The
Divine Liturgy is truly a gift of the Holy Spirit to humanity. It is an
initiation into the mysteries of the Spirit, a mode of the revelation of God
and of all things heavenly. There is nothing in the Liturgy which is not
revelatory of the Godhead and of the energies of the Holy Trinity.
Because
we know and believe that God is our Father, we view the church, especially when
we celebrate the Liturgy, as our true home. We come in and go out freely, we
are happy to be here, we make the sign of the cross, we light our candles, we
speak with our friends, and it is easy to see that the Orthodox feel that the
church is their home… The Liturgy is our family our gathering, our house. And
what a spacious house it is! Together with us are those who are absent, along
with sinners, and with the wicked, and the dead, indeed, even those who are in
hell, but who may yet remember something about God….
So we
come to church, to our true home, and we are truly glad. This is the greatest
privilege which a Christian can have. Here we experience the grace of God. We
experience our salvation, the results of the redemptive work of our God, of
Christ, the great “High Priest.”… Christ lives for us, he prays for us, and
raises his hands to the heavenly Father… He has not ceased to urge our saints —
and particularly His Mother of God — to intercede for us to the heavenly
Father, for our hearts, for our sins, for our pains, for the disappointments of
our life…. So don’t think that when we go to church, we are simply entering and
exiting an ordinary building. Instead, we go up to, and make our entrance into,
the Holy of Holies, into the heavens themselves…
When we
enter church, then, we are traversing the distance from church to heaven… We
see the bread and wine, but who among us does not believe they are Christ? We
inhale the fragrance of wine and bread, but who among us does not believe this
to be the body and blood of he Savior?…This is a sacrament. This is what a
“mystery” of the church means…
Our
liturgy is an exceeding great gift. No one is worthy of such greatness. No one
can do anything without God. He alone makes these magnificent blessings real,
and places them in our hands and hearts.
…And for
this we say: Thank you, Lord our God, because you have brought down the ranks
of angels and raised us up to heaven. We are found worthy to stand before the
heavenly Father. What blessedness! What happiness!
But let
each of us ponder how great and rich God has made us; how highly he has exalted
us, dispite the fact that we are sinners! “Woe is me,” said Isaiah the prophet,
for God himself has descended upon me, and I am afraid I will die. And this is
what we should also say when we come to church. We should be afraid, but we
should also rejoice. We should tremble, but our hearts should also leap for
joy, because we are embracing God, and God is embracing us.
So we
have come to church, to the Liturgy! Let nothing disturb the tranquility of
your soul. God is present. Wherever we look, God is before us! If we don’t see
Him, this doesn’t mean He isn’t there, but only that our eyes are not used to
seeing Him…
With the
eyes of our mind, let us see the king for whom we sinners opened the way, and
let us say with the Psalmist: “Come let us worship and fall down before Him and
cry to the Lord… for He is our God.” (Ps 94.6-7) Let us open the depths of our
hearts to the Lord, who is present here with us, and let us advance more each
and every day, so that we will be able to discover everything that God, our redeemer,
has done for us.
By Archimandrite Aimilianos of Simonopetra
Source: http://orthodoxwayoflife.blogspot.com/2018/05/the-divine-liturgy-is-gift-of-holy.html
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