August 21, 2010
Brooklyn, NY: Parishioners of the Church
of Our Lady "The Inexhaustible Chalice" performed a
procession and blessing of the ocean
The parish of the Church of Our Lady
"The Inexhaustible Chalice" and the community of the Mercy
House of St. John of Kronstadt have been performing the touching
tradition of blessing the waters of the ocean for several years. Twice
a year, on the Epiphany of the Lord (January 19 n.s.) and on the
Procession of the Life-Giving Cross of the Lord (August 14 n.s.),
priests, choristers, parishioners, parish children, and the resident
brethren of the Mercy House head out in procession and with hymns from
the church to the seashore, graciously blessing the Metrobridge,
stores, and passersby with holy water. And every year, the number of
people desiring to bathe in the blessed water grows.
This year, the divine service was
celebrated by parish rector Priest Vadim Arefiev, co-served by
Archpriest Petro Sgoba (parish cleric).
Pictures of the blessing of the
ocean are available to our readers below.
An Interview with Metropolitan Hilarion of Eastern
America and New York
In
the quarters of the First Hierarch of ROCOR, Metropolitan Hilarion of
Eastern America and new York, Priest Vadim Arefiev (rector of the Сhurch
of Our Lady "The
Inexhaustible Chalice" and the Mercy House of St. John of
Kronstadt in Brooklyn, NY) was given an opportunity to ask several
question of His Eminence.
- Your Eminence, I would like to speak of the
miraculous effect on the human soul of holy water. We in the Mercy
House long ago instituted the following practice: every Tuesday, we
serve a moleben with the rite of the blessing of the water. We know
that in Russia and in the Ukraine these services are done frequently,
though here they are much rarer. Still, people here come and ask for
priests to perform them. And once, having watched a documentary on how
this moleben is serviced in the city of Serpukhov, in Holy Ascension
Monastery before the Icon of "The Inexhaustible Chalice,"
how the hieromonks so bountifully blessed the suffering with holy
water, we also took up this practice of generously blessing all of the
worshipers, and all of a sudden we started to notice that this was
having a special effect on the human soul. Maybe this is my own
subjective sense of things, but when a person comes in off the street
to this service, having no experience of Orthodoxy, he feels himself
to be at a feast, feels an uplifting, seeing how the people are being
blessed by the water, how they drink of it, and this somehow touches
his heart. I would like to speak about this some. Why do you suppose,
Vladyka, that the water acts namely in this way; what happens during
the blessing of the water? After all, this is simply tap water,
nothing special about it. And the ancient prayers are pronounced, the
Sacrament is performed, the priest lowers the Holy, Life-Giving
Cross...
-
Water by itself is a wondrous creation of God’s; it gives us life,
without it we could not exist. But when water is blessed with prayer,
as well, with good intentions, with those holy words uttered by the
priest in prayer, calls down God’s special blessing. God’s
blessing consists of the Lord sending down His Grace, the Holy Spirit
in invisible form coming down on the substance of the water and making
it holy, that is, that Grace is transferred which was called down on
the water through prayer, both of the Lord God and the Holy Spirit,
and the water is made miraculous for all those who approach it with
faith, as it is with all of the Sacraments of the Church, when people
approach them with faith. If we have faith, then the wondrous works of
God are done, because the Lord promised to always be with us,
"Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world."
Although He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of
the Father, He knows our needs, both spiritual and physical, and for
that reason gives us water for drinking, but also holy water for the
healing of illnesses, for the expulsion of demonic powers, for the
driving away of every temptation that rushes upon us, and for
spiritual fortification. This is all given to us by holy water. And as
we recently saw in a film about the water, when the prayers are said,
the molecular structure of the water harmonizes. When discord, wrath,
abuse, unkind feelings come upon the water, its structure becomes
chaotic. And all water, whether blessing in church or in a lake, or in
the sea, it all receives that Grace-filled effect, which is why the
people draw from it so. And when the blessing of the homes is
performed, for the banishment of evil and misfortune, and we try to
bless homes with water blessed on the Epiphany, we do it all for the
good of man and for his salvation. And so let all who love the Lord
come with a good disposition of the heart and blissful attitudes one
toward another come to draw holy water for fortification and
salvation!
- I would also like to talk about the blessing of the
ocean, for a majority of our brothers, alcoholics and drug addicts,
flock to its shores, taking advantage of its resort-like nature, and
die there. We try to draw them away from there, but some paw pulls
them back. And so, at the behest of one priest, we have for the last
two years on the Epiphany and the Procession of the Cross of the Lord,
the first day of the Dormition Fast, come to bless the ocean. It bears
mention that our community resides in a quite anti-Christian
neighborhood, although many Orthodox Christians live and work there.
When we go through in procession, for us it is a festal missionary
procession. We bring a great deal of holy water with us. We bless the
Metrobridge, we bless the buildings and we can feel the tension
decrease, we can feel the bitterness of our neighbors fade away, and
they even begin to greet us with smiles. And the procession continues
to places where the homeless congregate, and if they are there we
invite them, bless them with holy water, and even people in a heavily
drunken state come and follow us, becoming, so to speak, partakers of
the sacrament, partakers of the holiness. Perhaps Your Eminence could
say a well-wishing word for those who will join in the procession,
showing them how best to prepare themselves for participation in the
holy rite.
-
We live in the sea of life, which rages on all sides: difficulty, illness, misery, misfortune. And beside us is a physical sea,
which can also billow: people drown, boats, sink, etc. And it is in
need of blessing just as our lives are all-around in need of blessing
with prayer, good deeds, fasting, temperance, good thoughts, and good
intentions. So does the ocean need for blessing, as today ecological
disasters are on the rise and we read all manner of dire predictions,
but we must pray, live a godly life, in order that might influence the
world, influence nature, that nature might not be embittered. And so
participation in this procession is a very good deed, because this is
a procession in prayer, with icons, with the Cross, Which bears
witness to God’s love for us. It bears witness also that God, Who is
Love, became man; He loved us so, that He humbled Himself and became
man, descended from the heavens, and in that way He took upon Himself
all of the weights of mankind, and helped us carry our Cross, which
has become light, further with Him. Through His Redemptive Sacrifice,
He opens to us once more the path to Heaven, an even greater Heaven
than the one had by Adam and Eve. And so the procession is a foretaste
of that future honor of proceeding to the Throne of God, of all those
who love Him, who try to keep His commandments, and the greatest among
them: love, co-suffering, and charity. And may all the participants of
the procession receive God’s help, God’s Grace, in their partaking
in this holy procession, plunging into blessed waters!
- Christ save you, Holy Master! I will do my best to
convey, to the best of my meager strengths, that which you said to our
parishioners, to our suffering people. And may the Lord grant that
each receive healing according to the openness of his heart!
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