Celebration!
Reflections on The Divine and Holy Liturgy
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by Archbishop Joseph Raya
$19.95 USD
166 pages — Trade Paperback, 5.5" x 8.5"
Eastern Christian Publications, 2003
ISBN 1-892278-42-1
Discover the glories of the Byzantine Divine Liturgy — as explained by a bishop who loves them above all earthly things.
In Celebration!, Archbishop Joseph Raya offers a series of profoundly felt and beautifully written meditations on the Divine Liturgy and its significance as an earthly paradise and a taste of Heaven, a garden of living truth, and a place of rebirth. He offers three principal ways to understand Byzantine worship and mines the writings of the great Fathers of the Church for poetic, evocative, and spiritually enlightening insights on the nature of God, the meaning and importance of worship, the true nature of the Liturgy, and much more. Along the way Archbishop Raya includes innumerable thought-provoking observations on a wide variety of subjects: why liturgical language should not be identical to modern speech, how and why Christians make the Sign of the Cross, why candles and incense should be used in worship, the meaning and importance of icons, how the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom should properly be celebrated, and much more. Every page is full of Archbishop Raya’s radiant love for God.
“This book is not only for reading,” says Archbishop Raya. “It must be reread several times in a prayerfully humble attitude. It is for study clubs, seminarians, priests and bishops alike.” Whatever your state in life, these meditations will bring you to a new and deeper appreciation for the God who loves you so much that He gives you the gift of His very self.
About the Author
Archbishop Joseph Raya, the first associate priest of Madonna House, was deeply involved in the American civil rights movement, and later, while serving as Archbishop of Akko, Haifa, Nazareth and all Galilee, he campaigned for justice for Palestinians. A priest of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church who taught at universities in the U.S.A., Canada and Lebanon, Archbishop Raya is one of the world's foremost writers on Byzantine Christianity. He strives to bring a better understanding of the Byzantine rite Eastern Church to the Latin rite Western world.
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