A Recusant in Training

My son and I, years ago now, attended Orthodox Evening Prayer in this tiniest of chapels in Walsingham. One of the most moving times of prayer we experienced, we sang the praises with the priest and cantor and three other people for the Saturday following the Feast of the Assumption. Having been Byzantines for several years in Canada, with permission, as we could not find a valid Latin Rite Mass for miles and miles, we were versed in Byzantine prayer and the Divine Liturgy. Orthodox chants are similar but not exactly the same.

This very small chapel in the Anglican Shrine to Our Lady of Walsingham has all the needed icons for honoring Mary, The Life-Giving Spring. This feast of Mary is held on the Friday after Easter in the Orthodox Church.

Her icon under this title has pride of place, as fitting for the patron of the chapel. The wall I have to use is slightly longer, but lower than this iconostasis, but I intend to add icons across the table which is acting as an altar, and on the floor, until I can get tables. As the house is not mine, I do not want to make too many holes in the wall!!!!! As you all know, I am in this house under the graciousness of the lady who owns it until she sells it.

Besides the patronal icon, fourteen more grace the screen. The two podia are, one for the icon of the feast day, which Byzantine Catholics and Orthodox lay out for the congregation to kiss when entering and leaving the chapel and the other for the music of the chant and the readings.

I have a most unattractive freebee picture of the Divine Mercy in the place where I would put the Resurrection, if I had one. I may have one in storage, but I think I gave that one away.

It is important for a chapel to have icons of the Evangelists, Archangels, and the specific saints honored under the patronal title. Also, it is common to have one icon of St. John the Baptist, one of my personal patrons.

I hope I find "him" in a box. When my son was still at home, when I had a home, we had an icon corner. See here for an explanation.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wassilij_Maximowitsch_Maximow_002b.jpg Public Domain

The point is not to have clutter, but yet enough images to honor Christ and His Mother and the saints.

Because I firmly believe we are heading for penal times, this chapel I envisage will be one can put into one or two trunks to be carried away easily. This is why I want a portable altar. 

I consider myself a recusant in training.