EASTER SEASON

EASTER SEASON

The Gospel of Matthew 28:5-6 expresses the fundamental tone of the Easter season “the angel spoke to the women. You must not be afraid, he said. I know you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; he has been raised, just as he said”, as a follow up to this, the resurrection of  Jesus Christ is the foundation of the Christian faith; but the Easter season is an opportunity to reflect and put into practice the transformation that the risen Christ has brought into our lives. The Easter season which is a celebration of seven Sundays, presupposes how much credibility the church gives to this season; being a moment for the mysteries of our faith to deepen in our hearts and lives, the acts of the apostles usually make up the first readings and that helps us to understand how the early church took their experience of the risen Jesus Christ to modify the universe. Conversely, the gospels of this season narrate the stories of the various resurrection appearances of Christ Jesus. Consequently, we hear later in the season almost exclusively from Jesus’ last discourse in the gospel of John to prepare us for the ascension and for the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.

ELUSIYAN TOLU’ FRANCIS

AFRICAN LITERATURE IN THE PHILOSOPHER TOOL KITS

AFRICAN LITERATURE IN THE PHILOSOPHER TOOL KITS

                                                                                    TOLU' ELUSIYAN

1.0 INTRODUCTION

There is evidence, in contemporary times, of the need to develop the intial structuring nodes of the African literature. It is therefore imperative for contemporary African philosophers to question, thematise, structure and share with each other their experiences of the problems of writing and mannerism of presentation of the African experiences, and in this way, to define the modalities of acess to the totality of the discipline in the continent. This is the only means of constituting the history of African literature in contemporary times. However, our concern in this work is to examine African literature in the philosopher tot kits, and this discourse shall be run open under the following thematic outlines to set on fire the rational minds and to wake them from their slumber.

*Understanding African Literature

*Features of African Literature

*Philosophers tool kits: Logic and Language

*Logic and African Literature

*Language and African Literature

*Evaluation/Conclusion

1.1 UNDERSTANDING AFRICAN LITERATURE: THE PARADOXES, THE COMPLEXITIES AND THE PERPLEXITIES

Harold Scheub explicitly stated in his article on African literature that:

African literature is the body of traditional oral and written literatures in Afro-asiatic and African languages together with works written by Africans in European languages.[1]

So one could simply say that an African literature is literature of or from Africa and includes oral literature. Echoing on the understanding of African literature, Joseph George notes in his chapter on African literature in understanding contemporary Africa, whereas European views of literature often stressed a separation of art and content, African awareness is inclusive:

Literature can be the parts of Asian also imply an artistic use of words for the sake of art alone. Traditionally, Africans do not radically separate art from teaching, rather than write or sing for beauty in itself, African writers, taking their cue from oral literature, use beauty to help communicate important truths and information to society. Indeed, an object is considered beautiful because of the truths it reveals and the communities it helps to build.[2]

Moreover, in Africa, there seems to be various kinds of literature which include oral literature, pre-colonial literature, colonial literature, and post-colonial literature. When we talk of oral literature, it could be in prose or verse. The prose is often mythological or historical and can include tales of the trickster character. Storytellers in African sometimes use call and response techniques to tell their stories. Poetry, often sung, includes: narrative epic, occupational verse, ritual verse, praise poems rulers and other prominent people. Praise singers, bards sometimes known as griots, tell their stories with music.[3] as a follow up to the above, as rightly stated, we also have pre-colonial literature, for they are even numerous; so oral literature of west Africa includes the epic of sundiata composed in medieval Mali, and the older epic of Dinga from the old Ghana empire. In Ethiopia, there is a substantial literature written in geez going back at least to the fourth century AD; the best known work in this tradition is the kebra Negast, or Book of kings. One popular form of traditional African folktale is the trickster story, in which a small animal uses its wits to survive encounters with larger creatures. Examples of animal tricksters include anansi, a spider in the folklore of ashanti people of Ghana; ijapa, a tortoise in Yoruba folklore of Nigeria; and sungara, a here found in central and east African folklore.[4] furthermore, we also made mention of colonial African literature; the colonial African works best known in the west from the period of colonization and the slave trade are primarily slave narratives, such as olaudah equiano’s the interesting narrative of the life of olaudah equiano (1789). In the colonial period, Africans exposed to western languages began to write in those tongues. In 19911, Joseph Ephraim Casely Hayford of the Gold Coast now Ghana punlished what is probably the first African novel written in English, euthopia unbound: studies in Race Emancipation[5] although the work moves between fiction and political advocacy, its publication and positive reviews in the western press mark a watershed moment in African literature. Postcolonial African literature: with liberation and increased literacy since most African nations gained their independent in the 1950s and 1960s, African literature has grown dramatically in quantity and in recognition, with numerous African works appearing in western academic curricula and on best of lists compiled at the end of the 19^th century. African writers in this period wrote both in western languages, notably English, French, and Portuguese and in traditional African languages such as Hausa. Ali A. Mazrui and others mention seven conflicts as themes: the clash between Africa’s past and present, between tradition and modernity, between indigenous and foreign, between socialism and capitalism, between development and self-reliance and between Africanity and humanity.[6]

1.2 PHILOSOPERS TOOL KITS: LOGIC AND LANGUAGE           

Logic and language seems to be the most crucial parts among the tools that is used in philosophizing by the philosophers; the formal patterns of correct reasoning can all be conveyed through ordinary language, but then so can a lot of other things. In fact, we use language in many different ways, some of which are irrelevant to any attempt to provide reasons for what we believe. But then logic also helps us to identify bad reasoning from good ones. Dwelling on language now, the informative use of language in the real sense of it is set to involve an effort to communicate some content. When I tell a child, “the 5^th of May is seminary’s holiday,” or write to you that “Logic is the study of correct reasoning”, or jot a note to myself, “Jennifer- 566-456,” I am using language informatively. This kind of use presumes that the content of what is being communicated is actually true, so it will be our central focus in the study of logic. An expressive use of language, on the other hand, intends only to vent some feeling, or perhaps to evoke some feeling from other people. When I say, “Friday afternoons are dreary,” I am using language expressively. Although such uses don’t convey any information, they do serve an important function in everyday life, since how we feel sometimes matters as much as, or more than what we hold to be true. Lastly, directive usage of language aim to cause or to prevent some overt action by a human agent. When I say “shut the door”, or write “read the textbook,” or memo myself, “don’t rely so heavily on the passive voice,” I am using language directively. The point in each of these cases is to make someone perfume a particular action. This is a significant linguistic function, too, but like the expressive use, it doesn’t always relate logically to the truth of our beliefs. Having explicated briefly on the two basic tools of philosophizing for the philosophers, that is logic and language; we shall now see the relationship between logic and African literature and language and African literature respectively to serve the interest of this discourse.

1.3 LOGIC AND AFRICAN LITERATURE

But it seems to me that modern philosophy is not so happy to converse with literature any more. I think this is partly due to the general specialization that occurs in modern university disciplines. I think the rest of the explanation comes largely down to a particular kind of philosophy, analysis, being the dominant paradigm at the moment. And analysis is based upon the propositional analysis of language as discrete yet systematic logical statements.
Not that I have a problem with any of this kind of logical analysis per se. If you are doing certain kinds of philosophy, such as epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of language and so on, the truth condition of logic is perfect for structuring questions and evaluating answers. I do have an issue, however, when these truth conditions are imposed on other areas, even in philosophy itself.  I was a voracious reader of fiction as a kid, and still I am. What I love about literature is its ability to open up worlds to us. Or, expressed philosophically, the ability to illuminate the irreducibly subjective quality of perception. Characterization, voice and tone in literature remind us that there is always an “I” perceiving the world. Literature, on the other hand, is a more subtle genre for explicating the complexities of human action. It can render emotion and intuition realistically while integrating large themes that may contain logical impasses or big philosophical questions. In this way literature certainly does analyze human behaviour, by showing us human choices and their consequences and hypothesizing about whether this or that philosophy can be the basis for a life. It's just not logical, functional analysis.

If we take the view that philosophy is purely functional analysis, and literature is incapable of analysis at all, then yes. You could be mistaken into thinking there is a necessary division.

1.4 LANGUAGE AND AFRICAN LITERATURE

Language becomes a problem for just one reason which audiences are you writing to, the foreign audience or the inhabitants of Africa? If we agree that Africans know Africa, then the answer to the above question will be the foreign audience. The best of the best of African writers started out by debunking the erroneous views of Europeans/Americans about Africa. How else could the message be passed across if the intending receiver could hardly understand the language of the message? Chinua Achebe said he had to write in English, rather than in his native Igbo, because that's the only way his message will be understood by his targeted audience. Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o decided not to have anything to do with the oppressor's language, English, and started writing in his native Gikuyu. He has a point in it, but how many people are interested in taking that effort in reading his writings now that he has taken that journey?

Language has been an issue in African literature, but I think we should write in the language majority of the other world will understand. At the end, we write to correct erroneous views about us and our culture.

There are numerous reasons:

1.      Africa is not some monolithic cultural unit and there are hundreds (if not thousands) of different languages, cultures, and historical experiences in Africa. We don’t really use terms like “European literature” or “Asian literature” for those exact same reasons.

2.      The languages of the colonizers became the languages of many people in Africa (especially as lingua francas between innumerable different groups, and as languages of education and therefore prestige). So many would-be authors, most likely educated (at least in higher education) in English or French (most likely), would most likely write in those languages because they would have a better mastery over them and understanding of the literature, etc. of those languages as opposed to the most-likely non-existent literature of the vernacular language (or former language) of their respective countries. As in most African countries, a vast many people are not only illiterate but have very basic grasp of the languages of higher education such as English and French. This is why the most well-known literature to come out of Africa was made famous outside of Africa and not from within it.

3.      Publishing houses are almost non-existent in Africa for the aforementioned reasons. Also, to make a large generalization, cultures of the African continent largely relied on oral transmission of stories/etc. until only recently and even now this is still the case for so many people living in villages with little education.

There are many more complex reasons and many have written about the struggle of literature in African countries.

1.5 EVALUATION/CONCLUSION

            From all indications one would see that the discourse on the problem of African literature is very controversial, for there has been debates and arguments among scholars has to what should be regarded as African literature, and this has created land-mark of discussion in the historical trajectory of African literature and as such by way of conclusion but we have been able to examine it by making allusion to the proper understanding of the meaning of African literature, conceptually and historically. We then proceeded to the philosopher’s tool kits which we referred to as Logic and language which was explicated summarily to serve the interest of the discourse and finally we were able to examine. the relationship, as well as the influence of those tool kits that is logic and language on African literature and with that we believe we have serve the purpose of this discourse.

BIOGRAPHY/REFRENCES

Harold Scheub, African Literature, unpublished Material,pdf, global.britanniaca.com/art/African-Literature, retrieved 25/01/2017

Joseph George, African Literature, in Gordon and Gordon, Understanding Contemporary Africa (England: warlock publication, 1996)

African Literature, www.wikipedia.com/retreived 24/01/2017, 2:30PM

Stephaine Newell, Literary Culture in Colonial Ghana: How to play the game of life, (Bloomington Indiana: Indiana University press, 2002),

Ali A.Mazrui, The development of modern literature since 1935,in UNESCO’s General History of Africa, Vol. VII,P. 564F,PDF

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[1] Harold Scheub, African Literature, unpublished Material,pdf, global.britanniaca.com/art/African-Literature, retrieved 25/01/2017

[2] Joseph George, African Literature, in Gordon and Gordon, Understanding Contemporary Africa (England: warlock publication,1996),p.304

[3] African Literature, www.wikipedia.com/retreived 24/01/2017

[4] Ibid

[5] Stephaine Newell, Literary Culture in Colonial Ghana: How to play the game of life,(Bloomington Indiana: Indiana University press, 2002), p.135

[6] Ali A.Mazrui, The development of modern literature since 1935,in UNESCO’s General History of Africa, Vol. VII,P. 564F,PDF.

TAWAKALITU

TAWAKALITU

                             ……..ELUSIYAN TOLU’ FRANCIS

This is virtue her self

As the dwindling candlewicks flirted

With the dawn, she watched us slowly

Awakening with loving familiarity

She taught us how to wash

She taught us how to cook

She taught us how to behave

At a glance of her eyes

Conveys so many messages

Which is not always difficult,

For us to decode.

Hard-work is her paradigm

A woman of great virtue

Whose ways of life cannot but enthuse

Her discipline cannot be restrained

Neither can it be measured

Her order is final

Her instruction is firm

So steady and firm that it cannot be dared

If you become hard

War becomes her implement

The war you cannot win

Because she is mother exqusitus

A mother excellentus

Cooking becomes so easy

Humility becomes our virtue

Respect becomes our model

Favour that we received from her

As she allows thoughts to wash over us

Like the miniature diamond-backed fish

That swam underfoot and shuffled

Through memory folders

In the back of our minds

Placing in us morality and discipline

Tawakalitu[i] (mo ba olorun oba duro)

I stand with God alone

A woman without fear

Whose courage can elude that of Abija-wara[ii]

Rich in texture

Vivid in description

Impressive in thought

Massive in hard-work

What can we do without you

We own everything to you

If we are to come to this world

Again and again

We would love to come through you

Mother! Be strong.

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[i] The poem is dedicated to Mrs. Rita T. Elusiyan, the mother who gave birth to me! I love you mom!

[ii] Abija-wara is a name of the most powerful warrior in ancient Yoruba language movies

OKEIGBO PEOPLE AND CULTURE

OKEIGBO PEOPLE AND CULTURE

............Tolu’ Elusiyan

Okeigbo! That bush in the hill

That is her popular name,

That is what she’s known for,

Her comic language can make heavy hearts light

The mother of great people

Kind people they are,

But their minds you cannot know

They are people of tradition
Who can never do without their History

You make good name hear

It follows you for ever

You make bad appellation here

It lingers in the hearts of many

What a place, what a people

Whose welcoming attitude,

Can make an illness healed.

The journey of two royal men,

Of the houses of the Oni of Ife

Derin and Kugbayigbe and other comrades,

Founded it in the midst of the hills

Time has passed away, years have passed away

But then it has move from where it used to be

Maybe a bit of influence

By education and innovation

Freshness and newness

Stylishness and inventiveness

And so education now becomes her tools

Igbo-Olodumare acclaimed evil forest emerged

A forest of doom! Fagunwa exclaimed!!

Long walk to its bosom

First glance was the tortoise,

Bigger than human being

With an old man scary like scape

Dazzled with a hint of cape

Fuzzes like sight of tape

Upon closeness, what I saw bits my imagination

My imagination becomes illusion

My illusion becomes transformation

The transformation becomes my mission

My mission becomes my task

The task that was never asked

I saw, I felt, I touched and I grasped

All were creative works of art

And maybe they were there in the time of Fagunwa

But nothing was visible to me

All were creative works of arts

Myth and folklore they were.

Aluku! Aluku!! Aluku!!!

Do not put on your light

Do not work at Night

Do not talk, it’s her time

He or her we do not even know

Mystery they are, is all we know

The owner of the night

Respect his night

Oh Aluku! A mysterious festival

Who’s secretive is enigmatical

Men of fury, manipulating the Spiritual world

Spirit of bilocation is what we experienced

Double voice effect cannot be replaced

Abusive words of Aluku are like thorns in the flesh

So mouthed than that of the parrot

As I journey through exodus

Certain revelations began to unfold

Egungun! Egungun!! Egungun!!!

Also trop in like a chameleon

A cooking pot for the chameleon

Is a cooking pot for the lizard

Long sticks I could see

Pointing sorrowfully towards the sky

It does not come down with reason

But will surely come down to inflict

Unlimited flogging

With passion, aggression and pride

I could see the paradoxes

I could taste the complexities

I could feel the perplexities

Oh Okeigbo people and culture

Histories were made, stories were told

Okeigbo! I am proud to be from you

We are not Okeigbo people

Because we were born in Okeigbo

But we are Okeigbo people

Because Okeigbo was born in us

This poem was composed by TOLULOPE ELUSIYAN on the 21st of February, 2017

                                                  

Elusiyan

Wishing you all a fruitful year 2017

ELUSIYAN

HYGIENE AND PREVENTION: A POINTER TO INCREASED LIFE SPAN

….ELUSIYAN TOLU’ FRANCIS

Hygiene is defined as a set of practices performed for the preservation of health. Hygiene is an old concept related to medicine, as well as to personal and professional care practices related to most aspects of living. Regular hygienic practices may be considered good habits by a society, while the neglect of hygiene can be considered disgusting, disrespectful or even threatening; for prevention they say is better than cure. Medical hygiene pertains to the hygiene practices related to the administration of medicine, and medical care, that prevents disease and the spreading of diseases.

The way to a beautifully maintained body is to give your body plenty of care and love. Hygiene is more than simply being clean. Practicing personal hygiene helps you to live a healthy lifestyle. Personal hygiene helps to prevent people from catching or spreading forms of disease or illness. From a simple perspective, hygiene means to be clean. Your health depends on your personal hygiene; Put differently, your life span depends on your personal hygiene as well.

Caring for your appearance and body smell is important to a person’s self-esteem. Body hygiene is the principle of maintaining cleanliness, as well as grooming of the external body. People have been aware of hygiene for thousands of years. People in history have spent hours in the bathroom taking care of their bodies and making themselves presentable to others.

Maintenance of personal hygiene is necessary for many reasons; and among these many reasons are personal reasons, social reasons, health reasons, or psychological reasons or simply as a way of life. Keeping a good standard of hygiene helps to prevent the development and spread of infections, illnesses and bad odors.

Most people are very conscious of personal hygiene because:

*We are taught of the importance of hygiene from an early age.

*We might have been ‘picked-up’ on it at school for a one-off or a persistent hygiene problem. This may even have been an issue mistakenly related to hygiene by others, such as head lice.

* It is considered a way of making ourselves more attractive to the opposite sex.

*It is off-putting to our friends and colleagues if we smell unpleasant etc.

*We are aware of health problems that can develop as a result of poor personal hygiene.

BODY IMAGE

Body Image is the perception that people have of their physical selves and the thoughts and feelings that result from that perception. These feelings could be positive, negative or both and are influenced by individual and environmental factors. Body image influences self-esteem, confidence and motivation. Those who already have low self-esteem and especially those with depression often neglect personal hygiene which perpetuates the problem of poor body image.

Many forms of modern media including magazines, fashion, TV, film and the internet present a certain body image as being ‘acceptable’ or ‘expected’. Young children and teenagers are especially influenced by this; physical appearance being the ultimate factor by which to judge and be judged.

To youngsters, teenagers and those who care for them, there are three things to remember:

*The first thing to accept is that you will probably never look like those perfect specimens in the media, but you can, and will look good to most people if you follow basic personal hygiene principles.

*Secondly, your actions and the way you behave are more important to most people than the way you look.

*Thirdly, good hygiene practices will help to keep you healthy, give you confidence and be pleasant for those around you.

SOCIAL REASONS AND HEALTH REASONS

Most people hate to be talked about, especially in a negative mannerism. By ensuring that our body is clean and well presented, we are more assured of projecting a positive body image that reflects our personalities. Children should be taught the importance of hygiene and how to achieve good hygiene very early to keep themselves and others healthy and to reduce the risk of being bullied at school.

Poor hygiene can lead to poor health. If you have cut yourself, the wound should be cleaned and dressed suitably, this can help reduce the risk of infection and pain. Conditions such as head lice etc. Should be treated immediately to prevent further infections and spread to others. Hand washing cannot be over emphasized as this simple action can prevent a plethora of illnesses and disorders developing. Many people forget to wash their hands after using the toilet or before handling foods; this can cause a great deal of illness.

PSYCHOLOGICAL ISSUES

By being well presented, clean and tidy, people can feel more confident, especially in social situations. Our chances of succeeding either in work or social settings, or even with the opposite sex can be altered by maintenance of good hygiene. Maintaining hygiene practices helps to reduce the risk of ill health, but equally affects how we and others perceive ourselves; And it can also influence our levels of confidence and self-esteem which can affect many aspects of our lives.

Furthermore, maintaining a high level of personal hygiene helps to increase not just the life span but also a person’s confidence and self-esteem. If your body is clean and taken care of externally, it automatically helps you to feel good internally as well. Personal hygiene depends on the culture in which a person lives. Culture in this context does not mean just the country or city a person lives in, it also means the group in which you spend most of your time with.

CONCLUSION

By way of conclusion, body hygiene is important for everyone; it is not that expensive to be clean and neat; yet to be clean, it is expected that your body should be washed at least once in a day. If possible besides washing, use a deodorant to stop body odor. At times, regular bathing in conjunction with anti-perspirants and deodorants do not help and are not useful in ridding yourself of body odor. The reason may be due to another medical condition. Upon inquiry from the medical practioners, body odor can also be a sign of liver dysfunction, diabetes, thyroid issues, or another medical condition.

Every day we are exposed to pollution. A person’s clothing becomes unpleasant and dirty at the end of the day as they are worn the entire day. Sweat begins to make a person’s body sticky, resulting in dust and dirt sticking to their body. At the end of the day, the person ends up carrying germs back to his own home.

So, cleanliness is an important issue, Poor hygiene is unhealthy and unacceptable for it can reduce life span. A person needs to maintain body hygiene not just for the sake of their own health. You can judge people by their personal hygiene; it gives you a picture of the person’s personality. Someone who adheres to body hygiene will be better equipped to fight any sort of disease or illness. Prevention they say is better than cure.

THE SUMMARY OF THE STRUCTURE AND LAWS OF THE LITURGICAL CELEBRATION (PAGES 207-215)

THE ALTAR: In the liturgy of the Roman rite of the Catholic Church, the altar is the table on which the sacrifice of the mass is offered. The altar is traditionally made of stone, calling to mind Christ as the living cornerstone of the catholic faith. However, as the most venerable spot in the church, the traditional stone is preferred. The altar is first of all a table, a dining table at which the priest, who represents Christ the lord, does what the lord himself did on Holy Thursday and ordered his disciples to do in their turn in remembrance of him. The celebration of the Eucharist on the stone altar turns the latter into an image of Christ and that is why according to a twofold symbolism, there is the theme of the stone as the rock from which Moses caused water to flow, and the rock was Christ[1]. Then there is the theme of the stone altar, a theme initiated in Genesis[2] and developed on the basis of deuteronomic regulation for the offering of holocausts. In the 4^th century the builder of the cemeterial basilicas of the fourth to the sixth century often sought, even if it meant overcoming very great difficulties, to link the body of the martyr with the altar on which the Eucharistic sacrifice was to be celebrated. The connection may have been suggested by the apocalypse.[3] There used to be one altar in the new churches which presupposes that we have but one savior and one Eucharist. But it is also meritorious having additional small chapel, set aside from the main body of the church for weekday masses and individual visits of the faithful. In the liturgical exercise, respect is shown devotedly to the altar in various mannerisms which include: the kissing of the altar at the arrival of the priest and at the end of mass.

THE BAPTISTERY: Here we were made to understand that Baptistery is a hall or chapel situated close to, or connected with, a church, in which the sacrament of baptism is administered. It should be strictly reserved for the sacrament of baptism and should be a place worthy for Christians to be reborn in water and Holy Spirit. In their architecture, which was inspired by the halls for the baths, the baptisteries followed a centralized plan; allegorical considerations suggested an octagonal form. The veneration felt for baptisteries can be seen in the marvelous artistic flowering they stimulated and in liturgical rites, particularly Rome, a procession of neophytes went on pilgrimage to the baptistery every evening of Easter week. As adult baptisms became increasingly rare, and especially once the practice of immersion disappeared, baptisteries were reduced in size and came to be placed inside the parish churches, close to the entrance. Canonical legislation spoke no longer of baptisteries but simply of the baptismal font. The desire for community participation often led to the celebration of baptisms not in the baptistery proper but in the sanctuary of the church, the de- meritorious aspect of this is that it deprived Christians of the possibility of venerating the place where they had been baptized.

THE CEMETERY: The cemetery was a place where the bodies of all the brothers and sisters waited for the resurrection; it had to proclaim this expectation and avoid grandiloquence, vanity, luxury, and much more, any trace of paganism and as such, Here we were made to understand the fact that initially Christians did not have cemeteries of their own even though they took over everything in the funeral traditions of their cities that was unharmonious with their faith and their hope. But in the 3^rd century the roman community had already constructed its own cemetery but only the underground aspects survived, however, as a follow up to that, their original form was subverted after the peace of Constantine by the desire of Christians to be buried near the martyrs. In fact in the middle ages many people lobby the honour of being buried inside the churches, while the other graves clustered around the outside. Despite the miasma created by modernity, the holy mother church still desires that wherever possible it continue to have cemeteries of her own.

OBJECTS SET ASIDE FOR CULTIC USE                  

THE SACRED VESSELS: The sacred vessel is very much imperative among basic or fundamental requirement in the celebration of the Holy Mass, most especially the chalice and paten, which are used for the presentation, consecration, and receiveing bread and wine. The cup at the last supper was a single cup from which all the guests were supposed to drink according to the ritual of the Passover meal; beginning with the letters of st.paul[4] and this single cup becomes the symbol of ecclesial unity, the grace of which it contains.

CROSSES AND ICONS: Cross is meant to be placed near the altar in our modern mileu so that the assembly can figure it out easily. Though in 25^th century, the processional cross was placed opposite that altar by a sub-deacon when the cortege arrived, later on, a small cross was placed on the altar. In reference to churches tradition, the images of the Jesus, the blessed virgin, and the saints may be legitimately venerated by the assembly.  Among the Byzantines, on the other hand, icons are required in the place of worship, and certain liturgical acts must be performed before them. As a matter of fact they are different from the images we have In the west not only by reason of this close connection with the liturgy but also by reason of the artistic choices that they embody and the spiritual attitude of the faithful toward them.

THE BELLS: The faithful were summon for the liturgy in a primitive mannerism in the early centuries, some eastern churches have continued to use the wooden simandron or the sideroun, which are hanging objects that are struck with a mallet. But towards the end of 5^th century  the use of bells spread everywhere. The middle ages assigned them the further function of urging the absent faithful to unite themselves in prayer with the liturgy then being celebrated and this is why bells are rung during the celebration, in the course of the Eucharistic prayer as well as of stimulating the faithful to mements of private prayer like ringing of the ave maria or angelus.

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[1] 1Cor 10:14

[2] Gen 28:18

[3] I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne: Rev 6:9

[4] 1Cor 10:16