Working in 'pockets' of time.

I am currently sitting in my classroom, waiting for all the students to pour in from breakfast for a Church History lecture, utilizing one of the 'pockets' of time that the business of life here at Nashotah House provides us with.

The audio soundtrack for this morning:

• The Divine Liturgy as composed by Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev.

 Nashotah House recently had the privilege of hosting His Eminence, Metropolitan Hilarion, of the Russian Orthodox Church, during our Annual Convocation.  It was a pleasure to have him among us!

The album is such a beautiful arrangement of music, with the Divine Liturgy spoken over top it. It is utterly breathtaking (it's also completely in Russian).

This morning before leaving the house, I flipped open the case of the CD album and read this in the booklet:

"Archbishop Hilarion composed this setting of the Divine Liturgy in the first ten days of June 2006. With reference to the circumstances in which the music was written, he writes, 'With the various duties that preoccupy me, including an intensive travel schedule, I do not have the opportunity to devote myself to composition on a regular basis. I worked on my setting of the Liturgy during and between trips from Budapest to Moscow and from Vienna to Geneva. Much of it was written whilst traveling. The Beatitudes, for example, was written in the departure lounge of Sheremetevo Airport, Holy God during a flight from Moscow to Budapest, the Great litany and the Litany of fervent supplication at Geneva's airport."

Epiphany. Regardless of where we are, no matter what we are doing, and regardless of what stage of life we are in, we will always only have 'pockets' of time. It's what we do with those 'pockets' of time that matter.

May you be encouraged and be of good cheer!

"...let us work as Jesus meditated,--as He drew on the life-springs of the Father to pour out on the world." 

A.D. Sertiallanges, O.P.

The Intellectual Life, p. 14