I completely agree with Fr H. As an Easterner, it's not unusual to see someone venerating a favourite icon, kissing it and lighting a candle before it, during Divine Liturgy or Vespers.
From Fr Hunwicke's Mutual Enrichment
An old post, with an old thread.
Fr Colin Stephenson, Vicar of S Mary Mags, Oxford, during its Anglopapalist heyday, recalls someone saying to him:
"I shall never forget the first time I went into S Mary Magdalen's, there were two priests hearing confessions, a Mass was being said at one of the altars, and there was Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament in the Lady Chapel".
I remember analogous remarks being made about the scenes in Alyoggers, the Oxford Oratory, during the Visit there in 2010 of the Relic of S Therese. They call to my mind the scene described by Newman towards the end of Loss and Gain: "There were side-altars - perhaps half a dozen; most of them without lights, but even here solitary worshippers might be seen. Over one was a large Crucifix with a lamp, and this had a succession of visitors. They came for five minutes, said some prayers which were attached in a glazed frame to the rail, and passed away. At another ... over it was an image. On looking attentively, Charles made out at last that it was an image of our Lady, and the Child held out a Rosary. Here a congregation had already assembled, or rather was in the middle of some service ... Reding turned his eyes elsewhere. They fell first on one, then on another confessional, round each of which was a little crowd , kneeling, waiting every one his own turn ... the men on one side, the women on the other ... the growing object of attention at present was the High Altar [which was being prepared for Benediction]... "
Come to think of it; isn't this a bit like a Greek church with members of the congregation sauntering around to their favourite ikons? The one I used to attend in the Camberwell New Road seemed, whenever I peeped out from behind the iconostasis, terribly 'busy'.
I think busyness attracts; is 'evangelical'. Not least because it helps the random visitor to feel un-self-conscious.
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