The Beauty of Devotion
The Beauty of Devotion
Mother’s Day, May 10, 2026
Rev. Bev Brewster at First Presbyterian SR
Acts 17:22-31 and John 14:15-21
Good morning and Happy Mother’s Day to all those who celebrate it. Many blessings to all the Moms and people who’ve mothered; mothering is beautiful devotion indeed.
I’m just back 3 weeks ago from a dream trip I planned for a year which I called Two Easters. The idea was to celebrate Easter in Italy first (Western Easter) and then the following Sunday, celebrate Easter again in Greece with the Greek Orthodox (Eastern Easter). In the Great Schism of 1054, the Western Christian and Eastern Orthodox churches divided over a theological difference about how the Holy Spirit – promised to the disciples by Jesus in today’s Gospel text - came into the world. The Western church holds to the belief that the Spirit proceeds from the Father AND the Son (Latin filioque), which our tradition believes guards the unity of the triune God. In all candor, I’m not sure how. Whereas the Eastern church believes that the Spirit proceeds from ONLY the Father, thus maintaining its distinctiveness. Okay!
We also disagree on the date for Easter! (The Western church is on the Gregorian calendar and the Eastern church is on the Julian calendar for liturgical purposes).*
This year the Two Easters were a week apart (but next year 7 weeks, and the following year they’re on the same day), which made my trip feasible this year. And what a trip it was!
As you see on the slide of the Parthenon, my daughter Liz and I are in Athens! Like Paul in today’s Acts of the Apostles passage! But the trip started for me in Rome, and Liz met me in Florence for the First Easter, so I’m going to say a few words about Italy and the first Easter in keeping with our theme today, The Beauty of Devotion.
I was in Rome with 4 Presbyterians, 3 ministers and an elder, which sounds like the beginning of a joke! Our first Sunday, we all went to mass at Santa Maria in Trastevere, said to be the first Marian church in Rome, that is, church dedicated to Mary, Mother of Jesus, and also the first church where mass was publicly said in the early 300’s, once the persecution of Christians ceased.
There I experienced the beauty of devotion: Amongst the large all ages congregation standing for the reading of John 11, the whole raising of Lazarus story. You could hear a pin drop. Gorgeous.
I went back myself the next week for Palm Sunday, and absolutely loved the potted olive trees and huge baskets of olive branches for all to wave and wear through the rest of the day all over Rome. AND the 3 priests reading with great emotional expression all of Matthew 26-27, the entire Passion narrative, with the lead priest reading Jesus so movingly. We all stood for the lengthy reading, little children and folks much older than me. And I was struck by the beauty of the devotion of the priests, the congregation, and in the scripture of the woman anointing Jesus with costly perfume, and the women, including Mary, Mother of Jesus, at the foot of the cross, and Joseph of Arimathea, arranging to care for Jesus’s body. The congregation was radiant and uplifted and I was spiritually high all day!
The next day I took the train to Florence for Holy week there, and met my daughter, who lives in NYC, and whom I hadn’t seen for over a year. I applaud her for her beautiful devotion for coming with me on this very religious trip! She’s become an avid student of Christian history and Bible, and has joined her church in NYC!
We went to services in Florence for Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Saturday’s Easter vigil, and Easter Sunday, culminating in the 900 year old tradition of the Scoppio del Carro at the massive Duomo in Florence, which was surrounded by HUGE crowds. Anyone been there for that? Are you interested? [Optional note below.]**
This “new” or “holy fire” was traditionally blessed and distributed to the residents of Florence, which was reminiscent of the original ceremony begun in Jerusalem. However, this evolved, until the holy fire was transported about the city by cart. By the late 15th-century, the cart began to be filled with explosive powder and by the early 16th-century, the figure of the dove was introduced, which was used to ignite the cart in a series of explosions.
The reliquary of the three flints is still preserved to this day in the Church of Santi Apostoli, just a short walk from the Ponte Vecchio.
Today’s celebration of the Scoppio del Carro is much the same as it has been for centuries. Starting around 10am, a chest of coals symbolising the holy fire is ignited by a priest and placed on the elaborate antique cart. The cart is then led by white oxen adorned with flowers and garlands through the streets of Florence until it reaches the Duomo. The cart is followed by a vibrant procession of drummers, flag throwers, clergy and city representatives all dressed in historical costumes.
At around 11am in the Easter Mass, the Archbishop lights a mechanical dove-shaped rocket from the main altar, which flies along a wire through the sanctuary, lights a fuse in the cart and sets off a firework display. The flaming dove returns on the zip line! Outside the doors, there is a smoky spectacle!
I experienced the beauty of devotion in Florence much more from the sacred art than this exploding cart tradition! Ex., Fra Angelico’s frescoes in the monk’s cells in San Marco; it is said he couldn’t paint the crucifixion without weeping, and that made me cry.
The day after Easter One, we continued to Greece, and here we are [slide] in Athens, in front of the Parthenon, the Goddess Athena’s temple, where a massive gold covered statue of Athena once resided, on the Acropolis overlooking the Areopagus, where today’s passage tells us Paul gave his masterful speech aimed at converting Athenians to Christianity!
Acts of the Apostles chapter 17:22-31:
22 Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, “Athenians, I see how extremely spiritual you are in every way. 23 For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, ‘To an unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. 24 The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, 25 nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things. 26 From one ancestor[a] he made all peoples to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, 27 so that they would search for God[b] and perhaps fumble about for him and find him—though indeed he is not far from each one of us. 28 For ‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we, too, are his offspring.’
29 “Since we are God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the deity is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals. 30 While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere to repent, 31 because he has fixed a day on which he will have the world judged in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”
Paul’s Beauty of Devotion: As we know from Acts 9, the Spirit of Jesus revealed Himself to persecutor of Christians Saul on the road to Damascus, and converted him to Paul, preacher of the Gospel, in the mid 1st century. Paul was transformed and became zealously devoted to spreading the good news of the Resurrection and planting churches throughout today’s Turkey and Greece. He had many harrowing escapades, but was apparently fearless in the faith. Paul planted many, many seeds, including in Ephesus, where the wealthy Romans were devoted to their pantheon and had a wonder of the world, the temple to the Goddess Artemis (Diana) right at hand. He was confident and bold there and in Athens, and received a mixed at best reception in both major cities. But the Christian church did eventually take hold in Greece. And the surviving letters of Paul to the church are fundamental parts of our New Testament today.
Christians were persecuted by many Roman emperors in the 1st-2nd-3rd centuries, but thanks in large part to Helen, devoted mother of Emperor Constantine the Great, and a Christian, the persecution ended in the early 4th century. (Edict of Milan 313 after Battle of Milvian Bridge in 312.)
Helen’s Beauty of Devotion – It’s well documented that she traveled to Jerusalem in 326 to find the cross, and on the way, her ship stopped on the Greek island of Paros in a fierce storm. She vowed to have a church built there in gratitude to Mary, Mother of Jesus, for a safe onward journey. Helen died in 328, after claiming to bring the cross and other holy relics back to Constantinople from Jerusalem, and the church of Ekatontapiliani (100 doors) was built.
That’s where we worshipped for Greek Orthodox Easter! It was marvelous, magical, and mystical!
Liz and me on Paros – Beauty of Devotion – See the two epitaphios slides.
The Lent tradition is to fast, a more stringent fast than Ramadan, by going on a vegan diet for 40 days, with no oil – just beans and veggies.
The beloved Great Friday tradition is for each parish to display its own epitaphios, a glass case with the most precious icon of the parish, generally Jesus following the crucifixion, in a bed of, and surrounded by, abundant fresh flowers, with tall thin candles on the top. The church mothers/folks of each parish spend days adorning this. And then on Great Friday, worshippers line up with their little children in arms, all ages, and patiently wait to come forward to appreciate the beauty and kiss the icon. We sat and observed and were moved by this both at the Agia Triade in the interior hilltop village of Lefkes and at the coastal capital of Parikia in the seaside parish and at the 100 Doors Church.
I was thinking there about the beauty of devotion of Pastor Cynthia and FPCSR’s church mothers/folks who make this church beautiful and loving for every special day.
We were deeply moved and impressed by the Great Friday Greek Orthodox traditions of gathering and lighting candles and kissing. Beauty of devotion!
The central celebration happens on Holy Saturday after the long Easter vigil at a midnight service with red and white banners hung from every icon, candles everywhere, including in the hands of every worshipper of every age, chanting, banners, a clamor of bells at midnight when the golden globe crowned clergy proclaims the Resurrection, followed by the all ages congregation of 100’s (all dressed up) standing singing in unison the Resurrection chant 12 times. The respect, reverence, awe, were magic.
Let’s return to the Gospel of John, and for context, this teaching of Jesus comes in the Farewell Discourse after Jesus teaching his disciples, and us, His New Commandment, love one another as I have loved you. This passage includes the promise of eternal life together, reciprocal love, and revelation (only time this word is used in NT):
The Promise of the Holy Spirit
15 “If you love me, you will keep[a] my commandments. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate,[b] to be with you forever. 17 This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him because he abides with you, and he will be[c] in[d] you.
18 “I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. 19 In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. 20 On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. 21 They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me, and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.”
Final slide of sorrowful Mary and crucified Jesus.
I am still pondering the deep differences between the Marian and non-Marian religions and cultures. It seems ironic that in our tradition, we have women clergy, but no veneration of Mary, and in the Marian cultures, they have deep devotion to Mary, but no women clergy. In the Greek Orthodox church there were no women up front; the a cappella choirs were all male too. But I experienced a marked respect directed at me and for mothers and older women there. People grow up immersed in and deeply moved by the beautiful images of the sorrowful Mother, the Pietas, the Madonnas as mother of Jesus, the Theotokos.***. The icon on the slide has the abbreviated lettering for this. A reverence flows from this.
Practicing mother love is a beautiful devotion, hopefully most of our own mothers for us, and our own love as mothers/mothering people to others. None of us are perfect. All of us endure hurt feelings, disappointments, worry, exhaustion, and sorrow if we love deeply. This is life and mother love. And Jesus tells us plainly that He is with us, in us, with the mystical indwelling Spirit accompanying us through every moment of our lives. Thanks be to God! Amen.
* Gregory's calendar reform (Pope Gregory XIII) modified the Julian rule by eliminating occasional leap days, to reduce the average length of the calendar year from 365.25 days to 365.2425 days and thus dramatically reducing the Julian calendar's drift against the solar year: the Gregorian calendar gains just 0.1 day over 400 years. For any given event during the years from 1901 through 2099, its date according to the Julian calendar is 13 days behind its corresponding Gregorian date (for instance Julian 1 January falls on Gregorian 14 January). Most Catholic countries adopted the new calendar immediately; Protestant countries did so slowly in the course of the following two centuries or so; most Orthodox countries retain the Julian calendar for religious purposes but adopted the Gregorian as their civil calendar in the early part of the twentieth century.
**The Scoppio del Carro is an ancient tradition rooted in the 11th-century. It is said that a young Florentine noble called Pazzino di Ranieri de’ Pazzi travelled to the Holy Land with the First Crusade, where he scaled the walls of Jerusalem, raised the Crusader’s banner and declared it a Christian country. When he returned, he brought with him three flints from the Holy Sepulchre, which he had been awarded for his bravery. The three flints were used to light the “new fire'' symbolic of life after the resurrection of Christ at Easter.
***Theotokos (Koine Greek: Θεοτόκος)[a] is a title of Mary, mother of Jesus, used especially in Eastern Christianity. The usual Latin translations are Dei Genitrix or Deipara (approximately "parent [fem] of God"). Common English translations are "Mother of God" or "God-bearer" – but these both have different literal equivalents in Ancient Greek: Μήτηρ Θεοῦ, and Θεοφόρος respectively.[4][5]
The title has been in use since the 3rd century, and in the 4th-century Liturgy of Saint James (4th century).[6] The Council of Ephesus in AD 431 decreed that Mary is the Theotokos because her son Jesus is both God and man: one divine person from two natures (divine and human) intimately and hypostatically united.[7][8]
The title of Mother of God (Ancient Greek: Μήτηρ (τοῦ) Θεοῦ)[clarification needed] or Mother of Incarnate God, abbreviated ΜΡ ΘΥ (the first and last letter of main two words in Greek), is most often used in English, largely due to the lack of a satisfactory equivalent of the Greek τόκος. For the same reason, the title is often left untranslated, as Theotókos, in Eastern liturgical usage of other languages.