Holy God, Holy and Mighty, Holy and Immortal, have mercy on us.

Holy God, Holy and Mighty, Holy and Immortal, Have mercy on us.

Holy God, Holy and Mighty, Holy and Immortal, Have mercy on us.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, both now and ever and to the ages of ages. Amen.

Holy and Immortal, have mercy on us.

Holy God, Holy and Mighty, Holy and Immortal, Have mercy on us.

Movement 2 - Crossing Oneself

Up, down, right, left, and a small bow. We cross ourselves often. In fact we make the Sign of the Cross whenever any of these things happen.

1. When the Trinity is mentioned.
   
2. When the Theotokos (Virgin Mary) or any other saint is mentioned.
3. When a priest or deacon says “Let us beseech the Lord!”
4. When the altar curtain is closed. The altar for us is not the table itself but everything beyond the icon screen (iconostasis).
5. When during the litany a prayer really touches you.

You can imagine how many times we cross ourselves. A lot.


Movement 3 - The Bow

Sometimes you are being blessed. When that happens you don’t bless back or cross yourself. Take the gift that has been given to you and bow accordingly. Is the censer being cast in your direction? Bow. Is the priest or bishop blessing you (deacons don’t bless) with the sign of the cross? Bow.


Movement 4 - The Full Prostration

There is no kneeling during the Divine Liturgy on Sundays nor during Paschal-tide. While done on other occasions the most notable time to see a full prostration is during the Great Fast (Lent). Make the sign of the cross, get down on your knees, place your hands in front of you, put your forehead to the ground, and then get back up again. During a very moving ceremony called the Great Canon of Repentance this practice is done over and over for many hours. While physically demanding the beauty of the canon in its imagery and subject matter is unquestioned. Some families will also choose to break up the canon into bite-sized portions at home during the Lenten season.

Movement 5 - “Taste and see that the Lord is Good!”

The line for reception of the Holy Eucharist is often rather long, but goes quickly. Extraordinary ministers are frowned upon. As a result it is often the priest and deacon who distribute the Eucharist. Stand up, cross your arms in front of you (in the same way many Western Christians would do when asking for a blessing instead of the Eucharist) and walk up towards the altar. “Wait… that child can’t be more than 4 months old! What is he doing?!” In the Byzantine tradition we Baptize and Chrismate (Confirm) our children at the same time. They are immediately allowed to receive. It’s ok - keep walking. Watch the person in front of you. The head goes back and the mouth is opened wide (No tongue outstretched, please.) and a spoon drops the Body and Blood in her mouth. She walks away and now it’s your turn. You’ve got this figured out.

‘What’s your name?’ says the priest to you.

‘Er… Thomas.’ you say quizzically.

He places the Eucharist in your mouth saying, ‘Thomas, taste and see that the Lord is good.’

Saying your name is quite important and visitors will often be asked their name in this fashion - the priest does not have non-Byzantine X-ray vision, don’t worry! It’s important not to cross yourself after receiving as the priest is holding a heavy chalice that can easily be jostled by an accidental touch.

Movement 6 - Father, bless!

“I’m tired, but I must go talk to the priest and tell him how beautiful that was!” We don’t shake hands with our priests. Instead, we ask for a blessing. Put your right palm over your left and say ‘Father, Bless.’ or if you are meeting a bishop say, ‘Master, bless.’ He will put his hand up thumb to “ring finger” and makes the Sign of the Cross while intoning a blessing. He’ll then put his hand on yours and you kiss it. That’s it. Quite beautiful, no?

Guest post from Byzantine, TX

I’m glad to have the opportunity to explain more about sacramentals, which seem to drive many people around the bend. I hope those who have been driven around the bend by sacramentals and the questions about them are offering up their suffering. It IS LENT.

We’ve had quite the discussion about the Brown Scapular.

One reader wants to know:
I am I to understand that as long as I wear the brown scapular (provided it doesn’t fall off), I get to heaven even if I deny the Trinity, the Real Presence and Christ’s Redemption by the Cross?

I really have to ask a question in return. If you deny the Trinity, the Real Presence and Christ’s Redemption by the Cross, why on earth would you run around in a scapular all day every day? Clearly, you have no fear of hell in the first place.

But fine, for the sake of argument, let’s pretend someone would do that. (We can do that while we’re pretending the bones of the Jesus Family have been found and identified.)

Here’s how I see it. Keep in mind I am an old nun that taught Catechism to second graders.

1. Our Lady made the Brown Scapular promise in direct reference to people who had devoted their lives to Christ and His Church. The Brown Scapular to which she refers is a part of their habit. So the promise already refers to the faith. She could have phrased it this way, “All you Carmelites will not see the fires of hell.”

2. The Pope extended the promise to the rest of us, meaning, the Church Militant…which means, we believe the same thing. He didn’t extend the promise to the separated brethren or the Wiccans.

3. As an old nun who taught Catechism, do I believe that you could be a Catholic believer, yet lead a sinful life and still not see the fires of hell because you wore a Brown Scapular? You bet I do! God can do anything He wants, including honoring Mary’s hair-brained promises. God likes to cut people some slack whenever the opportunity arises. Perhaps Mary in her Motherly wisdom realizes that you have to look at that thing and shower with that thing and wear your prom dress with that thing every day of your life and that just maybe that will be enough of a reminder for you to dial it back and straighten up and ask for forgiveness. Like when Jimmy Cagney looks at a picture of his sainted mother while he’s in the pokey and he’s sorry for the sorry life he has led. So touching. These things happen.

Do you have to believe this? No, you don’t.

4. Do I think if you wear a Brown Scapular and lead a sinful life and are not sorry ever but just run around saying, “Ha ha, I’m wearing a brown Scapular! Satan will never get me!” that you won’t see the fires of hell? Not a chance. Satan already has you. The one time you take it off to shower, you’ll slip on the soap and crack your head open. The bus that knocks you out of your shoes will knock you right out of your scapular. The flood waters that wash you away will wash the scapular off your neck. Your evil boyfriend will remove it while you sleep and murder you for your jewels. The paramedic will take it off to give you a shot of adrenaline that doesn’t work. The nursing home worker will steal it from you. The atomic blast will vaporize the Scapular one millisecond before it vaporizes you. As you tumble, end over end, down the basement stairs with no one home to hear all the thumping, your scapular will be tossed off and land right before your eyes along with you at the foot of the stairs. As the life drains from you as you lay bleeding from your head wound, you will reach pathetically for your scapular, but the cat will grab it and run out the basement window. At some point, you are going to want to throw it in the wash. When you do, you’ll drop dead.

You are not going to get away with it, mark my words.

From another reader:

The point I am trying to make is that when catholics make claims about sacramentals without giving the whole story, non-catholics easily fall into the “Catholics aren’t Christian. Catholics are idolators” and a whole bunch of other stuff. I have to frequently explain to non-catholic friends the ideas of sacramentals, praying ‘to’ saints, and ‘worshipping’ the Blessed Virgin.

I have to do that all the time too. Offer it up. It’s a great opportunity to set the record straight.

From yet another reader, this crackpot idea ( I had to correct some spelling):

Got to love how we try to secure salvation through any means possible, regardless of how puerile or ridiculous it is. How can a piece of cloth guarantee salvation? What are we, Hindu?

Along these same lines of superstitious, pagan left-overs in the Church, the Eastern Orthodox have numerous nifty wearable items and prayers to guarantee just the thing you need! Sure glad the church thought of everything. 100% money back guarantee, just like Folsom Lake Ford. Except this time it’ll be too late to go spend your money.

The piece of cloth is a symbol of what we believe. You don’t need the symbol to believe it. You can dump all your sacramentals and saint holy cards into the landfill tomorrow. No problem. You can forget about wearing a scapular. You don’t have to believe in anything that came to us through private revelations: scapular, the Miraculous Medal, the St. Gertrude prayer…let it all go, no problem.

I may suggest also that you rid yourself of your family album and all those videotapes of the kids when they were little and the keepsake opal ring that belonged to your Grandmother because…. who needs reminders? What are we Hindu?

Guest Post from Ask Sister Mary Martha

Catholics have taken up this tradition with reckless abandon.  Not satisfied with the predictable Twelve Apostles and Four Evangelists, Catholics have made it a hobby to create lists, such as the infamous Index Librorum Prohibitorum, (which has given the American Library Association’s a yearly celebration of themselves and bad literature.)

Some bishops in the Church like to mix things up by changing the number of Holy Days of Obligation.  The Supreme Pontiff Pope John Paul II himself decided to
(gasp) add to the list of the mysteries of the rosary.  That move got some circles questioning papal infallibility, even though it wasn’t a statement of faith and morals issued ex cathedra.

Lists are a great way of making sure you don’t forget anything, or get away with leaving out like things you just don’t like, such as the books of Maccabees or The First Letter of James.  See if you can fill in the blanks, and if you can then enumerate the lists:

__ Last words of Christ

__ Apostles

__ Holy Days of Obligation

__ Mysteries of the Rosary (including the new ones)

__ Holy Days of Obligation (all that might be obligatory).

__ Sorrows of Mary

__ Gifts of the Holy Spirit

__ Spiritual works of mercy.

__ Corporal works of mercy

__ Doctors of the Church

__ Theological virtues

__ Cardinal virtues (even though Cicero may have been the first to list these, any self-  respecting Catholic home-schooler should know this.)

__ Latin adjectives that take the dative case (see note above).

Guest post from Doce Me Domine

A catechism is basically a summary of beliefs, often written in question and answer format. The first Catholic catechism was written after the Council of Trent and was primarily intended for the use of priests in their pastoral duties. Prior to Vatican II (and still widely used today) the Baltimore Catechism was fashionable in First Communion and Confirmation classes. The Baltimore Catechism has the distinction of being one of the few Catholic books capable of sending a chill down some people’s spines by just mentioning the title. True, making children memorize the Faith is probably one of the greatest injustices ever committed by Catholic educators, but even by the 1990’s this book was still used in confirmation classes. The good monsignor leading my class quizzed each teenager with a random question from the catechism.

Monsignor: Who made us?

Tiny Student: God made us.

Monsignor: That’s correct. Now your studies are complete.

This is the stuff Catholic nightmares are made of.

One of the great treasures of the modern church is the Catechism of the Catholic Church. This two thousand, eight hundred sixty-five article book sums up the teachings of the Church using the thought of the early church fathers, the doctors of the church, Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition and serves as a reminder that Church teaching has remained constant throughout history. Such a great work is deserving of much commentary and Catholics in America can collect many peripherals. We have the Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church and the United States Catholic Catechism for Adults for those people who still like the question and answer format. My personal favorite is Our Sunday Visitor’s Catechist’s Companion to the Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. They had to make this one a coffee table book so they could print the title on it. Other great peripherals include Living the Catechism of the Catholic Church, 100 Activities Based on the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Catholic Catechism.

Aside from official Church catechisms and unofficial add-ons, there are also catechisms penned by people unlike you and me. There are some for kids and teenagers, some for adults, and some for pockets. We also have the Aquinas Catechism and the Penny Catechism (retailing for $4.00). So if you have trouble remembering what the dogma of the Immaculate Conception is all about and if the Precepts of the Church are not quite at the tip of your tongue, then get a catechism. You might not know anything, but with the right reference book, you’ll never have to.

Guest post by James Rutherford, General Manager, Aquinas and More Catholic Goods

Some candles show up in front of statues or pictures. These candles represent the prayers of people who want to pray for a long time but can’t stay there themselves, so they let the candle do the praying for them. The saints represented by the pictures or candles do a lot of praying for them, too. I know one church (I am not making this up) where they never turn on the heat because they have so many candles burning it keeps the church nice and toasty all winter long. And this is a big, stone, neo-gothic place with uber-high ceilings!

Sometimes, candles are the only light we use, especially for masses on college campuses late at night. It’s kind of romantic and kind of spooky and kind of medieval — except for those LED-booklights the priest and reader and musicians use so they can actually see the words. Still, it sets a certain tone, creates an atmosphere of … candle-ness.

Catholics also like candles outside the church. Purple, purple, pink (no! it’s rose!), purple, all December long. And whenever you take the time to pray with someone, it’s good to light a candle. My Dominican community has a seasonal retreat day, and so far there’s been candle-lighting as a big part of every one. When I was a student, we’d hang out with local sisters, and they used candles too! All the time! The local families at parishes I’ve lived at haven’t seemed to catch on to this candle-lighting craze, but they will soon.

They can’t help it. They’re Catholic, after all, and Catholics just love candles.

Guest post from Br. Robert King, O.P.

Protestants have revivals. Catholics, being the more “I prefer experiencing the Spirit kneeling in silence under the stars, thanks” type, have retreats. And oh, do we like them. Ignatian exercises, high school senior retreats, engagement encounter, marriage encounter, Quo Vadis?, Cursillo, TEC, etc….Frankly, the creative Catholic with some cash could spend his whole life on retreat. An intervention is sometimes needed and can get ugly. So I’ve heard.

The first retreat began with John the Baptist. Needing to get away from it all to hear fully God’s voice, he headed off into the desert, living on locusts and wild honey. This diet didn’t appeal to the majority of stressed-out Israelites at the time, so the full retreat series didn’t really catch on. But the “let go, let God” exercise, which he called baptism, transcended the meager menu, so people reportedly came in droves for day trips.

His most prominent retreatant, Jesus of Nazareth, was so taken with John’s retreat format that he immediately went for forty days of testing by Satan in the wilderness. While being tempted by the devil doesn’t really “sell the experience” on a tri-fold brochure (although that was one heck of an impressive mountain view Satan used to encourage Jesus to toss himself off of), Jesus found the 40 day wilderness retreat to be a formative discernment experience, and the style has caught on in certain circles.

The desert fathers and mothers three centuries later did battle with their passions in the desert in a life-long retreat from society, but people were beginning to find the very cheek of their vocation so very attractive, they were seeking these holy men and women out and bugging them for “a word.” Despite responses so obscure that any retreat leader today would be asked for a refund, they kept returning, and returning, and returning to beg insight from these poor hermits. Hence Benedict of Nursia’s appeal for every monastery to have a place of hospitality for strangers. No Holiday Inns out in the wilderness.

For the record, there is no history of drum-making as spiritual act in Christian retreats.

Fast forward to the present day. We still have retreats, in the equivalent of a desert in our modern society: that is, any place with green space and no TV. Most retreatants today are more tempted by turning on the cell phone than the Evil One in the desert, but perhaps that is our own burden of which we try to let go in a retreat: our comfort, our control, our arsenal of distractions at the ready. Catholics like retreats because as Christians, we know we need a spiritual discipline to turn off the noise to hear the still, small whisper in the wind that is God’s voice. And while we see and know God in relationship with each other, there is nothing like turning into that gentle blowing, listening to God call you by name.

We do it to babies, to ourselves–all that splashing around in holy water isn’t just Catholics “freshening up” before Mass!  We’re rededicating ourselves to the service of God–if not exactly making ourselves holy, then at least reminding ourselves that we should be trying to make ourselves holy.  We already know about marriage and sex.

We do it to churches, altars, statues, oils, pagan practices going waaaaay back–we sanctify them, make them holy, turn them over to the service of God. We even do it to Protestant things, for example: Feels like an auditorium, used to be a Baptist church, add statues, get a priest and some holy water, sanctify the place, and you’ve got yourself a new chapel! What about music? Go to your local college parish or youth Mass and you’re bound to hear some stuff that doesn’t really sound like it should be in a Church.  Rather, you may have heard it on a Time Life commercial somewhere along the way.  But take some instruments (like synthesizers and acoustic guitars) that have clearly been turned over to the service of God (or something), and play pop during Communion, and instantly it’s Catholic.  Right?  Even if the theology is a bit of a stretch. . .

But how, you might wonder, can we Catholics do this?  Is it magic?  Sounds pretty suspect to most non-Catholics, gotta tell you.  Well, Jesus started it, you might say. Not only did He take the most shameful and painful death that the Romans could come up with and turn it into something glorious, He did the same for us and for our lives and deaths–made us new, brought us into His service.
And He told His followers to do the same, and they passed it on down to us (which is why a priest is generally involved). So when we sanctify things, we are partaking of this Grace, really.  Not doing it ourselves, but asking God to do it through us and for us.  Sanctification–get some.

Guest post from Literacy-chic.

Miracles are innately nifty occurrences.  Usually the world operates in a fairly predictable manner, but once in a while God will tweak something in creation, just so we remember who He is. For example, the sun usually moves slowly from east to west across the sky.  However, on October 13, 1917, He made the sun change colors and bounce around the sky in Fatima, Portugal.  Bathing in icy water usually tends to make one cold and prune-ish, but if you do it in Lourdes, France, it might cure a crippling disease.  These are just a couple of the myriad examples that include everything from flying nuns to fish that listen to sermons, and a number of other phenomena normally found in Star Trek.

There are some people who think that miracles are so much hokum.  They say that perhaps there was a mass hallucination/outbreak of wishful thinking at Fatima, despite identical testimony being given by both Catholics and non-believers.  Or that the reason Jesus appeared to walk on water was because he was stepping on ice floes, despite the obvious geographical problems involved. (If you subscribe to this theory, I can get you a great deal on a bridge in New York.)

Many of the people who say that miracles don’t exist are atheists. Miracles make atheists angry, because if miracles are real then God is real. They spend a lot of time constructing elaborate theories about “what really happened” that, sadly, tend to be far less convincing than the assertion of the miraculous.  It is important to be careful in mixing atheists and miracles; sometimes they convert, but then sometimes their heads explode, so make sure you wear goggles.

Contributed by 3SecondFish

Men have at times been known to compare their knees to find out who is holier: the man with less hair on his knees is almost always on them more, and therefore holier. In a contest of this sort a man is almost always disqualified if it is ascertained that his knees are naturally hairless. The only other option is to compare the callouses on the knees, which most contestants prefer not to use since it’s a better indication of the terrain that they kneel on, rather than the amount of time they spend kneeling on that terrain.

Over the course of the centuries, different kneeling and genuflecting postures have been accepted by the Church in order to distinguish between different levels of authority. When greeting God, for example, Catholics are encouraged to genuflect on their right knee. If God is visible, it is recommended to double-genuflect, which is getting on both knees, and then making a profound bow. This is the highest act of respect that knees can offer. The left knee is generally reserved for the bishops of the Church, and a formal greeting to one of these means genuflecting on your left knee while you kiss the bishop’s ring.

There isn’t an official knee-posture to assume when greeting a priest, but this is generally understood to be so simply because there isn’t another knee that maintains a position left of the left knee. If one has a great deal of respect for a particular priest, it is accepted that he can kneel before the priest to receive a blessing, but these blessings are usually received standing in this day-and-age.

So, if you want people to think that you’re “holier than thou”, just walk out of Church rubbing your knees. They’ll either despise you for being holier than they are, or they’ll think that there’s something wrong with you. They almost never suspect that you’re pretending. But whatever you do, don’t do the Charleston:

Guest post from Ethan.

Can you name anything that Catholics can claim as their own since, say, the 1600’s? Let’s take a look at the list:

• Bible covers. If you are Protestant you can find a cover that fits your personality, lifestyle, weather, outfit color, Bible size and probably even your perfume if you look hard enough. And you don’t really have to look that hard. Go into any Christian store and the selection of Bible covers is probably only overshadowed by the variety of Bible translations. Leather cover with a “Heaven’s Angels” motorcycle on the front? No problem. A stone-washed, lightly bleached, pre-worn, acid-baked with fake jewels denim cover? What color do you want that in? A plush Noah’s Ark cover for your kid’s Bible so your children can always keep the almost total annihilation of mankind at the forefront of their minds? You bet. How about a cover that has so many pockets and pen holders that a Trapper Keeper would turn green with envy. Oh, yeah.This market has been so dominated by the Protestants that I’m not aware of any Catholic company that has even tried to enter the business. But can you really blame Catholics for staying out? For the most part Catholics don’t need Bible covers since the Bible is usually still in the box they got it in as a Confirmation gift. And I don’t know anyone who makes a cover big enough for a Family Bible.
• Clever T-shirts. It was probably the Lord’s Gym “Bench Press This” t-shirt that really got the whole Christian t-shirt craze started. Now there are numerous companies on that bandwagon producing everything from clever take-offs of company logos and mottos to the “I want to look like I’m in a gang” shirts. This industry has been around for so long that one t-shirt company is celebrating its 25th anniversary. So where are the Catholics in all this? How about 20 years behind. Right now there are several companies that make Catholic t-shirts but none of them is anywhere near the size of its Protestant counterpart. There is a Protestant store here in town that has a t-shirt section that is bigger than some entire Catholic stores! Still, there are some good companies out there including Nelson Wood (and tshirts, and mugs, and bumper stickers, and polo shirts and posters and Christmas ornaments) craft and Lionheart Apparel which was started by a fired contestant from the Apprentice.
• Trendy worship music. Not being Protestant, I’m not really sure how long they have been producing hip music for their services but it has got to be longer than Catholics. The Catholic Church didn’t really get into trendy music until the 1960’s when the Vatican II document on the Sacred Liturgy was intensely debated,  solemnly promulgated and promptly tossed in the trash can by “expert” liturgists who new better. The result? Fifty years of the St. Louis - we’re not all priests anymore  -  Jesuits, GIA and Oregon Catholic Press producing trite, doctrinally questionable hymns that have stood the test of time - If you think we are still in the 1960’s.Unfortunately, even when many of the hymns in Catholic hymnals are written by Protestants, we just can’t seem to produce music on the same professional level as that found at Protestant services. Can you imagine anything that you sing, or don’t sing, at Mass actually being played on the light rock radio station in your town? Somehow, and this may have been a nefarious plot, the Protestants gave us all the Protestant songs that they don’t sing at their own services.I’m not saying that we should be playing Jars of Clay and Casting Crowns at Mass; it just seems that if we are going to try and copy Protestant worship music, we might as well do a good job of it.
• Bible variations. As with Bible covers, Protestants have the corner on Bible variations. Variations can include the cover, intended audience, translation, size, red letter, concordance, indexed, with maps or with apocrypha (those are the books Luther removed from the Bible hundreds of years after the Bible was finalized). In the Protestant world there is a Bible for every possible market nitch - teens, women, couples, grandparents, the girl next door and I’ll bet someone out there has produced one for pets. How many are there in the Catholic world? Four. Yep, that’s it. Just four different Bibles like that. One for women, one for couples and two for teens.Catholics are also far behind in their variety of translations. There are really only seven translations in Catholic circles - New American, Revised Standard, Jerusalem, Douay Rheims, New Revised Standard, New Jerusalem and Good News.  In the Protestant realm there are at least two hundred thousand.

The only thing I can think of that Catholics have been the first to the scene on since the Reformation is Pope John Paul II’s Theology of the Body. You know that there is something going on when Protestants like Dr. James Dobson have the evangelist of TOB, Christopher West, come to Focus on the Family to speak. I’ve even had a couple of Lutheran pastors come into my store and ask if I thought they could get Christopher West to speak at their parishes!

So there you have it, Catholics are playing catch-up with Protestants and have been since Protestants first existed. It is even now in vogue for Catholics to protest the Faith but instead of doing the sensible thing like their Reformation counterparts - leaving, they stick around and start looking really foolish.