Week 3 - Thursday

Bible Passage

Psalm 84:1-2

"How lovely is Your tabernacle, O Lord of hosts! My soul longs, yes, even faints for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God."

Commentary

A Silent Patriarch

A story that shows how much St. Pope Kyrillos VI loved praying the liturgy. This is during his time as a monk priest, Fr Mina el Baramosy (of the Baramos Monastery):

In the early morning before classes, they celebrated matins and the Divine Liturgy. Fr. Mina would wake up at 3am everyday to bake the eucharistic bread (orban). One day, he found the oven where he baked the bread had been deliberately destroyed, as his daily liturgical prayer caused some contention with the other priests around him. The very notion of daily liturgy in early 20th century Egypt was unheard of. But the disapproval from his fellow priests, as well as a broken oven were not enough to stop Fr. Mina. He remembered that the bakery across the street was open at the early hours of the day, so he went and asked the owner if he could use his oven to bake the bread. Even after such a delay that would’ve stopped anyone from praying liturgy, the liturgy continued as usual that day. Fr. Mina was later famously known to have said “If the priest is present, flour is handy, and the altar is available, [then] if we don’t pray, what shall we say to God?”