CELEBRATING A THURSDAY
(Thursday, June 8)
“Blessed are You O Christ Our God / You have revealed the fishermen as most wise / by sending down upon them the Holy Spirit / through them You drew the world into Your net / O Lover of Man, Glory to You!” (Troparion of Pentecost)
This Thursday morning, I am celebrating the Apostles with my morning-coffee, not only because it is the post-feast of Pentecost, but because every Thursday in our Byzantine tradition is the day of the Holy Apostles (and St. Nicholas, successor to the Apostles and one of the 318 Fathers of the First Ecumenical Council). I will celebrate them a bit more later this morning at the “Third Hour” (from ca. 9am to 12 noon), because that is the “hour” of Pentecost, of the Descent of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles. It’s never “just Thursday,” on our cross-carrying journey through time, nor is it ever “just” morning or seven or nine or twelve o’clock, because every day of the week and every “hour” of traditioned church-time is dedicated to the memory of specific events and persons of our biblical history. These sacred “memories” offer us a bit of motivation and specific focus for prayer and contemplation, throughout our week and throughout any given day, so we are not floating aimlessly through 24/7 Internet-time that is “flat.”
In the case of Thursday, which is The Fifth Day of the week (*Chamishi* in Hebrew and *Pempti* in Greek, – but not in Slavic languages, which count Friday as the fifth day, as in the Russian *pyat-nitsa*), we can “remember” and celebrate the Fifth Day of creation, when God created the sea-creatures and birds. It is a *transitional* day, in the sense that it leads from the middle or *center* of the week, Wednesday, to the final day of God’s “work” of creation, Day Six, when He created the land-animals and the human being. The Holy Apostles, celebrated on Thursdays, are *transitional* figures in Salvation History, in the sense that they were empowered by the Holy Spirit to carry the Message of the *center* of history, which is the time of Jesus Christ and His salvific works for us, into the era of the *apostolic* Church. We might contemplate on Thursdays how we all, as “Church,” are called to be *apostolic*, and to be “transitional.” How? In the sense that we receive this Message, we receive the Word of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, in His Spirit, and by Him we let ourselves be transfigured and “revealed” as vessels of His wisdom in this world, regardless of what we do for a living. This doesn’t mean we are perfect, just as the Apostles were not perfect, even after Pentecost. It means we are open to God’s will for us, to God’s divine energies or grace, which is daily and hourly on offer for us, in the daily and hourly life of the Church. As we pray in the Troparion of the Third Hour (which we can say between 9am and 12 noon): “O Lord, You sent Your most Holy Spirit upon Your Apostles/ at the third hour./ Take Him not from us, O Good One,// but renew us, who pray to You.”
