Themes of Vespers
The church is primordially a worshipping community.
The doctrines fall secondary to worship. It is in the corporate and communal
experience of worship the church identifies its being and witness, as a realized
eschatology and the extension of the love of the triune God. The uniqueness of
Orthodox ecclesiology lies in its “coming together” rather than “going out.”[1]
Liturgy forms the basis of worship. Liturgy serves as the visible
expression of the unfathomable and mysterious realm of the divine. Liturgy at
the same time is the doxological faith affirmation of the church. The common
axiom should be brought into mind lex
orandi lex credendi “as we pray so we believe.” The church urges the
faithful to pray seven times a day alluding to the Psalmist orison - Ps 119:
164 “Seven times a day I praise you for your righteous ordinances.” May we attempt to succinctly explore the major theological themes discerned in the Ramsho[2]
(Vespers) of the Syrian Orthodox Church.[3]
1.
The Significance of Evening
In the Syrian tradition the day begins with evening
predicated on the biblical reference Gen 1:5 “And there was
evening and there was morning, the first day.” The first act of the day thus is
the Ramsho i.e. evening prayer.
Evening to morning is a transition from darkness to light which symbolizes the
transitory nature of human beings and we are overwhelmed to incessantly thank
and praise God for his abounding grace and mercies in our lives. Darkness also
bears the overtures of ignorance and doubts, so we pray for the bliss of
enlightenment and illumination. The Bo’utho
of Mor Jacob of Monday Ramsho states;
In the evening when
the light of the sun sets upon earth, may I be enlightened, Lord, to praise
your creation; may your word be a lamp to my feet, Son of God, and in place of
the sun may it give light to me and I will walk by it.[4]
Yet
another prominent reason to begin the day with the vespers is to pay reverence
to the fact that our Lord Jesus Christ was sacrificed as an offering in the
evening i.e. he offered his body and blood on the cross. The Bo’utho of Mor Jacob of Monday Ramsho states;
Praise
to you at this time of evening from your flock, for which you were sacrificed
as an offering in the evening; she sings praise to you who gave her your blood
to drink on the cross and she takes pleasure in your flesh and blood, glory be
to you.[5]
3. Themes of Vespers
The West Syrian Liturgy has a
particular theme associated with each day which are as follows;
a.
Sunday – Resurrection
b.
Monday – Repentance
c.
Tuesday – Repentance
d.
Wednesday – Mother of God (Theotokos)
e.
Thursday – Apostles and the communion of saints
f.
Friday – Cross and Martyrs
g.
Saturday – Faithful departed both clergy and laity[6]
Let
us briefly explore each theme.
3.1 Resurrection
The theme set apart for Sunday is Resurrection;
the reason being our Lord resurrected on a Sunday. Resurrection is the ultimate
hope of each Christian. We gain courage in the resurrection of our
Lord Jesus Christ for it is the attestation that good would triumph over evil;
faith over fear; love over hate and life over death. The Qolo of the Sunday Ramsho challenges
us;
If there
is no resurrection, what did the martyrs gain by death? And if there is no
other world, why did the righteous labour? And if the resurrection is not true,
even Christ did not rise from the dead. You dead, await the Son, for the hope
of his promise is sure, when he said in his Gospel that in the hour, when the
dead hear the living voice of God, the graves shall be opened and they shall
come forth to meet him when he comes.[7]
3.2
Repentance
The theme for Monday and Tuesday is Repentance.
Repentance has its etymological roots in the Greek word metanoia which essentially means ‘to turn around’ or ‘change in
direction.’ Repentance is not only the first step to reconcile with God after
we recognize our sin but also the purification of our conscience. This could be
constructively viewed. Heed the saying of St John Climacus; “To repent is … to
see, not what I have failed to be, but what by the grace of Christ I can yet
become.”[8]
Repentance is our refusal to succumb to the temptations. The preface of Tuesday
Ramsho explicates;
Praise to the everlasting Lord and
creator of all mankind; you are he who fashioned man in your image, and when he
sinned and fell, gave him the pledge that he should rise again and should know
you have authority over all and try all men, so that he might return to you and
all his children should not be lost.[9]
3.3
Theotokos – Mother of God
Wednesday being set apart for Mary stems from some
traditions attested to apocryphal literature.
It is believed – as cited by Fr Baby Varghese – that St John the
Evangelist baptized Mary on Wednesday after the Feast of Pentecost.[10] The
Blessed Virgin Mary whom the church exalts as the Mother of God is the paragon
of virtue. She inspires us not only by her humility and obedience to the will
of God but also by her audacity to concretize the preferential option for the
poor. The Magnificat is indeed a revolutionary song that poses a threat to the
existing sinful order of the world reiterating the fact that it is contrary to
the divine order. The church bestows a lot of symbolisms on Mary the Mother of
God which is evident in the prefatory prayer of Wednesday Ramsho;
O mother of Christ our God … we
acknowledge you as a fountain of life, source of salvation, blessed field,
ladder of ascent to heaven … blessed are you mystical bush and ark in whom the
most High was seen.[11]
3.4
Apostles and the Communion of Saints
Thursday commemorates the Apostles and saints who
are considered to be the stalwarts of the Orthodox faith. In the process of
witnessing Christ they jeopardized their lives with joy. They epitomised the
pinnacle of love by laying down their lives for the sake of others, a divine
virtue they inherited from our Lord himself. The saints resisted the
enticements of flesh so as to illumine their souls with the glory of God. We beseech
the grace to imitate them. The prefatory prayer of Thursday Ramsho pleads;
By their
prayers, Lord be reconciled with us and establish us in their hope, adorn us
with their grace and gird us with their love; enrich us by their example and
strengthen us that we may tread in their footsteps; support us that we may
imitate their endurance and grant that we may please you like them.[12]
3.5
Cross and Martyrs
Friday is set apart for the Cross and Martyrs. The Cross
is the visible expression of God’s solidarity with the human suffering. We do
not have a numb God who cannot sympathise with our suffering but in Christ, God
suffers and dies the most tragic death to liberate us from death and grant us
by his grace the eternal life. He trampled death by death. This is what
inspired the martyrs to lay down their lives for the sake of our Lord. The Qolo of the Friday Ramsho states;
The
martyrs say to their persecutors; we do not fear the fire or the sharpened
sword and if the body perishes, the soul shall live and sing praise and
thanksgiving. The martyrs were slain for their Lord and their Lord was slain
for the salvation of Adam; blessed is he who by his death and the death of the
martyrs redeemed his church, and behold she sings praise to him.[13]
The Passion of Christ is the pivotal reality around
which the entire Christian Theology revolves. Just as Eve was taken from the
side of Adam so was Church taken from the side of Christ on the cross drenched in
his blood and water. Metropolitan Kallistos Ware remarks;
The
victory on the cross is a victory not of superior force, not of military might,
but of suffering love. Christ’s victory is a kenotic victory, victory of
self-emptying, a victory won through weakness and vulnerability. In a moving
phrase, St. Ephraim the Syrian calls Christ “the mighty one who put on
vulnerability.” So Christ’s victory is won precisely through the refusal to use
force and violence. As Gregory of Nyssa says, “His descent to our lowliness is
the supreme expression of his power. God is never so strong as when he is most
weak.” Humble compassionate love is the strongest thing in the universe. As
Karl Barth says, “The God of Christianity is great enough to be humble.”[14]
3.6
Faithful Departed
Saturday is set apart to commemorate the faithful
departed. Death is yet another phase of this temporal life. The faithful who
have communed in the holy body and blood of Christ is assured that death is
only the point of departure to eternal life. We beseech that our Lord’s body
and blood which we have received be neither for our judgment nor for our
condemnation but for the remission of our sins and resurrection. We take repose
in our Lord only to be comforted in the bosoms of Abraham, Isaac and
Jacob. Death cannot conquer us as our
Lord has already conquered death. The introductory prayer of the Saturday Ramsho states; “Blessed are you dead on
the day, when the resurrection comes, you who ate the living body and drank the
propitiatory blood; it shall raise you up at the right hand side.”[15]
The Qolo of the Saturday Ramsho further comforts us;
The death
which the just ate is not the death which is forever; their bodies rest, as it
were, in sleep, until the day of the resurrection; their bodies remain in the
earth and shall rise and give paradise.[16]
Conclusion
Vespers being the first prayer of a day is an
integral part of the daily liturgical offices. The depth of the themes itself
elucidates the vitality of the office. Evening being the auspicious time set
apart for the Old Testament sacrifices and even the institution of Lord’s
Supper, it embarks upon a new day and time which needs to be observed with
sheer reverence and spiritual discipline.
Prayers
Dn. Basil Paul
[1] This framework has its roots in
Didache which says; “Just as this loaf was scattered all over the mountains and
having been brought together was made one, so let your church be gathered from
the ends of the earth in your kingdom”. (Didache 9:4)
[2] Ramsho is the Syriac word for Vespers.
[3] Malankara Syrian Orthodox Church
follows the West Syrian Liturgy.
[4] Bede Griffiths, trans. The Book of Common Prayer of the Syrian
Church (Gorgias Press: New Jersey, 2005), 38.
[5] Bede Griffiths, trans. The Book of Common Prayer of the Syrian
Church, 38.
[6] Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church, Shehimo, Book of Common Prayer
(Ministry of Liturgical Resource Development: Diocese of South West America,
2016)
[8] Fr. Stephan Freeman, “Repentance
and the Kingdom” https://blogs.ancientfaith.com/glory2godforallthings/2007/01/07/repentance-and-the-kingdom/. Posted on January 7, 2007.
[9] Bede Griffiths, trans. The Book of Common Prayer of the Syrian
Church, 75.
[10] Baby Varghese, West Syrian Liturgical Theology, 134.
[12] Bede Griffiths, trans. The Book of Common Prayer of the Syrian
Church, 168.
[13] Bede Griffiths, trans. The Book of Common Prayer of the Syrian
Church, 216.
[14] Metropolitan Kallistos Ware,
“Salvation in Christ: The Orthodox Approach” https://afkimel.wordpress.com/2019/06/21/salvation-in-christ-the-orthodox-approach/?fbclid=IwAR3TgHDaYZoiqzIIDmDyRlVm69MDb6P8vqEGO-98iWQ_w5uZF3MF77MkPWo. Posted on 21 June, 2019.
[15] Bede Griffiths, trans. The Book of Common Prayer of the Syrian
Church, 266.
[16] Bede Griffiths, trans. The Book of Common Prayer of the Syrian
Church, 270.
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