Sunday School: The Divine Liturgy

“Blessed is the Kingdom of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.” The Divine Liturgy begins with an acclamation of the Kingdom of God, brought into being by the Kingdom bringer himself, Christ and represented by the Priest “in persona Christi.” The Kingdom of God is at Hand! The Liturgy is the feast of the kingdom, an inauguration of things to come, but also present and active here and now. The powers of Heaven invisibly worship with us.

This is but a taste of the reality of the Churchs’ Liturgies, but how often do we see attending church as little more than fulfilling a responsibility or as if we are attending a performance. Is it just something you do to fulfill an obligation and endure impatiently?  Liturgy means “the peoples’ work”… it’s faith in action, word, song, prostrations, incensing, bowing and signing the Cross etc. You are participating in the most significant encounter with the Eucharistic Risen Lord, the source and the summit of our life!

The truth is Liturgy is life giving and beautiful, yet so often we are spiritually blinded by our sin and attachment to worldly concerns. Church is boring when it’s just about sitting through something we don’t understand or care to understand. To the outsider, it may appear meaninglessness or empty or a set of strange and hollow customs; something from the past like visiting a museum about an ancient tribe tribe with quirky habits.

Yet the Divine Liturgy, in particular, is the very thing that brings salvation from death and healing. It is the hospital for the sick. It is something to be lived.  We are called to immerse ourselves in the Liturgy which is the very life of the Church, the life of the community; to become Church, the very Body of Christ present in the Temple.

Our Holy Byzantine Catholic and Orthodox worship is ancient, and yet very relevant. It may seem foreign to the modern world, but it’s as timeless as ever because people really haven’t changed. Fashion, music, technology may have changed, but human nature hasn’t.  We need God as much as our ancestors did. Everything in the liturgy, every act, every phase has been designed to draw us into the mysteries, to worship in communion with our brothers and sisters in the faith in the presence of Christ our King.

In the Divine Liturgy we give creation a voice and we offer it back to God in the form of bread, wine which symbolizes the entire created order.  We are in the presence of God and his Saints. “What shall I render to the Lord for all His benefits to me? I will take up the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the lord…” Psalm 115 12-13.

Every service is a chance to encounter the risen Lord and to be transformed. We are offered up, not just the bread and wine in Divine Liturgy. We are the outward, living sign of the Kingdom when we participate in this most public action of the Christian community in relationship with the Holy Trinity.

In the liturgies the prayers of the celebrants are sealed and affirmed with “Amen”, Hebrew for “let it be so.” Without the amen acknowledged by the members of the Body of Christ present in the temple, the liturgy cannot continue. At least one person must be present in addition to the priest or bishop for Divine Liturgy to be given. In the liturgy we praise God in song, word, the smells and the bells, the beautiful icons, we bow and we make the sign of the cross.

The church day and year has a cycle, it’s not just about Divine Liturgy; there is the liturgy of the hours, matins, vespers, liturgies of supplication, memorials, and compline to name some of the most consequential ones. There is a daily cycle as the sun moves across the world from east to west. In Matins we give praise to God who reveals himself to us just as the sun rises to overtake the darkness of night and to nourish the world. In the evening, Vespers is celebrated, usually as the sun sets, where we reflect upon the true source of light, Christ the Son of God and the Son of righteousness whose love for us will never set.

We must strive to see the deep reality and mystery present in the life of the Church, seen and unseen by our human eyes. The earthly liturgy as a manifestation in time of the heavenly offering and is therefore heaven on earth. The Church is an earthly Heaven, a showing forth of the eternal offering in Heaven here and now.

From the Saints and Others

“Liturgy” is not an abstract concept that exists outside of us, but a meeting between persons. It is an encounter of two sides, a human side and a Divine side.”
–Sister Vassa Larin

“The divine services of the Church are words in which we converse and speak to God with our worship and with our love. The hours spent closest to Paradise are the hours spent in the church together with all our brethren when we celebrate the Divine Liturgy, when we sing and when we receive Holy Communion. Together we all follow the divine services— the words of our Lord. With the Gospel, the Epistles, the hymns of the Book of the Eight Tones, of the Lenten Triodion, and of the Offices of the Saints, we achieve our union with Christ.” 
– Elder Porphyrios

“Liturgy is the place where the scriptures emerge into light. Liturgy is the place where Tradition lives… Liturgy is the place where the stream of salvation history runs swifts and clear –sweeping Christians into the current of the Divine and Sacramental economy.”
– Scott Hahn

The Structure of the Divine Liturgy

To assist with understanding the various aspects of the Divine Liturgy, Sister Vassa published a video breaking it down into six sections.

Section 1 – Gathering and Warm Up

The Christian community gathers in the Temple and begins the common prayers and petitions of the people. Each prayer is sealed with and confirmed by the people with “Amens” and acclimations where appropriate.

Section 2 – Entrance to the Sacrament of the Word

“The Word became flesh and dwells amongst us” as St. John says in his Gospel. This section begins with the Little Entrance where the celebrants process with the Gospel through the congregation. In this the prayers of the Priest and people call to mind the participation of the Angelic hosts in our worship and as the process passes through the congregation Christ’s Second Incarnation in the Word truly dwells amongst us. As the priest holds up the Gospel he says a prayer quietly where he asks as the celebrants enter the sanctuary so will the Angelic hosts.

St. Seraphim of Sarov, serving as a deacon at the time, was once given a glimpse of the Little Entrance where the Gospel is processed through the temple. He observed Christ processing with the celebrants with the Holy Angels accompanying Him like a swarm of bees buzzing about, Christ entering into His icon on the icon screen.

Section 3 – The Offering Up of the Gifts

After the homily, the prayers of faithful continue until it is time for the Great Entrance. In the Great Entrance, the offerings are processed from the altar of preparation through the temple and finally entering through the Royal doors to the central altar. Just before the procession the Cherubic Hymn is sung by everyone focusing our prayers on the unity between the members of Christ’s Body present in the temple, those who have come before us, are yet to come and even the heavenly angelic choirs!

In English we sing “We who mystically represent the Cherubim” but according to Met. Kallistos Ware, “represent” should be more properly understood in the original Greek as we who are icons of the Cherubim. Icons imply participation where the reality of the person or mystery depicted is encountered, not mere decoration or something beautiful to stir up a pius emotional response. Since we are icons of the Cherubim, it means we share directly in what the Cherubim are doing in heaven!

Section 4 – Anaphora Prayers

The Anaphora prayer, or Eucharistic Canon as it is known in the West, is the central point of our worship. In these prayers, the gifts are consecrated and transfigured by the Holy Spirit. This goes well beyond the consecration of bread and wine alone, it is the transformation of us, and the entire creation in Christ’s salvific act!

Section 5 – Communion

We sing the Our Father, praying as the Lord told us to so we can enter into communion with Him. Heaven touches earth, quite literally, and we partake of Christ himself, body, blood, soul and Divinity. Christ gives of himself in an outpouring of the life-creating Spirit in communion with God the Father. Here we see the most public manifestation of the community, in both Heaven and Earth, as we, members of Christ’s body, partake of Christ himself.

Section 6 – Grateful Departure

In this section we are called to enter the “liturgy after the Liturgy”, our daily life. “Let us go forth in peace” is the last commandment of the Liturgy. What does it mean? It means, surely, that the conclusion of the Divine Liturgy is not an end, but a beginning. Those words, “Let us go forth in peace,” are not merely a comforting epilogue. They are a call to serve and bear witness. In effect, those words, “Let us go forth in peace,” means the Liturgy is over, the liturgy after the Liturgy is about to begin.

This, then, is the aim of the Liturgy: that we should return to the world with the doors of our perceptions cleansed. We should return to the world after the Liturgy, seeing Christ in every human person, especially in those who suffer. In the words of Father Alexander Schmemann, “the Christian is the one who wherever he or she looks, everywhere sees Christ and rejoices in him.” We are to go out, then, from the Liturgy into the world bearing the Good News that Christ is Risen and that death has been conquered liberating the entire universe!

Challenges

“Wisdom! Be attentive!” Ask the Holy Spirit and the Theotokos to help you be attentive and present to the Liturgy and love of Christ coming to you, esp. during the Eucharistic prayers and Holy Communion.