Dedication Sunday as "Ecclesial Pneumatology"

Hoodhosh Eetho

Dedication Sunday  

as an original sense of the Catholica:

The wholeness of Christ in
the whole and entire Communion of the Saints;
i.e.,
Pneumatolgy and "the Synergy of the Catholica":
in "Mary and the Church" is that we encounter the Totus Christus of the Heavenly Liturgy.

In the 8 Sundays before Christmas,
this second Sunday of the Church Year of Salvation History
reflects upon, and liturgically embodies, Mary's fiat in Luke's Gospel (Lk 1.38):

Just as Mary wholly dedicates herself to the Sanctifying Spirit

and therein conceives the Word in her womb,

so too

the Church dedicates herself to the Sanctifying Spirit,

wherein the Glorious Christ is conceived,  

Verbum Spirans Amorem,  

"in totu" in her members

-- i.e.,

whole and entire  

in His Mystical Body, the Church.

Acts of the Apostles, 
Acts 2.42:

This very Dedication is  

the living and the original Pentecost,

the dedication of those disciples 

who are "born of water and the Spirit"

and who continue

wholly dedicating and devoting themselves 

"to the teaching of the Apostles and the common life, 

to the breaking of the bread and the prayers."

The Apostles' Creed 
summarizes precisely this baptismal economy in its concluding word:

I believe in the Holy Spirit, 

the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, 

the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, 

and Life Everlasting. Amen

This mission of the Spirit animates the communion of the saints,
the christological transformation that forgives sins and raises the dead.

Thus the Spirit in the "communion of the saints" is both a Sanctification and a Dedication. Moreover, the "Sanctification from the Spirit" is received through a consummating ecclesial Dedication.

So the Dedication is an "ecclesial fiat" 

which, precisely as a liturgical fiat 

of the Communion of the Saints,

enacts and embodies the wholeness,

i.e., the catholicity

of the Son's Salvific Mission. 

Here is "the essential act" of the one and whole Church in the Spirit of Christ.

Verbum Spirans Amorem

This "dedicating fiat" 

is the singular Communal Act  

that "makes" the Church what it is.

The Pnematological Epiphany of the Diptychs
Thus the Spirit acts in the Church:
The synergies of Divine Love within the Liturgical prayer of the Totus Christus:
The Spirit sanctifies the Catholica, the whole and entire Mystical Body of Glorious Lord and all His Members, through the intercessory dedications of the Anaphora.
The Diptychs are this fiat made by the Communion of Saints.

Within the overall Qurban of the Liturgy,
the Anamnesis includes, as the consummating Dedication of the Epiclesis,
the intercessions of the Communio Ecclesiae.

Dynamis - Exousia - Parousia
The communio sanctorum is "present in power" through the Anamnesis.
The Spirit's mission upon "the Holy Things for the Holy Ones" consecrates the Church as a "Communio in Sacris," a sacramental Parousia of the Heavenly Kingdom.

The Diptychs name us as children to grace 

and brethren in the Lord's own Divine Sonship.

The Holy Spirit overshadows and tabernacles upon the Blessed Virgin;
the same Spirit -- "Who completes and perfects all that is and all that will be" --
is the Gift of Sanctification Sunday, the First Sunday of the Church Year.
The Catholica of Christ is the Gift of the Second Sunday of the Year, and the Sanctifying Gift of the Epiclesis made present in the Diptychs of the Anaphora.

Indeed,
Holy Gifts for the Holy One!


Excerpt from Bishop Ware, "The Orthodox Way":


Read more, re. Pentecost - Epiclesis; Diptychs - Church.


Ecumenical Notes: on the Spirit in the Church:
a perichoresis of the Word in the Spirit in the Church--

Online Audio Hymns of the Syriac Church:
This website offers audio excerpts of liturgical hymns from the Syriac Liturgies of the Church.

Sunday of the Consecration of the Church

The Blessing of Holy Muron in the Armenian Church:
expression of Sanctification and Dedication
in the Liturgies of Anointing and the Anointed Ones

See more here

Photos and text of speech delivered by H.G. Thomas Mar Athanasios of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church on the Occasion of the Mooron Koodasha of the Armenian Orthodox Church held in the Mother See of the Holy Etchemiadsin of the Armenian Orthodox Church

United Through Our Holy Muron

The Blessing of the Holy Chrism is an important milestone in the life of the Church. The ingredients for the Holy Chrism symbolize the perfection of virtues whose fullness and sacramental unity is our Lord Jesus Christ. But the process of creation of the Holy Muron exemplifies the richness and unity of the fabric of the Armenian Church, clergy and lay working together in a structure that is truly unique among Churches.

The right to bless the Holy Chrism (or Muron) is reserved solely for the consecrated head of the Church, the Catholicos of All Armenians. But every level of the faithful participates in the process up to the point of blessing.

The ingredients for the Holy Chrism are brought to Armenia from countries around the world. Lay and clergy alike participate in the gathering and transport of the elements. Like the Armenian nation today, all blend together upon reaching the Homeland. Members of the Brotherhood of Holy Etchmiadzin give offerings of prayer and incense during the process of creation. As the ingredients are combined, the brotherhood themselves assemble from being scattered around the world, called together by the act of blessing the Muron.
read entire text here:
the Armenian Church Mother See click on link in lower right corner for explanation essay, "United Through Our Holy Muron."

the Word breathing forth LoveVerbum Spirans Amorem

cf, St.Thomas, ST 1.43.5.ad2