All-Night Vigil

I'm a big fan of liturgy. I love the repetition, the speaking of truth day after day in the same way. The way the words get into your mind and heart, until they're as familiar as breathing. No matter what your circumstances, you can join a congregation with the same liturgy and fit right in. No matter where your heart is, you can speak and sing the old, old words and be brought back to the center, the source, the Savior.

While each of the traditional services charms me in its own way, I'm particularly captivated by vespers. It's the evening service, marking the close of the day. It's an opportunity to give thanks for what the day has held, and prepare for the night ahead. (Another reason I love liturgy--it is refreshingly in-the-moment. Each day, each hour, asking for the blessing and faithfulness that that day, that hour, requires.) Dusk is always an enchanting time, a beautiful and somber time, and I love marking that with beautiful, thankful, somber prayer and worship.

Eastern Orthodoxy is really cool because it still has so many features of high church. Worship involves all the senses... seeing the pervasive, iconic art and rich vestments of the clergy, hearing the music and liturgy, smelling and breathing the incense, touching the icons, tasting the sacrament. I've never experienced the full-fledged service, but someday I will. And while the charismatic and Wesleyan sides of me will rebel against the strictures, the Catholic and Jewish sides of me will revel.

Saturday night I went to a performance of Rachmaninoff's "Vespers," part of which I sang a few years ago with the Houghton College Choir. While technically a setting of the Orthodox all-night vigil rather than the orthodox vespers texts, it makes for a captivating service. Here are a few sections of the Vespers, my favorite parts. The last one is the best.


"Amen.
COME, LET US WORSHIP God, our King.
Come let us worship and fall down before Christ,
our King and our God.
Come, let us worship and fall down before the very Christ,
our King and our God.
Come, let us worship and fall down before him."



"BLESS THE LORD, O MY SOUL, blessed art thou, O Lord.
O Lord my God, thou art very great.
Thou art clothed with honour and majesty.
Blessed art thou, O Lord.
The waters stand upon the mountains.
Marvellous are thy works, O Lord.
In wisdom hast thou made all things.
Glory to thee, O Lord, who hast created all."


"REJOICE O VIRGIN Theotokos, Mary full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, for thou has borne the Saviour of our souls."