - and not just one person's - I'm beginning to regret that I even started this thread. I did not want it to be an opportunity for clergy-bashing.

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Oh Lord although I desired to blot out
With my tears the handwriting of my many sins
And for the rest of my life to please thee through sincere repentance;
Yet doth the enemy lead me astray as he wareth
Against my soul with his cunning.
Oh Lord before I utterly perish do thou save me!

- Sticheron of Repentance, Sunday Vespers, Tone 4

My answer: 'cuz we've always had it, for at least the past 20 some odd years!

A better answer might be:

Why would we not?

Why would we not want to start our [liturgical] Sunday by bringing Saturday to a close, praising God for His works in the great prayer the Prophet David wrote (Ps. 103), crying to Him and praising Him and his Saints (Lamp Lighting Psalms, texts from the Octoechos and Menaion, O Gladsome Light, etc.), and receiving a blessing from the priest?

Why would we not want to awaken to a morning prayer praising our God for His resurrection, hear again the infinite mystery of His resurrection through prayers, the Gospel and the canon? Why would we not want to pray the Doxology?

Why would we not want to partake in this part of the great prayer of the hours that our Church prays constantly, this living font of theology?

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Oh Lord although I desired to blot out
With my tears the handwriting of my many sins
And for the rest of my life to please thee through sincere repentance;
Yet doth the enemy lead me astray as he wareth
Against my soul with his cunning.
Oh Lord before I utterly perish do thou save me!

- Sticheron of Repentance, Sunday Vespers, Tone 4

Father Deacon,

You raise a good point. Why do we expect the priests to do something the people don't want and won't attend? The people here pointing to the Orthodox as the model to emulate say we can expect 4 or 5 people to show up if we're lucky, but we're fine as long as we have the priest praying it in an empty church.

So we have to have it to say we have it and as long as the priest does it than we've fulfilled the obligation of looking Orthodox enough? That seems Pharisaical to me.

On the other hand, I can understand holding the priests to a higher accounting than the lay men. It is the priests who are supposed to instruct and guide them. How are the lay people to know about it if they are never taught?

To answer your question Jeff, we don't have Vespers because the Orthodox do or because the rules say we need to or because it seems like a new and novel way to live our faith. Like the Jews, we offer our worship and praise to God in all things, including the setting of the sun. Like the Muslims, (or rather, they like us), we have set times each day to call us back to our focus, which is God. Like our fathers and mothers before us, we pray the prayers that have sustained and enlightened generation after generation, leading them to holiness and truth.

I don't know who said that prayer is all about God and has nothing to do with man. If that were the case, we would not have such an emphasis on using our whole bodies, all our senses, and on aesthetic beauty in our churches. God gave us this gift of our churches and our liturgies, and we pray for all those who love the beauty of His house. Our discipline of daily prayer, our discipline of fasting, our discipline of prostrations are all for our benefit, so that we can come to know the True God and be united with Him. Any Christian who has that as his aim will be assisted in his journey by the methods that have been tried and proven true by thousands of years of use. Vespers, Matins, Anointing, Prostrations, Fasting, the Jesus Prayer, Iconography, Confession, the Eucharist, the Bible--these are all gifts to us for our benefit. Why would we try to forge new paths and discover new routes to go, like Saturday evening Liturgy or "First Communion" at the age of reason, when we have the test of time and the testament of saints and the blood of martyrs all given to provide us with what we already have? Why would we deny ourselves or our children the gifts so many men and women suffered and died to teach us about? We have Vespers because it is a way we know calls our focus back to the Lord, because our God is worthy of our praise at the rising and setting of the sun, because it guides us in our walk with the Lord and brings us closer to unity with Him, because it teaches us to praise God at all times including in times of darkness, and because it unites us with the millions of faithful through history, with all the saints and martyrs, who shared the same faith and prayers.

How presumptuous a man it would take to think he could come up with some novelty that is better than the faith and tradition that has been handed down to to us from the apostles! How presumptuous a man to think he needs or deserves something more than what has sustained countless generations before him! How presumptuous a man to reject a gift from God Himself intended to bring us closer to Him and to say that he can do it better, or even worse that he doesn't want it at all! We have Vespers because we are a people of God, and this is the way He has given His Church to lead the faithful to Him. What other reason do we need?

Thank you, Alice and Wondering!

That is exactly what I was looking for - and you two put it better than I could when I started this part of the discussion.

Father Taft, in his book on the Liturgy of the Hours in Eastern and Western traditions, looked at all the reasons various theologians gave for these services, and concluded that

- Christians have always prayed at morning and evening
- is it altogether necessary that we adore, praise, thank and petition God
- various times of the day are particularly good for these purposes, both practically and symbolically
- the Church has made use of these opportunities in various ways to teach the faithful and direct their prayer

So while we ought to pray, it is also good for us to pray, and God in His providence, with the Church as his instrument, has made it good in various ways. On the one hand, we shouldn't be going to Vespers IN ORDER TO learn, be encouraged, etc., but it would be ungrateful of us not to notice the wonderful opportunities we are given in these services.

THANK YOU!

Yours in Christ,
Jeff

My apologies - at 5:30 in the morning I mistook MarkosC's post for one of Alice's. Regardless - thank you Markos and Wondering for your contributions, and thank you Alice for everything!

Jeff

I'm glad that this canon law hasn't been revised and updated for secular society yet.


I was always under the impression, per a priest in the Eparchy of Parma, that Vespers or Matins fulfilled your obligation with the fact that attending all three is the best. 90%+ of our churches don't offer these services so I guess it isn't surprising if the above is immaterial either way.

Can anyone verify if other Greek Catholics and other Orthodox jurisdictions consider Vespers or Matins to fulfill ones obligation? This is an interesting bit of news to learn that our eparchies not only don't celebrate these services, but don't consider them fulfilling an obligation.



Above is the recurrent theme that I unfortunately keep hearing. The laity are supposed to lead and the leaders will be the followers. Up is down, down is up, Alice in Wonderland where are you?


I don't deny that our shortage of priests leaves our clergy overworked, but in the Munhall example, the priest and cantor are already celebrating Saturday evening liturgy. Why can't Vespers, which is supposed to be celebrated, be celebrated? The only 'poor attitude' that I see here is excusing not celebrating the correct services. So 90%+ of our churches don't celebrate Vespers or Matins and it's 'negative' to ask what the heck is going on? Priests and qualified cantors in many parishes are gathering to celebrate Saturday evening liturgies (which is not our Tradition) instead of Vespers (which is our Tradition) and the person asking why is the person precluding it from happening, not those in positions of power who could clear this up in no time?


With the median age of the people in the pews around the same I don't think that it will matter. By the way, I'm sure that there exists a plan to correct this, or are the laity supposed to lead this one too?

I have done the same thing. Funny how MarkosC looks just like Alice!

"Why can't Vespers, which is supposed to be celebrated, be celebrated? The only 'poor attitude' that I see here is excusing not celebrating the correct services. So 90%+ of our churches don't celebrate Vespers or Matins and it's 'negative' to ask what the heck is going on?"


Canon 881

1. The Christian faithful are bound by the obligation to participate on Sundays and feast days in the Divine Liturgy, or according to the prescriptions or legitimate customs of their own
Church sui iuris, in the celebration of the divine praises.

2. In order for the Christian faithful to fulfill this obligation
more easily, the available time runs from the evening of the vigil until the end of the Sunday or feast day.

3. The Christian faithful are strongly recommended to receive the Divine Eucharist on these days and indeed more frequently, even daily.

4. The Christian faithful should abstain from those labors or
business matters which impede the worship to be rendered to God,
the joy which is proper to the Lord's day, or to the proper relaxation of mind and body.

The Particular Law of the Metropolia is below:
https://www.byzcath.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=334

You will see that there is no addendum to Canon 881 allowing the faithful to fulfill their obligation with Vespers or Matins.

Because of that pastors feel responsible to offer Saturday Evening Liturgies to help people meet their obligation. Now some, in an effort to reintroduce something of Vespers, have begun Vesperal Liturgies but this too is put down.

"With the median age of the people in the pews around the same I don't think that it will matter. By the way, I'm sure that there exists a plan to correct this, or are the laity supposed to lead this one too?"

In fact they are. It is up to parents to inculcate in their children love for their Church and vocations.

Fr. Deacon Lance

One can sympathise with those not able to attend a Sunday Divine Liturgy, but not those who attend Saturday evening so they can sleep in on Sunday / have the morning 'off'. Besides, Vespers should be seen mainly as a preparation for the Divine Liturgy, and only to a lesser degree 'enough' if one can't make it on Sunday.

I've often wondered why the Orthodox hierarchs and clergy do not offer the same to their faithful - surely some of them have to work on Sundays...

I was startled once, in an English-language OCA parish in western Canada - I went to Vespers and the service incorporated the reading of the next day's Gospel and a sermon based upon that Gospel, which I assume the priest also gave the next morning. Come to think of it, I've not been in that particular church since.

Fr. Serge

Father Deacon,

Thank you for the canons. I am troubled.

You frequently say that any change must be led at the grass roots level, and only when it is established will the hierarchs look at changing the official practices. This creates an impossible loop. If the people want to reclaim their rightful tradition, they must circumvent the priests and bishops who will not assist them or give them support, they must take it upon themselves to learn these practices, they must take it upon themselves to initiate these practices, and they must adhere to the canon laws which make these practices all the more harder than they should be. If they can overcome all these obstacles, and they can show a people-led initiative that is contrary to the leaders and the canons, then we can discuss making it a formality. What do we need the lessening, much less the bishops, for at that point in time? We've led ourselves and we've garnered support to more than the law would allow.

I feel this undermines the role of the bishops and priests and turns the church on its head. I don't feel this is a healthy model to encourage or follow.

Instead, the bishops could reinstitute the Church's tradition in the Code of Canons, the people and priests can follow their lead at a grass-roots level, spending their time in prayer instead of in fighting a bureaucracy, and we can see this practice flourish with and under the Metropolitan's and bishops' guiding hands.

Do you have a solution for the conundrum this proposed model creates?

Mononakh, regarding what other Greek Catholic Churches have done with their particular law in this regard, perhaps you missed my post above:

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The Pastoral Guide is the particular law in the USA for the UGCC.

Markos, excellent points. We have to regain the sense of eucharistic liturgy in its full sense as understood by our Eastern Christian descendents in the first thousand years of the Church. There is a fuller lived reality of the Paschal Mystery that includes the cycle of Vespers, Matins, and the Divine Liturgy. All are eucharistic, culminating with the reception of the Holy Eucharist itself. Creation, fall, redemption and parousia are lived throughout this cycle in a real and mystical way - already present in time. When the emphasis from this full eucharistic cycle becomes compromised, many things become compromised, neglected, minimized.

Not only should we santify time itself through the Divine Praises, but especially so in a "focused" way on the day of Resurrection and the great holy days of the Church. Perhaps a more banal way to think of it is like courses of a meal - do you start out with dessert???