Hymn of Dismissal

"Now All Things Are Filled With Light"

by Archimandrite Vasileios

The liturgical theology of the Church fills you with peace and certainty of faith. It reveals to you the ineffable love which in wisdom holds together the whole universe. It is manifested in the act of creating the world and in the incarnation of God the Word, which is “joy for all the people” (Lk 2:10). When you live in the climate of divine love, you find yourself and the entire world. You belong to the Church which theologises with its entire life: it believes and manifests by its mode of being the grace of the Triune Godhead and the power of the Passion and Resurrection of the Lord. The whole of history is recognised and lived as a theological trial which leads to consciousness of the presence of the Risen One as “God with us” . . . . But when you are living in the Church, at the hour of Vespers – “now that we have come to the setting of the sun” – before we get to the Dismissal, you hear the entire congregation, through the mouth of the presiding priest, clearly proclaiming the song of Symeon who received God: Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace, according to Thy word; for mine eyes have seen Thy salvation, which is before the face of all peoples; a light to lighten the gentiles, and the glory of Thy people Israel. The troparion, the Hymn of Dismissal is sung. The Dismissal is given. You remain resting in peace, for the truth of the love that “has been poured into our hearts” (Rom 5;5). And the joy does not end. The Hymn of Dismissal at the end of Vespers is the beginning of Matins for the next day. We are already living an uninterrupted continuity in the day of the Church which knows no evening, the new creation and way of life in which all things are filled with light. The God-man is Lord of things in heaven and on earth. He is the Alpha and Omega of the life and salvation of all. Thus surrounded by the fullness of grace, we enjoy the beginning and the end, solitude and communion, hesychia and action, preaching and silence, art and theology, life and death. “Everything is now intermingled.” Everything acquires the dynamism of interpenetration with the divine. — Archimandrite Vasileios

Cover type: Soft
124 pages
Edition #2 published in 2012 by Alexander Press.
ISBN: 1-896800-53-X