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→Communing at Pascha
I laughed out loud when I read the following: "Many parishes take the Paschal Sermon of St. John Chrysostom literately and commune all Orthodox Christians who are in attendance." It reminded me of my attendance at two different Pascha liturgies in the same parish. One year I was struck by the fact that, despite St John's exhortation for "fasters and non-fasters alike" to receive communion, the priest made his usual exhortation that those who had not fasted could not receive. The other year I noticed he moved St John's homily until the end of the liturgy after communion. So situated, St John's exhortation to come to the feast could only be interpreted as referring to the lamb dinner served in the parish hall after the liturgy! I do think that, if we are going to use St John's homily (and we should), then we ought not to follow practices at the same liturgy that blatantly ignore his exhortation. --[[User:Fr Lev|Fr Lev]] 06:54, March 7, 2007 (PST)
:As one priest put it though, Pascha is 40 days, so even those who come at the eleventh hour have 39 more days to properly prepare for communion. I think the Paschal homily refers to those who have not fasted during the 40 days. It does not mean that one should walk in after having just wiped the ketchup from his cheese burger from his face, and without having gone to confession, receive holy communion.Most priests are hearing confessions before the midnight office. If someone came to confession then, they would literally be coming at the 11th hour, and would be communed if they had made even the slightest attempts to properly prepare themselves. [[User:Frjohnwhiteford|Frjohnwhiteford]] 20:41, April 20, 2007 (PDT)
== Byzantine practice ==