Missing the Liturgy

Among all the things I've learned since becoming Orthodox on April 4, 2015, perhaps the most humbling lesson has been this: liturgy is rarely a time of worship for parents of small children. That reality is magnified the more children you have, which in the case of my wife and I, is five. Well, four young children (ages 2-7), with a 12-year-old who bears her elder status with at least a small amount of tolerance. I admit to losing many hours over the last five years to resentment about this difficulty, especially when well-meaning friends of older generations, who've never born my burden, console me that, "This is your present cross. This is your form of worship." I can assure you, I'm not worshipping. As such, I'm afraid my wife and I have probably born these many weeks of liturgical absence better than most.

If I'm honest with myself, though, the burden of managing several small children during the Liturgy is not only my present cross, it's near the heart of what I signed up for five years ago. I've written elsewhere that, after driving away from my first ever Paschal Liturgy in 2014, I was suddenly overcome with a resolve to become Orthodox that far eclipsed any curious, romantic notions I may have indulged during the prior four years of my inquiry: I had to do this for my kids. I even called my poor wife at 3:00 in the morning, who was then asleep at home (as were said kids) to announce the fact.

Why the sudden resolve? I guess there are layers of reasons for it, but the immediate reasons pertained to the liturgical proceedings beginning Saturday mornings in Orthodox churches around the globe, which spill into the early morning hours of Easter Sunday (for greater detail, visit the linked post in the previous paragraph). On Saturday morning, Orthodox priests proclaim Christ's harrowing of Hades--a critical component of the Easter narrative--by hurling basketfuls of rose petals throughout the congregation in a procession, repeating over and over the sung refrain of Psalm 82:8:

"Arise O God, and judge the earth! For Thou shalt inherit all the nations!" 

​As this plays out, children throughout the congregation incessantly ring bells to hail Hades' downfall. The aftermath of the Holy Saturday morning service is a nave covered in rose petals of red, white, pink, and orange, which are left to adorn the floors through the culmination of Holy Week some 12-15 hours later.

These are the sounds and images of Easter weekend that fill the memories of Orthodox Christians everywhere: resplendent color, the smell of roses, resounding bells, the fire of countless candles, the proclamation of the resurrection at midnight, and the Great Paschal Feast marked by music, dancing, wine, and food galore while the rest of the world sleeps. Despite the frequently demoralizing burden of running a babysitting program in the midst of every Liturgy, only my children's loss of Easter joy fills my mind this morning, when we would normally be ringing bells and getting showered with rose petals alongside our fellow Christians.

But Easter isn't ultimately about liturgies and imagery, but about hope in the midst of the dark. May the darkness of a pandemic and our separation from each other present only the faintest of distractions from the true meaning of Pascha: that Light has burst forth from the tombs, and that Light has become the Light of the world.

*Photo credit: Holy Trinity GOC Dallas