The light of the East

11 May 2000 12:35

While in the Holy Land, Vassula strongly recommended us to read the Pope’s apostolic letter ‘Orientale Lumen’. Brother Otfried Chan has suggested sending a copy of it to as many TLIG friends as possible, just to remind them to put into practice Vassula’s recommendation.

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A brief introduction to the apostolic letter, by Cardinal Godfried Danneels, Archbishop of Malines-Brussels is copied below, followed by some extracts from the Pope’s Angelus address of November 3, 1996

In May of 1995, Pope John Paul II published his apostolic letter Orientale Lumen. The occasion for this was the 100th anniversary of the apostolic letter Orientalium Dignitas, published in 1894 by his predecessor Leo XIII. Both letters are dedicated to the richness of the Eastern tradition for the entire church especially the Latin church.

For many Western Christians there is undoubtedly an inadequate understanding of the richness of the Eastern traditions. Due to this ignorance, much is lost of what belongs to the integral patrimony of the entire catholic, that is to say, the universal Church. Finally, all Christian traditions have as their place of birth the East: Jerusalem is the place where Christ died and rose, and where the experience of Pentecost occurred. Jerusalem is the “mother of all churches”: from there the gospel is preached to all peoples. Furthermore, Jerusalem was also the first model of a church community in which very differing traditions and cultures lived together for centuries.

It is then with a certain nostalgia and gratitude that we have to look back to this place where harmony first reigned between all races, peoples and languages, a harmony which as born on Pentecost. For our contemporary search for harmony in a divided world, we already have a model. That the current pope is a Slavonic pope probably also had something to do with this interest in the East.

Pope John Paul II Angelus, November 3, 1996:

  1. In the last few days, the Solemnity of All Saints and the Commemoration of the Faithful Departed have enabled us to feel the intimate communion linking us to our brothers and sisters who have already entered eternity. They are now having a deep experience of God; they sing his mercy; they celebrate his love. The liturgy we celebrate on earth is a mysterious participation in this heavenly liturgy.

The sense of liturgy is particularly vivid among our Eastern brothers and sisters. For them, the liturgy is truly “heaven on earth” (Orientale lumen, n. 11). It is a synthesis of the whole faith experience. It is an involving experience which touches the whole human person, body and soul. Everything in the sacred action aims at expressing “the divine harmony and the model of humanity transfigured”: the shape of the church, the sounds, the colours, the lights, the scents. The lengthy duration of the celebrations itself and the repeated invocations express the progressive identification with the mystery celebrated with one’s whole person. The special care that Easterners devote to the beauty of form is also at the service of mystery. According to the Kiev Chronicle, St Vladimir is supposed to have been converted to the Christian faith also because of the beauty of worship in the churches of Constantinople. An Eastern author has written that the liturgy is “the royal gate through which one must pass, if one wishes to grasp the spirit of the Christian East (cf. Fr Evdokimov, The Prayer of the Eastern Church).

  1. But in addition to its liturgical expression, prayer in the East as in the West has many other expressions. Spiritual authors have a particular partiality for the prayer of the heart, which consists in knowing how to listen to the voice of the Spirit in profound and receptive silence. The so-called Jesus prayer is held in particular esteem and is popular in the West through the Russian text known as “The Way of the Pilgrim”. It is the invocation “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner”. Repeated frequently, in these or similar words, this rich invocation becomes, as it were, the soul’s very breath. Man is thus helped to feel the Saviour’s presence in everything he encounters, and he experiences being loved by God despite his own weaknesses. Although recited interiorly, it also has a mysterious community radiance. This little prayer, the Fathers used to say, is a great treasure and unites all those praying before the face of Christ.
  2. Let us be guided by the saints, venerated with equal love in the East and West, to rediscover the value of prayer. Above all, may the Blessed Virgin Mary be our teacher. Her “Magnificat” gives us a glimmer of the unique liturgy that she celebrated, adoring the Word made flesh in her womb. May she guide us to the depths of Christian prayer, so that our life may become an everlasting liturgy of praise.