The Catalog of Good Deeds

Now begins the part of the Divine Liturgy called the eucharistic canon. It is also called the anaphora, which means the lifting-up or the elevation. At this time the gifts of bread and wine which have been offered on the altar are lifted up from the altar to God the Father, and receive divine sanctification by the Holy Spirit who comes to change them into the very Body and Blood of Christ.

The general form of the eucharistic canon is that of the Old Testamental Passover ritual, now fulfilled and perfected in the new and everlasting covenant of God with men in the person and work of Jesus Christ the Messiah, “our Paschal Lamb Who has been sacrificed” (1 Cor 4.7; See also Heb 5–10). Thus the eucharistic anaphora begins:

Let us stand aright! Let us stand with fear! Let us attend! That we may offer the Holy Oblation in peace.

The people respond: A mercy of peace! A sacrifice of praise!

The Holy Oblation is Christ, the Son of God who has become the Son of Man in order to offer Himself to His Father for the life of the world. In His own person Jesus is the perfect peace offering which alone brings God’s reconciling mercy. This is undoubtedly the meaning of the expression a mercy of peace, which has been a source of confusion for people over the years in all liturgical languages.

In addition to being the perfect peace offering, Jesus is also the only adequate sacrifice of praise which men can offer to God. There is nothing comparable in men to the graciousness of God. There is nothing with which men can worthily thank and praise the Creator. This is so even if men would not be sinners. Thus God himself provides men with their own most perfect sacrifice of praise. The Son of God becomes genuinely human so that human persons could have one of their own nature sufficiently adequate to the holiness and graciousness of God. Again this is Christ, the sacrifice of praise.

Thus, in Christ, all is fulfilled and accomplished. In Him the entire sacrificial system of the Old Testament, which is itself the image of the universal striving of men to be worthy of God, is fulfilled. All possible offerings are embodied and perfected in the offering of Christ on the Cross. He is the offering for peace and reconciliation and forgiveness. He is the sacrifice for supplication, thanksgiving and praise. In Him all of men’s sins and impurities are forgiven. In Him all of men’s positive aspirations are fulfilled. In Him, and in him alone, are all of men’s ways to God, and God’s ways to men, brought into one Holy Communion. Through Him alone do men have access to the Father in one Holy Spirit (Eph 2.18; Also Jn 14, 2 Cor 5, Col 1).

The celebrant now addresses the congregation with the Trinitarian blessing of the Apostle Paul (2 Cor 13.14). This is the more elaborate Christian salutation than the simple Peace (Shalom) of the Old Testament:

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father,and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.

And the people respond: And with your spirit.

The grace of Christ comes first. In this grace is contained the fullness of the love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit. The celebrant offers this entire abundant outpouring of the inner life of the Holy Trinity to the People of God. And they in turn respond with the prayer that this “fullness of God” would be with his spirit as well.

The eucharistic dialogue continues:

Let us lift up our hearts!

We lift them up unto the Lord!

Let us give thanks unto the Lord!

It is meet and right to worship the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit; the Trinity one in essence and undivided.

As men in Christ lift up the eucharistic gifts, they lift up their hearts as well. In the Bible the heart of man stands for his whole being and life. Thus in the anaphora, as the Apostle Paul has stated, the whole man is taken up into that realm where Christ is now seated at the right hand of God.

If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hid with Christ in God (Col 3.1–3).

The manner of lifting up oneself to God is through thanksgiving. The word eucharist in Greek means thanksgiving. The eucharistic Divine Liturgy is preeminently the action of lifting up one’s heart and giving thanks to God for all that He has done for man and the world in Christ and the Holy Spirit: creation, salvation and eternal glorification.

The original sin of man, the origin of all of his trouble, corruption and ultimate death, is his failure to give thanks to God. The restoration of communion with God, and with all creation in him, is through thanksgiving in Christ. Jesus is the only man truly grateful, humble and obedient to God. In him, as the only Beloved Son of God and the only perfect Adam, all men can lift up their hearts and give thanks to the Lord: “For there is . . . one mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all . . .” (1 Tim 2.5).

It should be noted here that the affirmation “it is meet and right” is expanded into a longer form only in the Slavic tradition of the Church. In other churches it remains in this simple and more ancient form.

With hearts lifted up to the Lord, and thanksgiving rendered to God, the prayer of the eucharistic canon continues:

It is meet and right to sing of Thee, to bless Thee, to praise Thee, to give thanks to Thee and to worship Thee in every place of Thy dominion. For Thou art God ineffable, inconceivable, invisible, incomprehensible, ever-existing and eternally the same, Thou and Thine only-begotten Son and Thy Holy Spirit. Thou it was who brought us from non-existence into being, and when we had fallen away, didst raise us up again, and didst not cease to do all things until Thou hadst brought us up to heaven and hadst endowed us with Thy Kingdom which is to come. For all these things we give thanks to Thee, and to Thine only-begotten Son and to Thy Holy Spirit; for all things of which we know and of which we know not, whether manifest or unseen; and we thank Thee for this liturgy which Thou hast found worthy to accept at our hands, though there stand by Thee thousands of archangels and hosts of angels, the Cherubim and the Seraphim, six-winged, many eyed, who soar aloft, borne on their pinions, singing the triumphant hymn, shouting, proclaiming and saying:

Holy! Holy! Holy! Lord of Sabaoth! Heaven and earth are full of Thy glory! Hosanna in the highest! Blessed is he that comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!

At this point in the Divine Liturgy man’s thanksgiving to God the Father for all that he has done in Christ and the Spirit is brought to its climax. The man in God remembers all things and is grateful to God. His remembrance and his thanksgiving take him into the very Presence of the Kingdom to the Throne of the Father to sing the Thrice-Holy Hymn with the angelic choirs (Is 6.1–5).

Through Christ and the Holy Spirit, the man of faith is transported in spirit to be with his Lord. The limitations of this age are left behind through grateful remembrance of Christ and his accomplishment of salvation. Thus the eucharistic prayer continues with the whole focus of attention brought to that One Man and that one night in which the Divine Son gave himself as food for the faithful, offering himself in sacrifice for the life of the world.

With these blessed powers, O Master, Who lovest mankind, we also cry aloud and say: Holy art Thou and all-holy, Thou and Thine only-begotten Son and Thy Holy Spirit! Holy art Thou and all-holy, and magnificent is Thy glory! Who hast so loved Thy world as to give Thine only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. Who when He had come and had fulfilled all the dispensation for us. in the night in which He was given up—or rather gave Himself up for the life of the world—He took bread in His holy, pure and blameless hands; and when He had given thanks and blessed it, and hallowed it and broken it, He gave it to his holy disciples and apostles saying:

Take! Eat! This is My Body which is broken for you for the remission of sins. Amen.

And likewise after supper, He took the cup saying: Drink of it all of you! This is My Blood of the New Testament, which is shed for you and for many for the remission of sins! Amen.

Remembering this saving commandment and all those things which have come to pass for us: the cross, the tomb, the resurrection on the third day, the ascension into heaven, the sitting at the right hand of God the Father, the second and glorious coming.

Thine own of Thine own we Offer unto Thee, in behalf of all and for all!

As the celebrant intones these last words which proclaim that all that is offered to the Father is already his—for every creature and all of creation are his, together with the Beloved Son and the Holy Spirit who are uncreated and divine—the eucharistic gifts are lifted up and elevated towards the heavens. It is the sign that the faithful Christians have been exalted together with their Lord into the Kingdom of God.

For Christ has entered, not into a sanctuary made with hands . . . but into heaven itself now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf . . . we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all . . . for when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, He sat down at the right hand of God . . . for by a single offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified (Heb 9.24, 10.10–14).

Heaven and earth are now blended into one, filled with the glory of God. The ages past and the ages still to come are brought into unity. The night, the supper, the cross, the tomb, the resurrection, the ascension, the kingdom to come—all merge together in the eucharistic moment of the Divine Liturgy. Man is with God in a holy communion which is “not of this world.” All boundaries of time and of space are utterly broken. All walls of division are totally destroyed. Man’s sins are forgiven in Christ, his impurities are cleansed, his corruption is healed. His mortal nature is restored to immortality with God. His created humanity is filled with the Uncreated Divinity of the All-Holy Trinity. It only remains now to seal this action by the invocation of the Spirit of God.

Source: https://oca.org/orthodoxy/the-orthodox-faith/worship/the-divine-liturgy/eucharistic-canon-anaphora

Whoever believes in chance doesn’t believe in God. These forthright words of Father Alexander Elchaninov gain a new meaning when it comes to misfortunes, whether they are of a personal, canonical or even worldwide nature.

Misfortunes never come singly. When they come, we have to open our doors, otherwise misfortunes break right through and we can lose not only the doors but also the whole façade. However, the doors can be opened in different ways.

While a person is young they have unlimited opportunities and hopes ahead of them. They are determined and focused on their future, the anticipation of which makes them happy and cheerful. All misfortunes seem negligible, swiftly passing on the way to the “wonderful future”.

However, a person feels completely different when one day they realise that life’s clock is ticking and that it is impossible to restore their losses, to recover from hardship, to replace loved ones, while the emotional ability to make new friends diminishes every year. Just as water leaks gradually out of a solid but cracked barrel until instead of clear fresh water there is nothing left but filthy dregs.

Please don’t try to comfort such a person or indignantly protest against their low spirits. The truth is that their situation has nothing to do with either melancholy or despair. On the contrary, they have come to an understanding that life is offering them some new, real, authentic prospects.

Some time ago I was struck by the words of Ivan Ilyin that suffering is the main means of understanding the reality of the universe. At that time I thought these words meaningful and beautiful, although rather useless with regards to day-to-day life. Moreover, these words didn’t seem particularly Christian either – who would ever say to someone in distress that now they really know what real life is like! That would not only be cruel but also wrong: according to the Scriptures we should not rejoice with those who weep but share their grief and sorrow.

At the same time, if it is not a stranger but you who hears the clock ticking, then that is a completely different matter.

The first thing to happen is that one starts bringing structure to ones life. This is to be expected, because when one has an endless road ahead, it is impossible and even unpleasant to focus on down-to-earth things. However, the moment one finds oneself in a situation with very clear-cut stipulations, especially if those are provided not by you but by Divine providence, one has to return ones gaze to reality and concentrate on the familiar and simple things which had been neglected earlier.

Instead of waiting for something grand and glorious in the future, one starts to find joy in ordinary and small matters, which one previously only glanced at with contempt. The truth of each moment becomes very vivid, almost tactile; and this everyday truth results in gratitude to God for granting yet another wonderful day.

The second thing I would like to point out is about resonance. When someone is running along the platform, pushing everyone around and trying to catch a train, they are not concerned with anybody else but themselves, even if people around get hurt or upset. They think they will never see those people again, so why bother worrying about them? But if one is locked in a submarine, where every gesture will be mirrored and reciprocated by one’s fellow passengers, often in the worst possible way, then one quickly masters some patience and self-control – even when one is in the right – as well as some good sense and tact towards people who happen to be around. Nobody wants to upset the delicate balance and to fall victim to it. Better a little fire to warm us, than a great one to burn us.

Finally, it is true to say that to lie on the ground is to be in the most stable position. The more we want to take control over everything, the faster water leaks out from the barrel. The very moment when one is confident of having omnipotent power in their hands, it turns out that this is only a little thread leading back to oneself, not the universe. Humbleness never falls because it never holds its head up high. The less we rely on ourselves in our lives, the better, smoother and more balanced our lives are.

You probably think that the author is referring to himself. Not at all. I am mainly talking about our Christian life in general. It doesn’t matter what pulls the trigger and starts that clock. What most important is that this ticking sound could – and should – be a turning point in the lives of church people, prompting them to seek the truth and become more mature. Isn’t it time for us to grow up and stop dreaming about the Third Rome, New Byzantium or the pan galactic influence of the true faith? Sadly, we will probably have to end our walks in the moonlight with nightingales and endless courting in a faraway land. We are not needed there, and we will always be unwanted strangers there. But don’t we have our own family? It is time to take care of it and be responsible for it. For example, heated discussions about the projects of the Inter-Council Presence, especially concerning monasticism, remind us that we have a great deal of work left to do in our own back yard. Who knows; perhaps there is not much time left, and we had better spend it on our own problems.

“Come, Lord Jesus! For Your Kingdom is not of this world!”

Source: http://www.bogoslov.ru/en/text/2903799.html

Although the Confessions of adults are sometimes tiresome, the Confessions of children and teenagers are still the most difficult for me.

“I did not obey my parents, I studied poorly, I did not clean my room, I quarreled with my brother, I did not take out the trash, I watched “bad” cartoons…” – this is the most you can hear from a child at the age of 7-12 during Confession. However, with time the content of Confessions remains almost the same. If a child attends church every Sunday, then he has to repeat the same phrases every time he comes to Confession. He will takl about his bad behavior in church; that he did not thank God, that he was inattentive while praying. I would like to say, that with rare exceptions, none of them speaks about their relationships with God.

It is even worse if we speak about the Confession of children of non religious families, in which people do not pray at home and do not read the Holy Gospel. Parents bring them to Confession before the beginning of the school year or, for example, during an excursion at a monastery, for educational purposes (“Father, talk some sense into him!”). Nevertheless, motivation for Confession has nothing to do with the sense of Confession. Usually it is so that neither children, nor their parents understand the essence of this sacrament. The child was told that he should tell the priest about the bad deeds he has committed, so that “God forgives him”. That is it. The sacraments have no connection with real family life. Usually, when these children reach the age of 15, you will not see them in church. Only a few of them will read the Gospel when they get older. But how can we explain to all those relatives that such an approach is unacceptable, because children are not prepared for Confession and the Holy Communion?

Well, what can we offer concerning the preparation of children for Confession? To answer this question I studied the experience of the well-known spiritual fathers, such as Metropolitan Antony of Sourozh, priests Maxim kozlov, Alexei Uminski, Vladimir Vorobyov and others. On the base of the studied materials, the following general recommendations were prepared:

1. If a family does not have a spiritual father, then the preparation of the children rests on the parents’ shoulders. First of all it demands a personal example, when the parents attend church and take part in the sacraments at least from time to time, and the child can see them praying, fasting and reading the Holy Gospel and other spiritual literature. However, if the parents understand that they do not have enough experience for this, then the godparents can assist them.

2. While preparing for Confession, it is important to let the child feel old enough to estimate his deeds on his own. The conversation should not take the form of a lesson, which the child must remember. He can repent only in those deeds, which he understand as bad ones on his own.

3. It is unacceptable to tell children that God will punish them. If the child sees God as an attorney, it will lead to misconstruction of his religious experience. As we say the God is the Father, then it is natural that the image of God is formed according to his personal relationships with his parents. If the relationships are harmonious, if they are based on love, respect and trust, then it will be much easier to explain the child that the sin is not just a crime, but something that ruins this love and trust and creates an obstacle between the man and God. Just as it is natural for a child to love his parents, it is the same natural to learn how to love God.

4. Preparing children for Confession additionally fosters parents, godparents and other relatives to work on themselves. One of the reasons why children leave the Church when they get older is that they have been overwhelmed with prayer and sacraments, but at the same time they do not see that their parents have personal relationships with God. It can be the case when their life comes down to fulfilling certain formal rules (fasting, reading of various spiritual literature), but there is no joy of the life in Christ. Moreover, it can happen in case the parents do not work on themselves and do not think of their sins, or in case there are no healthy and harmonious relationships.

5. Since children’s imagination is much stronger than their logics, it is better to deliver information about sins and their types using different images, examples and proverbs. To do this you can compile the material about passions and then discuss it with your child within several days. Thus, he will manage to understand whether this or that sin concerns him personally or not. No way you should point to the evident child’s sins. To simplify the process of self-development, you can offer your child to note certain sins he might like to confess.

6. While preparing for Confession it is important not only to help the child to recognize his sins, but to foster him to gain the virtues, without which we cannot live spiritually. These virtues are attention to our inner condition and the skill of prayer. It is possible for children to see the Lord as their Heavenly parent, and this is why is it quite easy to explain to them that prayer is a kind of conversation between them and God. Children need communication with their parents as well as spiritual communion with God.

7. Children should not read any long prayers. Children should be able to handle the prayer. Excerpts from the prayer in his own words, such prayers as the “Song to the Most Holy Theotokos” and “The Lord’s Prayer” would be enough for a child.

8. The Holy Communion and Confession are two completely different sacraments. The way they combine in a person’s life depends on the features of each person. Fr. Alexi Uminski says, “A child should not confess every time he is going to partake of the Holy Communion… Unfortunatelly, much depends on the personal approach of the priest. For example, there are priests who do not let children to partake of the Holy Communion if they have not confessed before. They do not care of the children’s age – whether they are 6, 7, or 15 years old.

9. It is advisable that the child manages to establish personal relationships of trust with the priest. To do this they need communication, which can be provided by the Sunday School and various common activities such as camping trips and pilgrimages.

10. There is no need to begin to confess at the age of 7. As Fr. Maxim Kozlov mentions, “Today children grow up physically much faster than spiritually and psychologically. This is why it happens so that most of them are not ready to confess when they are just 7 years old. Is it not time for us to say that the age of Confession should be set up individually in each case? At the age of 7 they can see the difference between the good deed and the bad one, but we cannot say that this is something we can call repentance. Their moral conscience awakes much later. But let it be so. Let them come at 9 or 10, when they become more responsible for their lives and deeds… The formalization of children’s Confession which takes place today is quite dangerous thing”.

11. It would be preferable to agree on a time of the first Confession with the priest beforehand. The first Confession requires special attention. This is why it is important not to put it off or plan it on a feast day or when the priest may be busier than usual.

12. A child’s preparation for Confession begins from the time of his or her self-awareness begins. Children may be ready for their own personal religious experience such as personal prayer by the age of three. And be able to say “sorry” to parents, friends, siblings right away without waiting for Confession. Once again it is important for the child to see an example from his parents and older brothers and sisters.

13. Never use Confession as a disciplinary method. Such a pragmatic method instantly reveals the “spirituality” of those who “send” their children to confession. According to C. S. Lewis: “Men or nations who think they can revive the Faith in order to make a good society might just as well think they can use the stairs of Heaven as a short cut to the nearest chemist's shop.” The temptation to use Christianity for the development of patriotic feeling of “obedience” toward parents is quite high.

14. If children go to communion often, they should not go to Confession every week. This would become more of a formality. Children can very quickly learn how to say a certain “standard”: disobeyed my mother, sad bad things at school had a fight with his brother. Practically not a single child will say that he prayed and was not sincere about it, that he has some inner worries or uncertainties. And after a few years such a “pious Christian” will not have the slightest idea on what repentance means. Confession will no longer lead to the desire to repent. As Father Maksim Kozlov had noted: “it is a good idea after conferring with the spiritual father to confess the little sinner for the first time at the age of 7, for the second time at the age of 8 and for the third time at the age of 9 in order to prolong the beginning of confessing often, regularly, and to make sure that it will not become a simple habit.”

15. As Children grow up, it is important to let them know that Communion is the Blood and Body of Christ that is the Holy of Holies, which one cannot approach just like that. It is important not make communion onto a casual weekly event especially when they play around and run around without even having a thought regarding what they are doing. And if you see that your child is misbehaving before the service and continues to misbehave in church during the service – it is better not to lake him to the Chalice. It would be better for him to understand that one cannot approach communion in any state. And perhaps it is better for the child to commune not as often as you would like but rather to understand why he is coming to church. It is important that the parents do not approach communion of a child as a sort of magic where they shift the responsibility, which they should be responsible for, upon God.

16. It is pedagogically correct if you manage to let your children understand that attending the service and the Holy Communion is not just an obligation, but a privilege – a privilege to be adopted by the Heavenly Father through the Blood and Body of the Son. There is no galaxy which could hold God. But the human’s heart can. However, it should be prepared to accept Him, and for this we need to work on ourselves. We need to try and organize our family attitude to Divine services in such a way that we do not bring our children to the chalice, but that they want to come themselves. Nevertheless, parents should not make their children come there if they have reached their age of reason already; parents can only offer them to come.

17. It is not recommended to have young children attend the entire service. It is difficult even for adults to keep their prayerful condition during the two-hour-long service. Neither can children, which is absolutely natural. As a result, they begin to behave irreverentially: they run across the church, scream and grizzle. Thus they lose the feeling of something sacred. Such children often lose their faith in the future as well. They do not know what adoration is. This is why it is better to limit the amount of the services and the time spent there. It will be enough to stay for 20 minutes in the evening and then come next morning 20 minutes before Communion if the child is under the age of 5. Then you can increase the amount of time spent in church with each year. Even if the mother wants to stay for the whole service, it is better to sacrifice her desire for her child. In practice there is also another variant: a parent comes to the service “for himself”, while the second parent comes with the child later, when the Communion is about to begin. What is more, in some parishes even special liturgies for children are held. Anyway, children’s ability to stay calm in the church depends a lot on how are thing with family prayer at home.

18. Do not forget that the process of churching is prevented by a non-Christian atmosphere in school, TV and internet. Your child’s peers look at their life differently. Their friends will not always share the same interests.

To protect the child from the influence of the secular world we have to develop his positive criticism and the desire for inner freedom. According to Fr. Vitaly Sinkar, “Parents’ goal is not to prepare children for Confession, but to show them the depth of life, to teach them how to understand it. Teach them to love books and to understand poetry. We need to talk to them: about life and its content, about this world. We should not separate them from the world because everything is "demonic", instead we need to provide them with their own spiritual shield. And of course we need to pray for them: to not only speak with them about God, but to speak with God about them as well.

19. Concerning fasting, we should take into account the peculiarities of children’s psychological and physical condition. At first, parents themselves make some food restrictions. But their goal should be that their child begins to restrict himself on his own with time. Even if he just refuses from ice cream or crisps, it will become a great step in his personal spiritual development. Let us point out gain that the degree of preparedness depends on parents a lot. It is important that fast does not come down to simple disciplinary rules.

20. It is a great idea to celebrate the first Confession and Communion, so that these events become a true feast for your children. On this day you and your child can even dress up. It will be nice if you decide to have a simple festive dinner or to go to a café.

Remember that when taking part in the social, spiritual and psychological development of our children we should not make them meet our own expectations no matter how much we want this. Our task is to prepare them for their future life. To teach how to establish their personal relationship with God.

By Hieromonk Agapius (Golub)
St. Elisabeth Convent

June 19, 2017

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