Before the service. After attending the Divine Liturgy at Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, emissaries of St. Volodymyr, the King of Kyivan-Rus’ reported: “We knew not whether we were in heaven or on earth. One thing we understood, was that God was in our midst!” This is the experience that is available to all of us when we come to Divine Liturgy; but as with all things, this experience will be greater the more we prepare for it and the more we understand and open ourselves up to it. The time of preparation is over – now is the time to grow in our understanding of it and to open ourselves up to it. For the next hour or two you can relax, open yourself up, and be vulnerable; you can’t really do that at school or work; you may not even be able to do it with your friends. You certainly can’t do it on social media. But if you do it here, you open yourself up NOT to the risk of hurt or manipulation but to the love and transformational mercy of God. The words, hymns, and actions of the Divine Liturgy are the way that God has chosen to work with us to accomplish His will that “all be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth.” Through these words, hymns, and actions, He will strengthen our hearts, heal our pain, and help us realize just how good it is to be alive. Today’s Liturgy is a Teaching Liturgy; I will be taking time at various points in the service in order to explain what is going on. Right now, I encourage you to strap in and prepare yourself for the powerful way God has chosen to meet and help us, His children: the Divine Liturgy. After the First Antiphon Right now, this may still look like a former medical center in downtown Anderson. But it is not; it is now a place of power. The barrier between earth and heaven has dissolved. This is what is known in mythologies and fairy tales as a “thin place.” But this is no mere story. Our reality is being merged with the reality of the constant and eternal worship that surrounds God’s throne. The beauty of the icons and altar, the music, the chanting, the vestments, the incense, the cloud of confessors, and the angels who came here with us; all these are part of the majesty of heavenly worship into which we are being drawn; this experience merging with that of the tens of thousands of angels, the thousands of archangels and the cherubim and seraphim who do this at the throne of God 24/7. We are like the Prophet Isaiah, the Prophet Daniel, the Apostle Paul, or St. John the Theologian, allowed to live through things that the eye cannot see nor the mind comprehend. If we open our hearts to this reality, we will be transformed by this mystical journey. After the Second Antiphon. Why do we repeat things? Because they are important. Because they make us part of something greater. They pattern our souls according to the logic of love. When we pray, we are part of something magical: God working through us and with us to transform this world. Our every moment throughout the preceding days has been transformed by prayer; this is the continuance and crowning of that prayer. Before the EntranceThe Divine Liturgy did not always look exactly like it does now. For one, there used to be a lot more movement. Instead of singing the first antiphons in church, we would have sung them on the way to church. The service would have begun as the Gospel was brought from the outside into the sanctuary. Now the ritual of bringing the Gospel out of the altar to the people reminds us of something very important: that Christ God has come from heaven to be in our midst! This is what we are celebrating and confirming when we kiss the Gospel and exchange the words; “Christ is in our midst – He is and shall be.” God did not just take on flesh two thousand years ago, He lives in the Church and its voice is His voice. After the “Holy God”, Before the Epistle In conversations, especially in conversations with people wiser and more knowledgeable than us, we should spend more time listening than speaking. Our liturgical dialogue with God is the same. Up to this point, we have been doing most of the talking, sharing our litanies of concerns with Him and asking for His mercy. Now it is time for us to stop talking and listen to His Word. The Epistles and Gospel readings are like food for our hungry souls. Before each reading, the deacon says; “Let us be attentive!” This is not the time for us to let our minds wander or count the number of tiles in the ceiling but rather a time to ask what God is trying to say to us and think of how we can improve our lives by putting His words into practice. After the Gospel Reading For today’s homily, I want to address a common question that many of us have but are afraid to ask out loud: “Why do we do this every week?” We sometimes forget that the central action of the Divine Liturgy is a ritualized “meal”, when we all eat the “Mystical ...
