Dear Readers,
I hope that you all have gotten through the past year with your hearts, minds, bodies and souls intact. I have not posted on my blog in a long time because this past year, 2021 through 2022, has been full of unexpected challenges. Because this is a public blog, I won't go into detail except to say that this year, a family member's health greatly declined to the point that my husband and I had to transition that family member into a nursing home, after the family member almost died in the fall and became more and more disabled. I also faced a lot of other challenges in other areas of my life, such as falling on the stairs of my house just before Holy Week when I was supposed to play the organ for Holy Week services, and some things not turning out the way I hoped they would. I managed to play the services and accomplish all that we needed to for Holy Week at the church where I work, but it was painful and I am still in physical therapy with a probably torn rotator cuff. (We are waiting on MRI results). A lot of things were hard this past year. But I had blessings too along with the challenges, such as the support of my loving husband, and friends and family who stepped up and helped out when times got especially difficult.
One of the biggest challenges in a year full of trials on and off is to continue observing celebrations such as Church feasts and seasonal festivals. But I managed to do so, and thus, my Celtic-Saxon indigenous strain of Orthodox Christianity became a great consolation to me when hardships were almost untenable. We celebrated Whitsuntide, Lammastide, Haligmonath (September with its big feasts of the Nativity of the Theotokos and the Feast of the Holy Cross), Hallowtide (which includes one of my favourite feasts of the year, All Hallows Eve), Advent, and Christmastide (which included Yule, which I celebrate as a commemoration of the appearance of the Nativity Star). On February 1, Imbolc and St. Brigid's Day, I tied clooties on the St. Brigid Tree in our house, asking the saint for her help in many things, mostly things having to do with the family member who was, at that time, transitioning into long-term care. The next day, Candlemas, I attended Divine Liturgy at my Orthodox parish. From Brigidstide (my term for the Pre-Lenten period), we transitioned into Lent. Lent was about as Lenty as the season can get, because we were buffeted with constant challenges both at home and in other areas of life. The earth began to awaken with the spring between St. Patrick's Day (March 17), the Spring Equinox (which was on March 20 this year!) and Lady Day (March 25, the Feast of the Annunciation). As the earth awakened, so did my hopes that things would get better. Sometimes they got better, other times they got worse. Sometimes I felt like my prayers were not being listened to at all, and other times it seemed that our lives were full of miracles big and small. I continued to light my candles and incense in the back garden shrine dedicated to St. Brigid of Kildare, chant my Benedictine and Horologion canonical hours and my Regina Caeli devotions, and attend Divine Liturgy when I could at my Orthodox parish. I was able to attend Pascha, the term for Easter in Orthodoxy, THE major feast of the year, at my parish because my boss kindly let me have the weekend off. That was one of the greatest blessings of all this year. My husband and I both were able to attend Pascha, and I sang in the choir.
The month of May has just ended. During May, we celebrated the following: (1) Beltaine (May Day) and St. Walpurga's Day on May 1, which for us as Christians is three things: a Marian observance, the feast day of St. Walpurga of Devonshire/Heidenheim, and a day to honour marriage and family; (2) our family patron saint's day (called a Slava day, a Montenegrin and Serbian custom) on May 12, and (3) the continuing blessed days of Pascha, both weekdays and the Paschal Sundays with their special Gospel themes.
Today is June 4, the Saturday after Ascension in the Orthodox Church. I put up the Paschal flags for the outside of our house today, and put out the flags for upcoming Pentecost and Whitsuntide as well as a Midsummer flag. We transition into the fullness of summer as the earth gets greener and we prepare to celebrate the new life found in the Holy Spirit as Pentecost approaches on the Orthodox calendar (June 12). My prayer is that the burgeoning greenery will become synonymous with a similar burgeoning of new life and hope in our lives, and that the coming year may be much improved.
The one thing I know for sure is that the Christian life is no guarantee against suffering, and that it's easy to despair when one is pelted in life with one thing after another. But as my husband says, we also must look at the positive things and remember that life is never all bad. There is much beauty: hearts that love us, our own hearts opening like flowers when we are able to love others, and the beauty of the earth. . .shining stars coming out on a summer twilight, and the moon rising and shedding her white rays upon the new growth in the prayer garden. There is music, both music we enjoy listening to, music we play and sing, and the music of creation itself as the land sings "Holy, Holy, Holy art Thou, Lord God of Sabaoth! Heaven and earth are filled with Thy glory! Hosanna in the highest!".
Christ is ascended in glory! Alleluia! God bless everyone who reads this post.
In Christ's Love,
Gabrielle
(Photos in this post: The top photo is of my graphic I made of the Celtic and Anglo-Saxon Church Year as I celebrate it personally. The bottom photo here is of our Marienbaum, a tradition of my Bavarian ancestors in which we have a tree shrine in honour of the Blessed Virgin Mary and Her Divine Son. You can also see, tied to the Marienbaum, which is German for "Mary Tree," literally, our Midsummar cross from last year).
