The Feast of St. Andrew/ Nov. 30th
nick cobb
While the canon of the feast of the Nativity begins to be sung on the
festival of the entrance of the Virgin Mary into the temple, the first
prefeast hymns of Christmas are sung on the feast of "the all-praised
and first-called apostle Andrew."'
In the gospel according to Saint John, Philip calls his friend
Nathanael to "come and see" Jesus, but it is Jesus Himself who invites
Andrew to "come and see" where He dwells and to spend the day with
Him, together with another disciple of John the Baptist, who is
probably the evangelist himself.
. John [the Baptist~ was standing with two of his disciples; and he
looked at Jesus as He walked, and said, "Behold, the Lamb of God!" The
two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. Jesus
turned, and saw them following, and said to them, "What do you seek?"
And they said to Him, "Rabbi" (which means Teacher), "where are you
staying?" He said to them, "Come and see." They came and saw where He
was staying; and they stayed with Him that day, for it was about the
tenth hour. One of the two who heard John speak, and followed Him, was
An苓rew, Simon Peter's brother. He first found his brother Simon, and
said to him, "We have found the Messiah" (which means Christ). (Jn
1:35-41).
Come and see! This is the abiding invitation of the Church in her
liturgical services. Come with faith and you will be numbered with
those to whom "it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of
heaven" (Mt 13:11). You will be found with those to whom insight has
been granted into the mystery of Christ" which is "the mystery hidden
for ages in God who created all things" which is now made manifest
"through the Church" even to the angels (Eph 3:4, 9~1O).2
Come and see! You will witness the mystery of Christ's birth from the
Virgin, His manifestation at the Jordan in His baptism by John, His
victory over the devil in the desert, His proclamation of good news to
the poor, His announcement of liberty to the oppressed, His
declaration of the acceptable year of the Lord's grace. You will
witness His accomplish衫ent of the signs of His messiahship: the blind
see, the lame walk, the deaf hear, the dumb talk. You will see the
winds cease and the seas calmed. You will behold the table spread "in
the wilderness" in the feeding of the multitudes (Ps 78:19). You will
witness the casting out of demons. And, most glorious of all, you will
see the dead being raised by the word of His power. You will know
indeed that "the kingdom of God has come upon you" (Mt 12:28), and you
will testify truly that "something greater than Jonah" and "something
greater than Solomon is here" (Mt 12:41-42). You will see what "many
prophets and righteous men longed to see . . . and did not see it, and
to hear . . . and did not hear it" (Mt 13:17). And ultimately you will
see the Son of God Himself being lifted upon the Cross in order to
give His broken body as food for His people, and His shed blood as
their drink, that their hunger and thirst for peace and joy and
righteousness, and indeed for life itself, might be forever satisfied.
You will "sit at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom
of heaven" which is brought to the world by the glorified Messiah (Mt
8:11).
To go the way of the Winter Pascha is, according to Saint Gregory the
Theologian, to "travel without fault through every stage and faculty
of the life of Christ." It is to enter into the mysteries of the
Messiah, "all of which have but one completion: my perfection and
return to the first condition of Adam." It is to "see and be seen by
the great God who in Trinity is worshipped and glorified, and whom we
now set forth before you as clearly as the bonds of flesh permit, in
Jesus Christ our Lord."3
The feast of Saint Andrew, with the chanting of the first of the
prefeast hymns of the Nativity, marks the begin要ing of this paschal
journey in a special way.
When He who was proclaimed by the voice of John the Forerunner,
"The Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world,"
Came bringing life and salvation to all the earth
You, 0 holy Andrew, were the first to follow Him.
You were offered as the first-fruits of the human race.
You proclaimed to Peter your brother,
"We have found the Messiah
Pray that He may enlighten and save our souls.
Rejoice, 0 Isaiah, and receive the Word of God.
Prophesy to Mary the Maiden.
She is the Burning Bush unconsumed by the fire of divinity.
Adorn yourself, 0 Bethlehem.
Open your gates, 0 Eden.
Enter, 0 Magi, and see salvation swaddled in a crib.
Behold the star shining above the cave;
It announces the life-giving Lord who saves the human race.
Tell us, 0 Joseph, how you led the Virgin
Into the Bethlehem cave.
"After searching the scriptures and hearing the angel,"
he says,
"I am certain that Mary will wondrously give birth to God
Whom the wise men from the East will worship, Offering to Him their
precious gifts."
0 Lord, incarnate for our sake, glory to You !~
1Feast of Saint Andrew, November 30. In Orthodox practice major feasts
are announced by "prefeast" verses and hymns sung at services that
come before the great feast. Generally speaking, nothing in Orthodox
liturgical celebration comes unprepared and unannounced. And it is
never the case that the faithful pretend" that they do not know what
will happen. For example, on Holy Friday it is clearly proclaimed in
the worship of the crucified Lord that He will rise from the dead. The
Cross is contemplated and the dead Christ is adored in the light of
the resurrection. The liturgy of the Church is never a "historical
representatiOn." It is rather the mystical experience of each act of
sacred history in the light of the whole, including the glorification
of Christ and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
2See also Rom 16:25; 1 Cor 2:7; Col 1:26.
3Gregory Nazianzen, Oration 38, On ihe Theophany or Nativity of
Christ,
4Vespers of the feast of Saint Andrew. In Orthodox liturgical hymns
the Virgin Mary is often called the "Burning Bush." For as the bush
which Moses saw was burning, but was not consumed, so Mary held in her
womb the Son and Word of God, but was not destroyed by the fire of His
divinity. See Exodus 3
{Taken from, "The Winter Pascha" by Protopresbyter Thomas Hopko, SVS
Press, 1984]
Dan
> The Feast of Saint Andrew - Nov. 30th
Good article.
Readers might be interested to know that St Andrew's relics were
stolen from Constantinople in the 13th century and relocated to
Amalfi, Italy. In the 15th century, some of them were taken to Rome,
where they ended up in one of the four central piers of St. Peter's
Basilica in the Vatican.
In September 1964, as a gesture of good will, Pope Paul VI returned a
small portion of the relics to the Orthodox Church. The Amalfi
cathedral, dedicated to St. Andrew (as is the town itself), contains a
tomb in its crypt that it maintains still contains the rest of the
relics of the apostle.
nick cobb
sights in the Holy Land, but they ended up attacking Constantinople and
stealing relics, gold and jewels.
djm
pssstttt, don't forget major Western Orthodox saints on the 30th
november.. after all, you're Western too :-)
http://stmaterne.blogspot.com/2006/11/saints-tugdual-trojan-et-andr-nos-
pres.html (+ an article of fr. Hopko on saint Andrew)
djm
>
> The Fourth Crusade by Rome was supposed to of been to free the
> Christian sights in the Holy Land, but they ended up attacking
> Constantinople and stealing relics, gold and jewels.
>
>
raping nuns, killing people
the Vatican Gospel in practice..
djm
> his dreams and claims that he told him he wanted to be relocated.
>
seems like a good invention to prepare the ground for a deal with
Bartholomeos : "I give you back these bones we pretend are from saint
Andrew, and you lick my feet in public, and happy clappy happy end to
division of churches"
I don't believe any word of a satanic guy
> From memory , I think the Russians and the Scots also have relics of
> St.Andrew . He is the patron saint of Scotland and his ensign is the
> symbol of the Russian Navy .
>
and of the Belgian Navy too
see my text to be published today, with picture of the first ship to
have beared that ensign in Belgium
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Andrew
>
>
> Peter
jm
djm
thanks to Peter for the picture links & to Dan for the commentary on
the stolen relics
jm
Dan
> his dreams and claims that he told him he wanted to be relocated.
>
> arm and all that is left of the cross the Romans crucified him on ---
> i.e. about 70% of an X-shaped cross.
>
> http://members.lycos.nl/louisstolk/photoalbum1.html
>
> http://www.navis.gr/aerofoto/andrew.jpg
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patras
>
> From memory , I think the Russians and the Scots also have relics of
> St.Andrew . He is the patron saint of Scotland and his ensign is the
> symbol of the Russian Navy .
No, I didn't know that about the pope's dream. Poor old Paul Vl; I
think he did feel genuine remorse for a lot of the RCC's past
misdeeds.
It was the RC bishop of Amalfi who sent a small relic of St. Andrew to
the re-established RC community in Scotland in 1879. Pope Paul VI
later (1969) gave the RCC in Scotland further relics of St. Andrew
which are now kept at St. Mary's Roman Catholic Cathedral in
Edinburgh.
Thanks for the links! The beautiful photos reawakened my desire to
revisit Greece. I have been there before, but never made it to Meteora
or to the Holy Mountain.
Dan
djm
http://southern-orthodoxy.blogspot.com/2007/11/happy-st-andrews-day.html
djm
>
>
> Paul VI went to Istanbul/Constantinople in 1964 to meet Athenagoras
> and when he was in Hagia Sophia he knelt on the floor , prostrating
> himself before the Holy Alter and the large mosaic of the Virgin and
> Child. He absolutely infuriated the Turks.The latter still remembered
> 1964 when Benedict XVI visited recently and were afraid he might do
> the same.
>
why did they become in fury? Just because the Head of a foreign State
used "their" mosquee as a building for the world religion of his own.
Nothing more. Islamic people, knowing the historical struggle between
the roman-catholic "umma" and the islamic "umma" (nothing for the
greatness of God, only for human power with God as pretext), knew this
could be politically used. Nothing religious in all this, just plain
junk masonry & worldly stuff