Today I will be a spectator at liturgy. As my parish has done for the last few years, we join our friends across the street at St. Nicholas Albanian Orthodox Church for the celebration of their feast day. I believe that Bishop Nikon will be in attendance so I will be at the altar but will not celebrate per se. In the Orthodox world we do not concelebrate as our friends in the Roman Church do. One of the best parts of this is that I will have a chance to worship for a change and also I don’t have to preach. As a pastor I very rarely get the chance to worship as I am always working. Not that being the celebrant at a Divine Liturgy is not worship, but you often find your mind drifting to what the altar servers are doing of what the cantor is going to sing, how many people are in the church, and the every important what am I going to say today. So today it is sit back and enjoy the liturgy.
Here in the village we have three Orthodox Churches. Ours, St. Michael’s, the one across the street that I have already mentioned, St. Nicholas, and a small Greek church, St. George. This can cause some distress from time to time as we really should be one church and not three small ones. We all struggle to survive and I often think it would be easier if we were one larger church. The three of us exist because Southbridge was once a town with people from all different lands and could support three churches. By the way there are four Roman Catholic Churches here also… However time has changed the town and we no longer have the numbers we used to have. Something should be done, but it will happen in God’s time.
So I got to sleep a little latter today and will have an enjoyable day at St. Nick’s. Tonight there is a concert at St. George Cathedral in Worcester that I might try to attend. We are supposed to get our first snow, so we will see.
Happy Sunday to all!