Bright Week do’s & don’ts

  • How long have I been doing this, and yet I still didn’t remem­ber (or didn’t know) all the stuff in Orthodixie‘s list of Bright Week practices?

    Specif­i­cally:

    • Dur­ing Bright Week, our prayers in church and at home are sung and not read as we sing all week the feast of the risen Christ: Christ is risen!
    • Dur­ing Bright Week, we do not read from the psalter at home or in church for the prophe­cies have been ful­filled: Christ is risen!
    • Dur­ing the entire Paschal sea­son there is no pros­trat­ing or kneel­ing per­mit­ted in church or at home for we stand with the res­ur­rected Christ: Christ is risen! [Ha! I did remem­ber that one. Hooray!]
    • Dur­ing the Paschal sea­son we begin all of our prayers at home and in church by singing the tropar­ion of Pascha: “Christ is risen from the dead, tram­pling down death by death, and upon those in the tombs bestow­ing life!”
    • Dur­ing the Paschal sea­son and extend­ing to Pen­te­cost, we do not pray “O Heav­enly King, the Com­forter, the Spirit of Truth…” for the Com­forter comes on Pen­te­cost. Christ is risen!

    That last one is harder than it sounds. You know how it is when you’re doing the Tris­a­gion Prayers first thing in the morn­ing. If I don’t do “O Heav­enly King,” I may just sit there for a three or four min­utes not being able to think what comes next.


    Related posts:

    1. Prayer request
    2. Pascha on the porch

    April 24th, 2006 | Grace | 11 Comments |

11 Responses and Counting...

  • Jim N. 04.24.2006

    Didn’t know about not read­ing of the Psalms or the ‘O Heav­enly King’. If I don’t start that way, I can’t remem­ber the rest either! :)

  • Grace

    I had heard about not doing ‘O Heav­enly King’ but every year I for­get. On the other hand, I almost always remem­ber not to kneel or pros­trate. But I had never heard the others.

    And I’m pleased to report that this morn­ing I didn’t sit there try­ing to fig­ure out how to begin for too long. :-D

  • Mimi

    I saw that list last year, and it was all new to me. After 8 years of being Ortho­dox, gulp.

  • BJohnD

    All I know is, after all those pros­tra­tions dur­ing Holy Week it’s kind of hard to stop. Thanks for the list. I’d never heard about skip­ping “O Heav­enly King.” Dog­gone it, I’ve been Ortho­dox for going on three years now — I thought I knew EVERYTHING! ;-)

  • s-p

    Only three years? Heck, I’ve been Ortho­dox for 8 and STILL haven’t got­ten my decoder ring… and my priest won­ders why I don’t know all that stuff.… I tell him call the Arch­dio­cese and tell the Bishop to send my ring. :)

  • Fr. Michael

    The thing I have noticed in years past about not pray­ing the “O Heav­enly King” dur­ing the Paschal sea­son is that when Pen­te­cost finally comes you are SO joy­ous and eager to begin the prayer again. I find that I really miss it, and this helps me to antic­i­pate the Feast of Pen­te­cost and derive so much more from it.

    Guess the Church knows what she’s doing once again!

  • Jim N.

    I asked my SF about all this because I noticed that in con­tin­u­ing my nor­mal prayer rule there were lots of pen­i­tent prayers, etc. He showed me the Paschal Hours from HTM’s prayer book which says that the Paschal Hours are to replace nearly any and every prayer (com­pline, morn­ing, evening, hours, etc) all week. Fr. G also said that in the Anti­ochian tra­di­tion we use the Paschal Hours through­out all of the sea­son, up until Pentacost.

    It’s kind of jar­ring, say­ing such short prayers, but it’s really helped us enter into the sea­son and find joy in the Res­ur­rec­tion. I remem­ber last year going to Pascha straight back into the nor­mal rou­tine of pen­i­tent prayers and some­thing just felt like it was miss­ing. As Fr. Michael said, I guess the Church knows what She’s doing once again!

    Christ is Risen!

  • Grace

    LOL. Yep, I know what you mean about the shorter prayers. Kind of like eat­ing meat yes­ter­day — feels just *naughty* some­how. I’m try­ing to get in the habit of singing “Christ is Risen” to replace “O Heav­enly King.” Makes sense, but the dog doesn’t like my morn­ing voice. Oh well.

  • Fr Joseph Huneycutt

    Dogs can be so Lenten sometimes.

  • Grace

    Usu­ally this one’s a total goober and EVERY day is Pascha morn­ing. But she may have a point about my morn­ing voice. Kind of scary-croaky.

  • Bright Week « Jour­ney­ing Home

    […] Bright Week 2 05 2008 As a new­bie to East­ern Ortho­doxy, I’m try­ing to learn stuff as fast as I can. Well, this week is Bright Week. For Ortho­dox, Bright Week begins a time of cel­e­bra­tion that lasts until Pen­te­cost. And dur­ing this period, because of the real­ity of Jesus’ res­ur­rec­tion, Ortho­dox do things a lit­tle dif­fer­ent. Below is a list of things that are done dur­ing Bright Week. I first heard this list on the Orthodixie pocast. Mark was able to find these items through the This Side of Glory blog. […]

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