Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Divine Liturgy of St James, Indian Usage

The syro-Malabar Catholic rite, I was invited by one of my good friends to serve the liturgy when it was held here in Brisbane. Needless to say, for the first time i have actually served an eastern rite mass, in a completely different language and culture, too some getting used to but it was amazing.

As you might notice, unfortunately we did not have access to the vestments proper to the rite, so we had to make do with roman vestments.
In this rite, incense is well, abused, and I love it. Through the whole mass the thurifer stands in the sanctuary and basically acts like a smoke machine. The thurifer also incenses the altar! and ambo!

A roman church with a high altar and crammer table are perfect for this rite! unfortunately Holy spirit new farm, had the high altar removed. In this rite, the liturgy of the word is celebrated at a lower altar, facing the people , while the liturgy of the Eucharist is celebrated at the higher altar ad orientam. We involuntarily had to make do with versus populum the whole time.
The elevationThe incense is blessed again!It was awesome to serve for another one of the holy church's rites. The church is so much richer then people think!

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