house blessing...

…and other news!

Yesterday, our priest, Father Gregory came to bless our house. This is something practiced in the Orthodox tradition as a way to sanctify all matter and return it into God’s hands. I can remember Fr. telling us the first time he visited our home that it was an “outpost” of the Church, sort of like a little church in the community. The houses are blessed yearly between Theophany and Great Lent as we tend to “fall away” from the Lord and therefore the matter we share takes on that fallen nature in a sense. A yearly blessing refreshes and reminds us that we are to be holy. Holiness takes work though, it’s definitely not something that comes naturally.

I have attended one other house blessing, that of a family in our parish whom had lost their home to fire and wanted their temporary apartment home to be blessed. That was a “full meal deal” type of blessing complete with an anointing of the four walls of the house with Holy Oil. We didn’t have to do much to prepare for this house blessing other than have it clean and reasonably picked up so that when we all processed through the house no one would trip. I furiously cleaned on Monday leading up to the blessing and then yesterday evening noticed some cobwebs I’d missed in my youngest son’s room…ooops!

Essentially, some prayers are said and then a hymn is sung as we all process through the house while Fr. sprinkles the walls and other items with Holy Water. I was to lead the way with a candle. It felt very strange to be in charge of leading everyone. I just sort of assume that I am to follow in most situations dealing with the Church. Here’s the bad part…well…at least the funny part.

Ever seen Young Frankenstein?. Well, as I began leading the procession through the house with the candle, the picture of my mind was of “Igor” leading Dr. Frankenstein to his room and saying, “Walk this way.” It took some amount of doing to get that picture out of my head and to focus on what we were doing. I imagine if I hadn’t been holding Ana and the candle and had been able to hold the music for the hymn so as to sing it never would’ve happened!

At the conclusion of the service, we were all blessed with Holy Water, even the dog, who tried to play with the water. Fr. said some concluding prayers and we all venerated the cross…even David gave it a little peck. It was very sweet. The house does “feel” different to me. There is a peace here that wasn’t before that I can’t exactly explain…but it is good.

And…we got our car back…woo-hoo…so we all tried to go to Vespers yesterday evening. Poor David just isn’t ready for the quiet, peaceful, solemnity of a Vespers service. He kept pointing to the icons and saying “DEEZUS,” as loud as his little lungs would allow. Jim finally took him downstairs and Ana mostly followed. She reentered the service several times to give me a status on the boys downstairs and finally stayed with me for the final prayers so that she could, “Kiss Mary and Jesus.” It warmed my heart to see her signing the cross on her own and also singing, “Amen” in the appropriate places. Ana really loves Church…

As does Jim. Our house is going to be looking and smelling like Church soon. While I was in Vespers, he was browsing through the bookstore and bought some incense, charcoal and a hand censer. We came home and tried it all out. When asked, Ana replied that it indeed smelled like church. A slew of icons are on their way as well, bought with Christmas money. They’re on the altar now awaiting their 40 days blessing. I’m not sure we have the wall space for what Jim wants to do around here…but I’ve learned to just let it happen. Our furniture has been rearranged 6 times since we moved here…I’m sure he’ll figure out what to do with the icons.

My journey to Orthodoxy story is finished, although still a bit rough. Once I have it all smoothed out, I’ll post a link. Jim wants to save it as a PDF and host it on our iDisk as it is extremely long. I’m also going to work on an abridged version for our church. If it’s approved, it will go up on their website.

How’s that for a nice long ramble?

Have a beautiful day….