Homily 657 – 15 APE
Holy Transfiguration, Ames, Iowa
September 21, 2025
Epistle:  (203) Galatians 2:16-20 and (176) 2 Corinthians 4:6-15
Gospel:  (37) Mark 8:34-9:1  and (92) Matthew 22:35-46

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, One God.

A little liturgical trivia.  Today is the leavetaking of the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross.  Many of us think of feasts as being one-day events, but rarely is that the case.

An afterfeast is a continuation of the feast itself.  It is important I think to note that the idea of a Church feast is not about gathering around a table to consume a lot of food.

Well, sort of.  It is gathering around a table, the Lord’s Altar table, and consuming the only food we really need – the body and blood of Christ.  That is the feast.  Church, communion, that is the feast.

And the feast continues from the day after, until what is called the leavetaking.

Pascha, as you may imagine, has the longest afterfeast at 38 days.  The afterfeast, during which we continue to sing Christ is risen, begins with the Vespers of Pascha on Sunday through the leavetaking of Pascha on the Wednesday before Ascension.

Ascension has an afterfeast of 8 days, ending the Friday before Pentecost.  Pentecost has an afterfeast of 6 days ending the Saturday after Pentecost.

Other feasts have afterfeasts also – 4 days in the case of the Nativity of the Birthgiver of God, the Presentation of the Birthgiver in the Temple, 8 days for Holy Theophany and the Dormition of the Mother of God, and 7 days for the Presentation of Christ in the Temple, the Transfiguration,  and the present feast.

Most of what are termed “First Class” and “Second Class” feasts, which are the ones I’ve referenced here, have afterfeasts and leavetaking.  The Annunciation, which most frequently occurs during Great Lent, does not.

Several other feasts have leavetakings – St. Demetrios the Myrrhstreamer, the Nativity of the Forerunner and Baptist John, Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, and the Beheading fo the Forerunner and Baptist John.

During the afterfeast, liturgically, the Church explores the understanding of the feasts themselves.  Typically, the first day after the feast, the first day of the afterfeast, is called a Synaxis.  It involves the other individuals involved in the feast.  Then, on the leavetaking of the Feast, the Church brings us back and repeats the themes of the feast itself.  So, for example, during the afterfeast for the current Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, the hymn “O come let us worship and fall down before Christ …” is sung after the Little Entrance.

This is one of the primary reasons why Orthodoxy is not a learned or studied faith or belief system.  We find the teaching of the Church to occur within the services themselves.  In the hymns, in the readings – not just at the Divine Liturgy, but throughout the cycle of prayer, mostly during vespers and during matins.  One of these days, when we have a full time priest and the ability to field a choir and director for more time than what we currently do, we can celebrate matins more frequently than once a year on Pascha.

One of the things we are frequently asked as Orthodox priests is why we have such a long period of catechesis.  Well, this is why.  The primary catechesis, the primary teaching dimension of the Church is the services themselves.  To learn about the Church requires going through the cycle of services.

When people ask, where do I find what the Orthodox believe about the parents of the Birthgiver of God, or the life of the Birthgiver of God before the Annunciation, we can direct them to the hymnography of the feast of the Presentation of the Birthgiver of God.  When we are asked what we believe about the end of Mary’s life, we can direct them to the feast of the Dormition and that hymnography.  When we are asked about the incarnation, we can direct people to the hymnography for the Nativity, and indeed the days leading up to Nativity.

Now, why don’t we just look to scripture for our answers?  Well, first and foremost, the Scriptures were given for public proclamation, and don’t contain the totality of the Church’s knowledge.  To base things on Scripture that aren’t in Scripture, we have to do that absolutely infuriating thing – we have to speculate.  Plus, we tend (in the west at least) to value our speculation higher than the oral and written traditions of the Church.

Which do you believe to be more valuable, the 2,000 year understanding of believers everywhere throughout the world, maintained consistently since the beginning, or our own thoughts about things?  Or worse, what some guy on the internet named Jake in Wyoming suddenly came up with on his own?

Because I put together services each week, based on the Typikon of the Church that our Bishop has chosen, I recognize the overlap that occasionally occurs.  For example, the period that we are in right now, liturgically, replicates the exact same period in 2014.  That year, Pascha was on April 20^th, just as this year.

So, to get the full-ish cycle of services, you would need to either be able to attend services every day, or spend years as the various combinations cycle through on a Sunday.  Even then, certain aspects of the feasts are superseded by the Resurrectional hymns we sing each Sunday.

I think it is good if you are able to do so to at least read the Gospel and Epistle readings appointed for each day, and bonus if you can read a brief account of the lives of the Saints.  All of this information is available on the Orthodox Church in America website, OCA.org, and some is available on the AmesOrthodox.org webpage.  Right now there is only a link to the lives of the saints.  Perhaps we can get that fixed soon.

In any event, all of this is excellent instruction for us on how to follow Christ.  As we discussed last week, to pick up one’s Cross, one’s “stake”, and to follow Christ means that we have to set aside our preconceived notions about the meaning of everything – Scripture, the world around us, life itself.  We have to deny ourselves.  Not deprive ourselves – deny ourselves.  Recognize that we don’t have any answers.

What we have to struggle with is to follow Christ, learning from Him, and to learn from Him is to learn from the Church.

And to learn from the Church means to experience the Church.  Not just an intellectual exercise in thinking about the Church, and about Christ.  But experiencing the immersion in the Church, through our baptism, and the remainder of our lives.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, One God.  Glory to Jesus Christ!