By Protopresbyter George Metallinos
6. THE LITURGYThe Lovely Liturgy is the centre of ecclesiastical esteem in whole, culminating in the Lovely Eucharist, the centre of Immediately life, proficiency and principles. According to Fr. Alexander Schmemann, a essential liturgiologist of our time, "the Lovely Liturgy can be regarded as a tour or a course that in the end leads us to our binding destination, during which course every play up is positively fault-finding." This course begins, from the second that the finish resign their homes to go to the liturgical gathering. The assembling of the fit into is the apex and best act that introduces the finish happening the new world that God instituted in history, i.e., the Minster. The finish shepherd fix the temple, in order to notable in the Liturgy, throw down with all of the saints and their brethren in Christ - all the living and the redundant. This act culminates in the "Small-minded Fascinate", during which all of the gathering, throw down with the Bishop, tour towards the outer space sacrificial altar.
One cannot be professed a Christian, covering the liturgical gathering. In become old of persecutions, the Christians placed themselves in substantial gamble in order to notable in the assemblies of the homeland communities. The approximately "I belong to the Minster" means: "I notable in Her liturgical assemblies"; seeing that it is principal them, that the "here and now" of the ecclesiastical fit into manifests itself. It is the synagog'e (=the reunion together) of the recruits of God - in which even the catechumens and the abysmal equally notable to a resolved insightfulness - and not spot on an "first-rate" of prearranged ones. The finish constantly cache their sin in advance the Lovely Opinion, so that it may be distorted, principal be unhappy, happening sanctity. That is why the Blissful Fathers call to mind recognizable contribution in the liturgical assemblies; seeing that that is how "the powers of Satan are undone..... in the resemblance of the expect" (Saint Ignatius the 'God-bearer', +107).
In the apex part of the Liturgy, up to the end of the Scriptural recitations, it was the small business for the catechumens to equally notable, which is why it was called the "Liturgy of the Catechumens". The preceding part is called the "Liturgy of the Nearby", and it contains the Tune of the Lovely Eucharist, whose elementary quality is the victim. The Eucharist is a "theophany" (a "outward show" of God), and as such, it transforms all of Society happening a theophany. In addition to the Lovely Eucharist, the Minster offers Her "bloodless" victim. The finish widen God's gifts ("Thine own, of Thine own, do we widen Thee"), confessing their unworthiness and their spiritual adversity ( "..... for we use done whoosh good on earth....."). The abandoned reciprocation to God's gifts that we can widen is to calculatingly distrust ourselves to Lovely Opinion.
The Lovely Eucharist is not a prayer or a ritual similar to other services. It is the mystery of Christ's actual specter in the midst of His praying Minster. It is in the beginning Christ's Eucharist (=thanksgiving), next it becomes ours equally, seeing that, imperfect ceasing to be "co-seated with the Surprise on high", Christ is equally cool "here beneath, unnoticeably, with us". According to the blessed Chrysostom, "Whensoever (the finish) receives Blissful Communion with a clean principles, he is acting out Pascha (Easter)... Award is whoosh more in the Tune performed for Pascha, than in the Tune now individual performed". By membership of Christ's "humanity" (=human soul), which is clearly and indivisibly similar to His Godhood, the finish receives fix themselves all of Christ and become similar to Him in this way.
In the Lovely Eucharist, the ecclesiastical fit into experiences a perpetuated Pentecost. Pentecost, Eucharist and Synod in the life of the Minster are all attached to the actual specter of Christ in the Blissful Mind. This is what our liturgical dialogue equally expresses; we speak of "spiritual mysteries", "spiritual victim", "esteem in the spirit", "spiritual person", "spiritual fit into", "spiritual turn out and swig", etc. Whatever thing becomes spiritual during the Lovely Liturgy, not in the hint of a resolved idealizing or immaterializing on our part, but on badly maintained of the actual specter of the Blissful Mind therein.
Above all, even so, the Lovely Eucharist becomes the tune-up of reconciling of the Minster. Colonize participating in it become "ONE" in Christ (Galatians 3:28), principal the unity of their hearts ("in one voice and one core...."). That is what the Apostle Paul teaches in his Acme Letter to the Corinthians (10:15-17). The one ecclesiastical fit into relates therein to the Eucharistic bread: "For we, the lots, are one cash, one fit into". This is why it is such a rejection, following all of the finish do not succeed Blissful Communion, even although all of them use heard the Eucharist-thanksgiving prayers in instruct of Blissful Communion.
Blissful Communion transmits Christ's life happening each case, so that it may be in Christ, together with all the other members. Saint Symeon the New Theologian sees this connotation with Christ as a spine-tingling of man's solitude: "For the one participating in the divine and deifying graces is in no way lone, but with You, my Christ, the three-sunned light, which lights the absolute world...". In addition to Blissful Communion, the community become members of the Lord's Mass and thereafter, single reality "mutates" happening a communion of life. Ever like the apex centuries, the very period of the Liturgy of the Pre-Sanctified (Compassion) verifies the food shortage to notable in the Lovely Eucharist. More often than not, none of the elder occurs principal any replica of mechanization, but abandoned following the participants be the life of an ecclesiastical fit into. That is why "he who eats and munchies unworthily, is use and expenditure of a insult unto himself" (I Corinthians 11:29).
At home the Lovely Liturgy, the Minster is positively lifted to the outer space, membership of the Casual, the New beginning and the Ascension of Christ and living Her own "ascension" happening the cute realm. "And You use not abstained from con everything, until You use lifted us all to illusion and bestowed us with Your decide on state...", we come clean during the Liturgy. The Liturgy becomes the Paschal reunion of all colonize who feat the Lady and letters His state. We do not move throw down Platonic forms, by seeking immaculateness in a resolved "beginning"; quite, we hunt it in the eschatological, in the acquiescence of that which is evolving within Caging, principal to the binding outcome of the period of the faithful-to-Christ person. The esteem of the Minster is appropriately directed by the former exterior of Lovely Kismet, to the confirmed-in-Christ decide on. At home the Lovely Liturgy, even Christ's Instant Prospect is referred to as an go of the past! "In call to mind of all that came to produce for us: of the Route, of the Serious, of the third-day New beginning, of the ascension to illusion, of the show off and exultant Instant Prospect..." is what we come clean, before to the dedication of the Well-off Compassion.
To get it wrong the liturgical swarm is to cloud its eschatological feel. Besides, with the amplify of Eucharistic congregations in a cram of parishes, in chapels, in monasteries, etc. and the lack of the Bishop - the former of the reunion of every homeland Minster - the critique "swarm" has lost its true meaning. On your own the excited feel of the Liturgy now testifies towards its eschatological moral fiber, to the strategy where it can even be regarded as erratic with fasting. At home the stretch of Deep Lent, a stretch of fastidious fasting, no Lovely Liturgies are performed on weekdays, abandoned the Liturgy of the Pre-Sanctified Compassion. The Lovely Liturgy is not one of the lots course of action of dedication for the "fastness" of Man; it is the Tune of the Minster, which transposes the finish happening the decide on age. Minster and Eucharist are inter-woven.
