JordanWaters-CanaWedding: Pascha to Pentecost

Come share with us the beauty of the Lord in the New Jerusalem,
Christ the Light of the East –


Now in the Season of Pesaho (Pascha),
alongside the very first disciples,
we witness the ongoing Mystery of the Resurrection
in our own present day with the Eyes of Faith:
In His Light we see the Light!

Just as the Angel told them,
"Go to Galilee where you will see Him as He Promised!"
We sing, together in Holy Qurbana with all the saints of Heaven and earth
who are gathered from all Salvation History, the joyful hymn of hope
that always begins our Divine Liturgy of St. James of Jerusalem:

By Thy Light, we see the Light, Jesus full of light!
Thou true light dost give the Light to Thy creatures all.
Lighten us with Thy glad Light,
Thou the Father's Light Divine!

Salvation and the Easter Mysteries:

Bp H. Alfeyev: Christ the Conqueror of Hell

"Icons of the Resurrection of Christ never depict the resurrection itself, i.e., Christ coming out of the grave. They rather depict The Descent of Christ into Hades, or to be more precise, the rising of Christ out of hell. . . . The Descent of Christ into Hades is one of the most mysterious, enigmatic and inexplicable events in New Testament history. In today’s Christian world, this event is understood differently. How can these … points of view be reconciled? What was the original faith of the Church? What do early Christian sources tell us about The Descent into Hades -- and what is its soteriological significance?"



2008 Liturgical Calendar Note: "From Jordan's Waters to Cana's Wedding":

Jan 6: the 12th day of Christmas culminates the Nativity Feast
with the celebration of Holy Theophany and the Great Blessing of the Waters.

Feb 2: the 40th Day of Christmas celebrates the Lord’s Entry into the Temple.
This feast of “Entry and Encounter” is a sacramental typos:

• of Noah and the Ark,
• of Christ in His Passion, “Exodos,” and Paschal Mysteries,
• of the Church in its sacramental Mysteries as the Body of Christ,
• of the Church awaiting the Second Coming of the Lord in Glory.

The 40th Day of the Nativity Season leads us directly into
preparations for The Great Lent and the renewal of our baptismal journey
into the Easter Mysteries,
into the 50th Day of Pentecost,
a blessing of the 8th Day
and the New Aeon.



See posts on Feasts:

The Ascension of the Lord

Pentecost & The Eighth Day

Our Lenten Journey begins with the Wedding Feast of Cana.
From that promise of transforming love, we encounter the Sunday Gospels of the leper, the paralytic, the Canaanite woman, the hunchback woman, the man born blind. These healing miracles reveal the power of God’s transforming love, and the solicitude of the Bridegroom for His loved one in her affliction. Our own death comes to us in Lazarus Saturday. We hear Christ weep for his beloved friend, we hear Christ command the dead,
“Come forth!”

2008
Jan 27: Sunday of All Departed
Feb 03: Sunday of the Wedding at Cana
Feb 04: Beginning of Great Lent

The Lord calls us forth out of the death of our sins and our brokenness and our frailty. The Master raises us into the Wedding Feast of the Lamb.
We are His beloved one, we are espoused to the Bridegroom of Hosanna Sunday and the Risen Lord of Easter.




READ MORE:

The Calendar as Gospel: an Evangelion of history and the cosmos

new CALENDAR link:

The Lectionary Readings of the Liturgical Year in the Malankara Orthodox Church