Mystical Oasis   

Vera A. Krokonko, M.D., Ph.D.

(under construction)

Welcome to Our Spiritual Oasis – Our Church

 The church, as a building, is a spiritual oasis in which we Christians find a place set aside for us to retreat from the wilderness of the world into which we had been banished after the fall of our first parents, Adam and Eve. In the words of St. Germanus, “The church is an earthly heaven in which the supercelestial God dwells and walks about. It represents the crucifixion, burial, and resurrection of Christ.”  Thus, the church itself is hallowed ground and, as God said to Moses as he approached the burning bush, “Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground.” (Ex. 3:5) In the church itself we are on hallowed ground and in the presence of God, Who is sitting on His throne on the Altar under the appearance of Bread. And, as Moses, we are to figuratively remove our shoes and approach God with all the reverence we can muster, for ourselves and as we gather together in worship. Recall what we sing in the Cherubic Hymn: “Mystically representing the Cherubim, we sing the thrice-holy hymn to the life-giving Trinity. Let us now put aside all anxious cares of life.” Yes, we put aside all our worries and fears because we are in the presence of God and place all our worldly concerns in His hands.

 The Church is also Christianity itself, the People of God who have been given the gift of a new life in Christ. Through the Sacraments of Initiation – Baptism, Chrismation (Confirmation), and Holy Eucharist – we are admitted into a new life in God, the life we lost with the fall of Adam and Eve. We are members of the Mystical Body of Christ. We have received mercy from God (1 Peter 2:10) and have become holy people chosen by Him to “be a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”  (1 Peter 2:5) We take the life of the Divine Liturgy in which we participate out into the world. If we do not realize it, the LIFE of the Divine Liturgy in which we actually participate is the life of Christ from His birth in Bethlehem to His Ascension into heaven and our awaiting for His second coming.

 In the church, heaven and earth become one. The sanctuary represents heaven and the nave earth. During the Divine Liturgy, the priest brings God and heaven down to us and presents us and our gifts to God. Being earthly creatures, we glorify and praise God with all our senses, our whole body. In fact, as St. Maximus the Confessor sees it, the church building is a symbol of us:

“. . . God’s holy church is a symbol of man; its soul is the sanctuary; the sacred altar, the mind; and its body is the nave. A church is thus the image and likeness of man, who was made in the image and likeness of God. The nave is used as the body should be used, for exemplifying moral philosophy; from the sanctuary the church leads the way to natural contemplation spiritually as man does with his soul; and she embarks in mystical theology through the sacred altar, as man does through his mind.”

Thus, when we leave the church building, we are the living Church, the Body of Christ, alive in the world. We are to carry on God’s work in the world through Jesus Christ, being witnesses to His salvation of humankind, and are to continue growing in the knowledge of Truth and Grace as we actually live the new life of God within us. We are to bring the “Life of the Divine Liturgy” alive in the world around us.

 During the following weeks of this “Year of Priests”, we will reflect on what the above means in living our own lives in union with God. Lest we forget, God is living in, with, and through us in the world. In living our time in history, we are His “little chirsts” bringing His living presence into the world in trying to help others get back home to live with Him for all eternity. And, believe it or not, God has given each of us our own part to play in His plan of salvation for humankind.

Our Body – God’s Traveling House of Prayer

 Since the Israelites were initially a nomadic people, they carried God with them wherever they went. He was in the Ark of the Covenant. Each time they settled for a while in a place, they would erect their Tabernacle and place the Ark in it. The Tabernacle was their portable structure called the “Tent of Meeting” in which they, through Moses and the priests, could communicate with God.

 Now, fast-forwarding time, we have our own personal “Tent of Meeting” with God. We ourselves are that meeting place, which is also portable for we take God with us wherever we go. Are we not one with Him through His Son Jesus Christ?

 Perhaps it is time we consider who we really are. Through the Sacraments of Initiation into the Church of Christ , we became the adopted children of God our Father, members of the Body of Christ and Temples of the Holy Spirit. Yes, we are all of these because we have been caught up into the mystery of a new life in God. We are members of the Family of God: God our Father Who created us in His image and likeness, God the Son Who redeemed us and will bring us into eternal life as members of His Mystical Body, and God the Holy Spirit Who sanctified us and continues to enlighten and confirm us in the Catholic faith.

 Thus, it is important for us to communicate with our Heavenly Father with the help of our Big Brother Jesus through His Holy Spirit And so, where do we do this, other than in church? In our portable “Tent of Meeting”, that inner room within us where our Big Brother Jesus told us was the best place for us to do so, “When you pray, go into your inner room, close the door, and pray to your Father in secret. And your Father Who sees you in secret will repay you.” (Matthew 6:6) This goes along with what Jesus also said later, “Whoever loves Me will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our dwelling with him.” (John 14:23)

 Now, when would be the best time for us to speak to God in our inner room? Of course, after we receive the Body and Blood of His Son in the Eucharist. During these fifteen minutes that it takes for the bread and wine to go through the process of digestion in our physical body, we have the opportunity of being the closest to God. Can we ignore the actual presence of God within us at this time? When we go for dinner to someone’s home, do we get up and leave as soon as our belly is full? Don’t we spend some time talking with our host and showing our sincere gratitude for a sumptuous meal? Then, why are we in so much of a hurry that we cannot spend at least a better part of the fifteen minutes thanking our God for saving us from final damnation and letting Him know that we love Him in return?

 After partaking of the Body and Blood of Christ and becoming the holy dwelling place of God on earth as members of the Body of Christ, it is the time to respect the real presence of God within us, as well in others. We need to pay attention to the polite etiquette of the need to highly regard the need for ourselves and others to speak with our God in a quiet reverent manner. Our church building is hallowed ground. We ourselves are the holy dwelling of God, especially during these cherished moments of intimacy we have with Him after receiving Him in the Eucharist. As it says in the Book of Ecclesiates 3:1-8, there is a time for everything on this earth. Therefore, after we receive our God into our hearts and He becomes one with us and He assimilates us into a new life in, with and through Him, we need to spend some quiet time with Him. As Rodney Dangerfield was known for saying, “I get no respect,” would we want to hear God say that to us? What would it take for us to fully appreciate the true presence of God within ourselves and others?  

“THE CHURCH” – CALLED TO RESPECT LIFE

Who is the Church? The Church is the Mystical Body of Christ. Yes, WE ARE the BODY OF CHRIST! Every single one of us that has been baptized unto Christ is a living member of His Body. Every time we receive Him in the Eucharist we are reborn into His life and He into ours. We become one with God! And this is why it is so important to treat ourselves and others with RESPECT, with the dignity that a human being is entitled to receive. There is much talk these days about entitlement programs and how the government gets involved in our life. Well, as far as God is concerned, there is no talk. GOD IS INVOLVED! After all, He did make us in His image and likeness to begin with. And then, because we sinned and separated ourselves from Him, He sent His Son to become one like us in order to rejoin Himself with us again, and again, and again, and…Get the picture? When we separate ourselves from God with our sins, we have to be rejoined through a sincere Sacrament of Confession and then to partake of His Body and Blood in the Holy Eucharist. In other words,

OUR Sincere Confession + GOD’S Forgiveness = OUR Reunion with GOD

And this reunion takes place when we partake of the Sacrifice prepared for us on the Altar when we, the Bride, become intimately united with our Bridegroom, Jesus Christ, as we ingest His Body and Blood. At this moment we are completely assimilated into the life of each other. God is in us, and we are in God. Thus, it is mportant for us to truly realize that we are not alone in this world. We are one with God. And this is more the reason why we need to respect ourselves and others. In doing so, we are not respecting our humanity per se, but we are paying reverence to God within us of Whose likeness we are to become while living in this world. His presence within us makes our humanity more divine. This is why St. Paul tells us, “You are not your own. You have been purchased, and at a price. So glorify God in your body.” (1 Cor. 6:19b-20)

And this is why it is of utmost importance for us to always dress properly in a respectful manner but especially when attending a Church service. We are to honor the presence of God within and among us. The “Old Timers” always dressed up for church in their Sunday Meetin’ Clothes. And, if we haven’t noticed lately, the members of the Protestant churches, including their children, still do. We come to church to pray and join together in one voice to glorify our God. We cannot allow ourselves to sin by being the cause of distraction to others by wearing suggestive or other rather inappropriate clothing. Furthermore, we older members of our Parish Family are to set the example for the younger ones. It would be wise for all of us to remember that moral values, that is, virtues, are caught not taught. Our God came down to earth to show us how to live. Jesus didn’t tell us one thing and then did something different because it made Him feel good, as we are getting used to doing in our “feel good” society. We will never hear from our God, “Do as I say and not as I do!”  Perhaps it is time we really thought about what happened at the wedding banquet Jesus told us about:

“When the King came in to meet the guests, however, he caught sight of a man not properly dressed for a wedding feast. ‘My friend,’ he said, ‘how is it you came in here not properly dressed?’ The man had nothing to say. The King then said to the attendants, ‘Bind him hand and foot and throw him out into the night to wail and grind his teeth.’ The invited are many, the elect are few.” (Matthew 22:11-14)

There is a Catholic Church in the Orlando , Florida area that passes out robes for people to wear that come in inappropriately dressed to attend Mass. There are even restaurants on the beach areas that have a sign in their window:

NO SHIRT – NO SHOES – NO SERVICE.

If a restaurant that serves ordinary food has guidelines for being served, how much more should we consider how we dress our body to receive our extraordinary meal, the Body and Blood of Christ our God?

 “Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi.”

Did that Latin phrase catch your eye? During the early days of the Church, the world was ruled by the combined Greco-Roman Empire. Thus, this phrase was taken up by the Eastern Church and became a fundamental principle of worship. It means, “The Law of Prayer is the Law of Faith.” In other words, the worshipper in the Eastern Church both praises God and learns the Divine Truths at the same time as passed down to us by the holy Spirit. Our faith is expressed in prayers. And Byzantine spirituality, greatly influenced by the devout monastic life of the East, stresses life itself as a life of prayer.

 Therefore, one way we live our faith is through prayer. It is up to us to pay more attention to the words we are saying when we join in prayer during the Divine Liturgy. Of special note are the tropars, kondaks and other changeable parts which tell us something about the event in the life of Christ, His Mother, or the saint whose feast day we are celebrating at the time. And how about what used to be the silent prayers of the priest. During the next Divine Liturgy in which we participate, we ought to listen to how meaningful they are for our life in God because we respond with our “Amen” in agreement with what the priest has just said.

 Prayer is our direct lifeline to God which never gives us a busy signal. This connection between our faith and prayer exists because Christianity IS Christ. When we were baptized, we were baptized into our new life in God through Christ. Remember, we were clothed with Christ at that time. Thus, prayer puts us in communion with the “Living One” (Luke 24:5), of Whose Mystical Body we are living members. Through prayer we seek to be in communion with our God Who dwells in us and, in doing so, come to know Him more and more. Prayer is our way of communicating with God and thus the way for us to grow in Divine Life. Our broken humanity needs to keep reconnecting itself with God through prayer. We need this lifeline to nourish us to grow spiritually in the right direction. We can look at prayer as

Paying

Reverent

Attention to our

Yearning for our

Eternal

Reward.

Recall the famous motto of the Christophers: “The Family that Prayers Together, Stays Together.” We are members of the Family of God. We are members of our own family on earth. Putting the two together, we become the “ Domestic Church .” This concept is attributed to St. John Chrysostom because the early Church met in private homes to share in the agape meal of God’s love among us and the breaking of the Bread, the Eucharistic Sacrifice. Does it ever occur to us that what we do as Church should reflect in what we do at home, and that what we do at home should reflect in what we do in church, the house of God, and also as Church? Perhaps, this is something we really should spend some thought on and see how to live as the “ Domestic Church ” we are to be in our own family life since we are also members of God’s Holy Family. If we do not realize it as yet, the two go together and are to support each other.

OUR GPS – Gods Plan of Salvation

If we do not realize it, we each have our own personal GPS which didn’t cost us a penny for it was paid for by Godthrough the sacrifice on the Cross by His Only-begotten Son, our Big Brother. It is given to us as a Gift of our Heavenly Father’s unfailing love for us, of which we are reminded each Christmas. Through our personal GPS, each one of us is Positioned on this Globe to be guided by the Spirit of God in doing our part in God’s Plan of Salvation. Yes, we are part of God’s Global Positioning System in bringing the whole world back to Him by doing our part in building up His Kingdom here on earth as we live in His love for us and share it with others we meet along the way.

 Now, as any gift that we receive, we have to unwrap it and use it. There are a few questions that we should consider in using our GPS from God: Where are we going? Why are we going there? How are we going to get there, or, better yet, what do we have to do to get there? And we will consider these in the weeks to come. There are instructions that come with our GPS which we must follow in Faith, Hope and Love. And these two basic instructions come directly from Jesus when He tells us sinners to:

1. “Follow Me.”  (Matthew 9:9)
2. “I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another.” (John 13:34)

Two simple words of instruction: FOLLOW and LOVE. And to do so we have a complete book of instructions called the Holy Scriptures, and a most perfectly divine Human Life of Love, known as Jesus Christ both God and Man, Whose Life we are called to imitate in order to keep on the right way as guided by our own GPS.

 Now, in following our GPS from God, let’s briefly consider the role the “sunflower” plays in our part of God’s plan of salvation. Remember, God created the universe and every part of it brings Him glory in its own way. The sunflower is no exception. What does it do everyday? Well, as it wakes up in the morning, it opens up its petals and turns to face the east thereby greeting the sun as it rises. Then it faces the sun going across the sky from east to west. As the sun sets, the sunflower folds up its petals and bends over to sleep until the next sunrise.

For us who do not know it, the Sunflower is the national flower of Ukraine . And as the sunflower follows the sun throughout the day, we likewise are to face the Sun of Righteousness all day long. The Face of God is constantly in front of us. We are called to follow Christ Who is the visible presence of God among us. As Jesus told His apostles:

 “I am the WAY and the TRUTH and the LIFE. No one comes to the Father except through Me. If you know Me then you will also know My Father. From now on you do know Him and have seen Him. . . .Whoever has seen Me has seen the Father” (John 14:6-7)

And recall what He also told them and us, “So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Matthew 5:48) Also, we must keep in mind what God told Moses to tell the Israelites, “Be holy, for I, the Lord, your God, am holy.” (Lev. 19:2) Therefore, as the sunflower, we face God daily and follow His lead through life. Are we really trying to follow His face all day long? Are we truly using our personal GPS as we should?

Life: A Fatal Dis-ease

From 1957 to 1981 the popular Jacob Javitz served as senator from the state of New York . He was of strong Jewish character and put up a good fight when he acquired Lou Gehrig’s disease. As he was coming out of a restaurant in his wheelchair, an insensitive reporter once asked him, “Mr. Javitz, how does it feel to have a fatal illness?” Without hesitation he answered, “Life is a fatal illness.” And there is a lot of truth to what he said.

 Fatal means mortal, deadly, destructive. It is the basis of our human condition since the fall of our first parents. However, this wasn’t our original condition. We were created to be immortal, to live forever with God in heaven as soon as we passed through our probationary period here on earth living in the Garden of Eden and completing His work of creation. We disobeyed Him and sinned, thus acquiring the diseased condition of mortality. Our body now had to die and return to the dust from which it had been formed, and our soul would have to remain in Sheol, or Hades, doomed to continue an existence of the opposite of true life, where there was no joy or peace. But this all changed for us because God loves us and wants us back home with Him in heaven. So He put His Plan of Salvation, His “GPS”, into motion with the birth of His Son as one of us, and Who was to become our Savior and Redeemer. It is through His act of sacrificial love on the Cross that we are now positioned to follow the right direction to get us back home using our personal “GPS” given to us by God.

It is through our GPS that we are able to counteract the “dis-ease” of our mortal human condition. And so how do we use our “GPS”? We use it by fully participating in the life of God within us. And the part that we have to understand is that we must “fully participate in this life”. Through the sacraments of the Church, we have become members of the Body of Christ, Temples of the Holy Spirit, and children of God as members of His “priestly royal household”. We have put on the character of Christ as St. Paul says, “If there is any encouragement in Christ, any solace in love, any participation in the Spirit, any compassion and mercy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, with the same love, united in heart, thinking one thing. . . .Have among yourselves the same attitude that is also yours in Christ Jesus.” (Phil. 2:1-2, 5) And this goes in hand with what a few of our Holy Fathers have said, such as Athanasius, “God became man so that man might become like God.” Yes, through partaking in the divine nature of God, we are to become divinized. As St. Peter said, “His divine power has bestowed on us everything that makes for life and devotion, through the knowledge of Him Who called us by His own glory and power. Through these, he has bestowed on us the precious and very great promises, so that through them you may come to share in the divine nature, after escaping from the corruption that is in the world because of evil desire.” (2 Peter 1:3-4)

We are called to “FULLY PARTICIPATE” in the life of God while we are on this earth. And the place to start is during the Divine Liturgy. Do we fully realize that the drama unfolding before our very eyes during this public service of ours to God is the whole life of Christ from His birth to His promise to come for us at the end of time? Thus, to “fully participate” in the Divine Liturgy, we are participating in the life of Christ. And, not only that, but, when we partake of His Body and Blood, we become one with Him in a communion of life both human and divine. Are we fully living this life as we should?

“This Is Your Life”

      During the 1950’s there was a television documentary series on NBC by that name. In it the producer, Ralph Edwards, would consult his “Red Book” and reveal the biography of an unsuspecting person. One of the most notable appearances was made by the tragic songstress/actress Lillian Roth in 1953. Because her life had such a potent message for everybody, she knew in advance that she was to be the center of attraction and her appearance was endorsed by Alcoholics Anonymous. In fact, her story became the basis for her autobiography and the film, “I’ll Cry Tomorrow”. She left out very few details of her sordid past and battle with substance abuse. Her famous quote rings true today: “My life was never my own. It was charted before I was born.” After 7 failed marriages, she finally married a former alcoholic, who, through his unfailing love of support, she recovered gradually reviving her career.

     Let us now fast forward into our unknown future to the day when we will be waiting to see whether or not we enter the gates of the New Jerusalem at the end of time. As, Ralph Edwards, God, our Producer, will also have a Book to refer to. It is the Lamb’s Book of Life. The following is the vision St. John received:

“I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God almighty and the Lamb. The city had no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gave it light, and its lamp was the Lamb. . . . nothing unclean will enter it, nor any[one] who does abominable things or tells lies. Only those will enter whose names are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.” (Rev. 21:22-23, 27)

     Lillian Roth began her recovery when she gave her life over to God, the Higher Power who has control over life according to the 12 Step Program of Alcoholics Anonymous. Her life was initially controlled by success as a child in vaudeville, later on Broadway and the big screen, still later by alcohol and substance abuse, and finally where it belonged in the hands of God.

     God is the author of our life. And as our Creator, He has power over us and thus can justify us as being acceptable to Him as righteous or worthy of salvation. Through the sacramental life of the Church, He has established a spiritual covenant with us, His visible image on earth through which we are to become His likeness. As members of the Body of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, we are living sacramentals of the Church as Sacrament, which we considered last time. With the presence of God’s New Life within us, we are sacred objects of God’s love, that is, if we truly live according to the way our Heavenly Father desires. The AA builds up character through 12 steps and the support of the fellowship of love that permeates the group. We have within us the Word of God and His Spirit of Truth and Love and are to live in the fellowship of His command to love as He has loved us. Recall what we pray before saying the “Our Father” during Divine Liturgy: “Having asked for unity of the faith and for the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, let us commit ourselves and one another, and our whole life, to Christ our God.” By following His Word, including the commandments, we are to strive to live in the obedience of faith in His unfailing love for us. In doing so, we will be living a sacramental life of obedience, a life in which we attentively listen to God’s Word to us and closely follow His directives, guided by His Holy Spirit within us, on how to live the holy life with which we have been blessed. In doing so, we are to show respect for life and worship Him with deep reverence. And how do we do this?

     We respect God’s life within us and others by the way we dress, through our actions and with what we say in our relationships with those whom we encounter on our way through life. However, God is to be shown a special token of our respect. Before we enter our pew in church, we are to venerate Him with a bow, acknowledging His Real Presence on the Altar of Sacrifice. We are to do the same as we exit from our pew. How can we possibly ignore the actual presence of the Giver of our Life when we are in His own house and He is feeding us with His own Body and Blood so that we will become one with Him? As Lillian Roth, can we ever say that our life is our own?

“Sinners Anonymous” – Who Are They?

     Would we believe that each one of us is a member in good standing of this down to earth group? We have Acoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, Overeaters Anonymous, Gamblers Anonymous, and any other kind of anonymous we can think of where we can get some support to fight off the urges of our vices and passions that want to control our lives. All of these are specific groups of people specializing in one certain type of abuse that is detrimental to our physical, emotional, and social well-being. However, we can lump them all together and place them into the Sinners Anonymous Group, for they are all sins according to the Law of God’s Love and are detrimental to our spiritual well-being. We let them take over our lives when we do not have enough love for God and ourselves. Believe it or not, SIN IS AN ADDICTION! God and Satan both know that it is. Satan keeps tempting us in our weakness of our human nature, and God keeps forgiving us because of the weakness of our human nature when we finally come to realize our weaknesses and sincerely repent.

     Just as all of these Anonymous groups meet once a week and encourage their members to attend each meeting because they need the support of each other in order not to relapse into their old habits, we Sinners Anonymous meet each Sunday for our meeting of mutual support. We are on this earth to support each other, to help each other get back to our heavenly home. Although we know each other’s name, we are anonymous in the fact that our sins are not public knowledge. Only we and God know how we have offended Him. And it is through His living presence in each one of us that we help each other to overcome the hold sin has on us. The main goal in living our lives as Christians is to do our part in bringing about the edification of the Church of Christ , that is, to encourage each other to improve morally. Lest we forget, together we are the Church of Christ . We are members of the Mystical Body of Christ. We are all to help bring about the growth of all of us in the oneness of this “New Life” in God we received in Baptism and continue to always receive in the Holy Eucharist. As we pray in the Liturgy of St. Basil the Great: “And unite all of us to one another who become partakers of the one Bread and Cup in the communion of the Holy Spirit.” Thus, it can be said that through its Liturgy the Church, as defined by St. Ignatius of Antioch , becomes a “union of faith and love.”

     The one thing we seem to easily forget is that Christianity is a way of life for us. It is the gift of a new life in, with and through Christ, and this “new life” is the Church. After all, Jesus did tell us that He is the WAY and the LIFE. As members of His Body, we the Church, who “have now received mercy” (1 Peter 2:10), are established as a new spiritual nation under God, which offers to God spiritual sacrifices and thanksgiving, carries on His work in the world, witnesses to His salvation and grows in the knowledge of His Truth and Grace. Each Sunday we gather together as God’s Mystical Body, coming together as a gathering of His faithful to support each other in the union of the one Body of which we, “though many, are one Body.” (1 Cor. 12:12)

     At our Baptism, we were born into a “new life”; at our Confirmation the Holy Chrism consecrated us to serve our God together with all other members of the Church; in receiving the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist we continually renew the gift of unity with God and others, through the offering of one sacrifice and the communion of one Bread and one Cup. We support each other in and through the healing presence of our living God within us. It is wise for us to keep in mind what we pray in the penitential prayer before we receive our God in Communion:

“May partaking of Your holy Mysteries, O Lord, not cause my judgment or condemnation but rather the healing of soul and body.

God, be merciful to me, a sinner. God, cleanse me of my sins and have mercy on me. I have sinned countless times; forgive me, O Lord.”

     Will we see each other at our weekly meeting of “Sinners Anonymous” next Sunday? Sure, we can pray at home and any place else we happen to be, but we then miss out on the spiritual strength we all need to support each other as the sinful living members of the one Body of Christ.

“One for All and All for One!”

Alexander Dumas had the perfect motto for his Three Musketeers. Together they lived and were willing to die for each other. We Christians are to have a similar outlook on life on this earth, for we are caught up in the dance of love of the Holy Trinity, known as the perichoresis by our Church Fathers. Were we not created by God our Father in His image and are to become His likenesses? Are we not the Temples of God the Holy Spirit? Are we not all united in the Body of God the Son? And, are we not to live in love with God and each other just as God loves us through this Mystical Union we form with others?

 St. Gregory the Great reminds us of this calling we have to share in the life of God when he said: “In the Holy Church , all are nourished by each other and each is nourished by all.” That is to say, that the good of all becomes the good of each one and the good of each one becomes the good of all. We are in this life together, and what each one of us does reflects in some way on the life others. As members of the royal priesthood of Christ, we are to serve the needs of others for we are Church, the living Body of Christ, the Chosen People of God who are called to bring Him alive during the course of our daily lives. And in order to do this, we are nourished by the Word and His Body and Blood during each Divine Liturgy in which we fully participate.

 In case we do not realize it, the word for worship in Greek, leiturgia, means more than the idea of just a common public service to God. It means “corporate action”, an action in which each one of us takes an active part working together. As members of the Body of Christ, the corpus, we are to fully participate and not just make an appearance of mere attendance. This action on our part is both corporate and personal in nature. It is corporate for, through our unity as one in the Body of Christ and our faith in God, we actually become and fulfill the reality of Church, the living presence of Christ among us. Remember, He is the One Who said that where two or three are gathered together I am there. And this action is also personal, for the reality of this union is transmitted to each one of us individually, given for our own personal edification, for our own personal growth in grace. Thus, in the act of worship during Divine Liturgy, we are both the active “builders” of the Church, for this is our Christian duty, and are also “beneficiaries” of this act, for the whole act of participation of all is the Church’s Divine gift to each one of us.

Thus, we do not come to church to just take up our time and space. We come to actively join in the mystical union with others to worship our God. Everything in the Divine Liturgy concerns each one of us as the Church of God . It concerns us collectively as the Body of Christ and individually as a living member of this Body. Do we fully realize that the Divine Liturgy is the living drama of the life of Christ from His birth in Bethlehem and His hidden life in Nazareth, through His public ministry throughout Galilee, during His passion, death, resurrection and ascension until His second coming? Do we fully realize that we are participating in this life lived for our salvation? Yes, our full participation in Divine Liturgy is our full participation in the life of Christ. And it is through this full participation that we can become truer witnesses to Christ in our private and public lives as responsible members of the Church, His Body. We become Christians in the true meaning of the word, for the living Christ comes alive in the world with, in and through us. We are called to practice a Christian Life. We are fed by the Word and nourished by the Body and Blood which unites us in the support we give to each other.

SUNDAY – The Eighth Day of Creation

     The days of the week were named from the names of the planets as derived from Egyptian astrology. The seven planets at that time are known to us as Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Venus, Mercury and the Moon. Each had an hour of the day assigned to it and the one which reigned during the first hour of a particular day gave its name to that day. So, Sunday, being dies Solis for the Romans, became the Day of the Sun, that is, the Day of the Sun of Righteousness for us. Recall the Tropar for Christmas when we sing: “For those who adored the stars were taught by a star to worship You, the Sun of Righteousness.” The Son of God is our Sun of Righteousness Who brought the Divine Light back into the world.

     Since the Jewish Sabbath was the seventh day of the week, the day they devoted to the worship of God, Sunday became the first day of the week. And so, according to practice and tradition, Sunday became the day for the public worship of God for the Christians. Therefore, St. Ignatius speaks of Christians as “no longer observing the Sabbath, but living in the observance of the Lord’s Day, on which also Our Life rose again.” It is the day on which our Lord and Savior arose from the dead, giving us a New Life in God thus becoming the eighth day of the week but the First Day of the New Creation.

     Let’s look at it this way. God created the world in six days. On the seventh day He saw that everything was very good and He rested from all the work He had done. Where did He rest? He rested in His creation, in us human beings whom He created in His image and likeness. And it was His likeness that we were to bring out into the world in order to finish His work of creation as He wanted us to do in order to bring it all back to Him in love. However, we turned against Him and in doing so brought sin into the world. Thank God that we have such a loving God Who loves us so much that he gave the ultimate sacrifice so that we might get back into his good graces. He sent His Son, the Son (Sun) of Righteousness, to make things right again between us.

     Thus, on Friday, the sixth day of the week, God’s Son paid our ransom with the ultimate sacrifice of His life for us sinners. On Saturday, the seventh day of the week, His Body lay in the earth from which human flesh had originally been formed, but, since He hadn’t become corrupt with sin, it didn’t decay. Therefore, on Sunday, the eighth day of the week and the first day of New Life, He arose from the dead in His glorified Body. To us this is the First Day of the New Creation, the return of our glorified human nature to its original pristine beauty, the purity of soul we had in Paradise at the beginning of time. If we do not fully realize it, this is our first step into eternal life, our return to our true heavenly home.

     During our life all week, we will continue to sin because of the weakness of our human nature. As we approach Sunday, we need to prepare ourselves for the worship we will be giving our God in thanksgiving on the Lord’s Day for all He has done, is doing and will continue to do for us. Since the Church has removed mandatory penance for our sins of not eating meat on Fridays, the day of our Savior’s sacrifice, we are asked to do voluntary acts of penance to show how much we truly love God for He loves us even while we are still sinning. He freely gives His love to us and we are invited to freely give Him our love in return. Remember, love cannot be forced. So, on Friday, we should make a sincere effort to examine our consciences and do something to atone for our own sins. Perhaps we can get back to doing some repentance such as voluntarily not eating meat all day, or doing some special service for somebody in need like volunteering for Meals on Wheels, sitting with a shut-in while the caregiver takes a needed break, etc. The possibilities are endless. On Saturday is the time for us to obtain the supernatural grace of the Sacrament of Confession that will give us the strength to combat the sinfulness of our human nature. Since it is the day in which our Savior rested in the grave uncorrupted, we, in making a sincere Confession in repentance for our sins, will allow our souls to be refreshed and again become cleansed and uncorrupt. Through the gift of God’s loving grace, we undergo a “little resurrection” from the dead to which our sins had led us. Remember, as St. Paul said, “The wages of sin is death.”  

Sunday – Our Day of Resurrection

     We are “Alleluia People” called to joyfully praise God because He has given us the promise of eternal life and saved us from final damnation. Therefore, we sing to Him “Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia!” This word comes from the Jewish word Hallelujah, meaning a joyful word of praise to God. When we come to church to participate in the Divine Liturgy, we are coming to actually participate in the foretaste of the Mystical Wedding banquet to which we are all invited by Jesus Christ. Before He began His Passion that would lead to His death and resurrection, He said, “I tell you, from now on I shall not drink this fruit of the vine until I drink it with you new in the kingdom of My Father .” (Matthew 26:29) In our glorified bodies, we shall be welcomed into the kingdom of our Heavenly Father to join in the glorious celebration of the Mystical Wedding feast of the Lamb as the angel told St. John : “Blessed are those who have been called to the wedding feast of the Lamb. . . .Worship God. Witness to Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.” (Rev. 19:9, 10b.) In the meantime, in each Divine Liturgy we are called to fully participate in worshipping our God in union with Christ in Whose Body we are united as the People of God. With one voice and one heart, we are called to bring God our worship of joyful Alleluias.

     Tobit, whose name means YAHWAH is good, mentions the word Alleluia for the first time in the Old Testament during his hymn of praise for the goodness of God to him: “The gates of Jerusalem shall sing hymns of gladness, and her houses shall cry out, ‘Alleluia!’ ‘Blessed be God Who has raised you up! May He be blessed for all ages!’ For in you they shall praise His holy name for all ages.” (Tobit 13:18)

     As Tobit, we will be raised up by God but into a joyous everlasting life. Sunday is a reminder for us that, through the resurrection of our Lord, each Divine Liturgy on the Lord’s Day is a Mystical entrance into the Kingdom of God for us. At this time we are singing Alleluia to Him on earth, but it is the future promise that we will sing Alleluia to Him with the angels in heaven. In a sense, when we fully participate in the Divine Liturgy, our public service of praise to our God, we can look at this as being the first day of the rest of our eternal life.

     St. John describes this day of the coming of the New Jerusalem, the Second coming of Christ, as follows: “A voice coming from the throne said: ‘Praise our God, all you His servants, [and] you who revere Him small and great.’ Then I heard something like the sound of a great multitude or the sound of rushing water or mighty peals of thunder, as they said: ‘Alleluia! The Lord has established His reign, [our] God, the almighty. Let us rejoice and be glad and give Him glory. For the wedding day of the Lamb has come, His bride has made herself ready. She was allowed to wear a bright, clean linen garment.’” (Rev. 19:5-8) Thus, we the Church, as the Bride of Christ, are invited to join Him in the Wedding Banquet in the Kingdom of God at the time of our own glorious resurrection when He comes for us the second time.

     However, in the meantime we participate in the first resurrection each time we fully participate in the Divine Liturgy and receive His Body and Blood, for He has already risen for us and conquered Death. So between the resurrection of Christ and the end of the world, we share in the glorious reign of God through our baptismal victory over Death and sin in our lives. We continue to fully participate in this first resurrection as we sincerely repent for our sins, are forgiven them by the merciful love of our God, and then worthily partake of the life-giving Body and Blood of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. As St. John goes on to say: “Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection. The second death has no power over these; they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with Him for [the] thousand years.” (Rev. 20:6) With these words, St. John reminds us that we are all members of the family of the “royal priesthood” of Jesus Christ, the “priesthood of the faithful laity” and, through our own worship of God, we bring Him into the lives of others as we bear witness to His living presence within us. Thus, it is wise for us not to forget that each Sunday is a Resurrection Day for us into a renewed life in God.  

“Goin’ Home, Goin’ Home”

     As we considered last time, we are “Alleluia People” – People of the Resurrection. In being so, do we fully realize that we are on our way home? Do we realize that at the time of our conception in our Mother’s womb we begin our journey back home to live eternally with our Heavenly Father? And this all came about because Jesus suffered and died for us so that the gates of heaven would be re-opened for us. When we walk through the doors into our churches, we get a little glimpse of this eternal future. Our churches are our spiritual oases on earth. They are the havens of God’s nourishing presence for us in the wilderness of this earth.

     Recall what happens during the Resurrection Matins Service on Easter Sunday. Before the service begins the tomb is emptied and demolished. We have a procession with our priest carrying a lighted candle, the Light of the World Who has risen from the dead. And before he enters through the closed Royal Doors into the heavenly sanctuary, he hits the doors three times with the Cross as we sing, “Christ is risen”, three times, after which the doors, the Gates of Heaven, are opened and we begin the Matins Service leading to our full participation in our heavenly Divine Liturgy of Pasch (Passover from death to life) on earth. Yes, we are on our way home and get a glimpse of it once a week during each Divine Liturgy in which we fully participate. As we sing in the Cherubic Hymn, “we mystically represent the Cherubim”, we are glorifying God on earth at the same time the angels are glorifying God with their heavenly choir in heaven.

     To get this point across to us, let’s consider what happens at some funerals, for example, our former President John Kennedy’s funeral. Many times the Largo from Antonin Dvorak’s Symphony 9: The New World is played. Antonin Dvorak loved Negro spiritual music. So, his student, William Arms Fisher, wrote lyrics to this movement and entitled it “Goin’ Home, Goin’ Home”. Here are a few of the verses for us to ponder:

“Goin’ Home, goin’ home,

I’m a-goin’ home,

Quiet like some still day,

I’m jes’ goin’ home.

It’s not far, jes’ close by,

Through an open door,

Work all done, care laid by,

Gwine to fear no more.

Mother’s there ‘spectin’ me,

Father’s waitin’ too,

Lot’s o’ folk gathered there,

All the friends I knew.

Dere’s no break, ain’t no end,

Jes’ a livin’ on,

Wide awake with a smile,

Goin’ on and on.”

There are a few more verse, but we should get the picture from these. We are definitely “goin’ home”. A New World awaits us! The door has been opened for us, and we get to peek through that open door at each Divine Liturgy in which we fully participate. We are nourished during our weekly stops at our spiritual oases by our Heavenly Father when we partake of the Body and Blood of His Son, the One Who re-opened the door for us to get back in. It is about time that we truly realized that our weekly visits with our Lord are just not something we have to do because we are Christians. But are part and parcel of the living of the New Life of God within us that we received at our Baptism. So, how active are we in fully participating in the life of Christ during each Divine Liturgy which we attend? And here is something to think about: if we don’t fully participate in it now on earth, how can we expect to fully participate in it eternally?

Our Only WAY Home

Yes, as we heard a few weeks ago, we are on our way home, that is, to our true home in heaven. And, let’s not kid ourselves, there is only ONE WAY of getting there. The WAY is in, with and through Jesus Christ, Who told us that He is the WAY, the TRUTH and the LIFE! He even came to earth becoming one like us in every way but sin in order to show us first hand the WAY that He is and, in so doing, to give us the example to follow in living the TRUTH in the LIFE of who we really are. And this all boils down to living a “liturgical life”, a LIFE of serving God and others in the name of God. And we do this as members of the Mystical Body of Christ and together as the Divine Family of God through the sacramental life of the Church.

Now, this is not an easy life, but, then, we are not alone in living it, for Christ is “yoked up” with us at the other end of the cross beam of the daily crosses we must carry through life. And, not only that, but Christ gives us His Body and Blood to nourish us along the WAY. Thus, we partake of our Lord’s “Mystical Supper” on earth during each Divine Liturgy in which we fully participate. We again become one with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ so that we might have the courage and strength to truly live the WAY the rest of the week.

 Do we fully realize what it means for us to be members of the Body of Christ, Temples of the Holy Spirit, children of God our Father, in short, to be one with God our Creator? Are we aware that our life on earth is a preparation for our eternal life to come? At this very moment we are taking the preliminary measures to assure our entrance into our heavenly home at the end of time. Are we truly making ourselves ready for our grand entrance on that great day of resurrection when our souls will be re-united with our glorified bodies? Preparation, preparation and more preparation is the key to any success. So how well are we really preparing for our eternal future?

Jesus prepared Himself for thirty years before He was ready to offer His life of public service to the Father in order to save us. He had a hidden life from His birth in Bethlehem through His years of living quietly in the obscure town of Nazareth . Growing up as a human being, He lived an ordinary life just like anybody else for thirty years. Then, as a mature adult, He became public in His ministry. We likewise have our private hidden lives to live in preparing for our more public ministry to serve our God. Jesus offered His life in service to the Father which ended in His ultimate sacrifice to save us. HE GAVE HIS LIFE TO THE FATHER FOR US! After He washed the feet of the apostles, He reminded us that we are to do the same, that is, TO GIVE OUR OWN LIVES AS AN OFFERING TO OUR FATHER TO SAVE OURSELVES AND OTHERS! And we are reminded of this at each Divine Liturgy during the Rite of Preparation (the Proskomedia).

 Yes, the life we are living on this earth is a preparation for the life we are destined to live for all eternity. However, let’s remember, this is not a predetermined given. After His hidden life of preparation, Jesus lived a public life of complete service to God the Father. We are to do likewise, for HIS LIFE IS THE WAY WE ARE TO LIVE if we expect to live in the TRUTH of who we really are in eternal bliss with God our Father forever and ever. The Rite of Preparation of our own life is most important for us in living our “liturgical life” the WAY our Father wants us to live. How are we doing so far?

OH, TO BE FIT!

     In the past, women have wanted to be like “Twiggy”, men, like Mr. Atlas. Now, we want to have designer children, find the fountain of youth through use of cosmetics and plastic surgery and have a bulging super muscular body. Our parks and malls have a flowing traffic of joggers and walkers. We faithfully frequent spas, gyms, the YMCA and whatever other health club we can fine. We are found to be exercising early in the morning, after work and even during our lunch breaks. All this because we want to be FIT! FIT FOR WHAT? All this we do so that we can look good to others, be in good physical shape, and have a successful life. How many business deals are sealed on the golf course, in the exercise room or swimming pool? We seem to want to be fit for the things that will pass away. Now, this is not wrong to want to be successful in the real world, for that is necessary for humanity to progress in building up a human society which is most helpful in promoting a decent comfortable day to day living for all people.

     However, we are human, and the thing about us that makes us so is our human spirit, and for believers in Christ, our souls. How much energy do we actually put toward exercising spiritually? Recall what St. Luke said about Jesus after His parents found Him in the Temple : “He went down with them and came to Nazareth , and was obedient to them  . . . And Jesus advanced [in] wisdom and age and favor before God and man.”  (Luke 2:51-52) Jesus lived in a typical Jewish family for the next 18 years as He matured into an adult ready to go out and conquer the world. He not only became a skillful carpenter as His Foster-father Joseph, but He also grew in the knowledge of God.

     In our hidden lives living in our families, we are nurtured to grow in how to be a virtuous human being, that is, to become truly human in a divine way. Now this doesn’t just mean merely developing our talents and gaining the knowledge we need in order to have a productive material life in order to fit into the economic structure of our society. But to become truly human is to cultivate our spiritual life, which is the side of us that makes us higher than animals. From the time we are born, we begin our training to become the likeness of God in Whose image we are already created. When we are baptized, we are reunited with the Life-Giving Spirit of God, Who is our training Guide in the ways of God. We are born into a human family and also reborn into the Family of God. Living in our human family prepares us for living eternally in the Family of God.

     Now, in order to prepare our selves for eternal life, we need to do some spiritual exercising as we live on this earth. Each week we have a standing appointment at our local spiritual meeting place so that we might receive the right food for our spiritual nourishment, that being, the Word of Eternal Life and the Body and Blood of our Lord, God and Savior, Jesus Christ. While there we join in a communal spiritual exercise of prayer in praising and thanking our God for His sustaining Life in us. This is a continuation of what we have been doing all week in the privacy of our homes as family. And before we come to church, we might even prepare ourselves by prayerfully reading and meditating as a family on the prescribed readings for the day. This might be considered a bit of a warm up exercise for full participation in the Life of Christ we will be living during the Divine Liturgy. In fact, do we realize that, as the priest prepares the pieces of bread on the paten that will be offered during the Consecration, one of these pieces is for us, each one of us, and that together we make up the Body of Christ that will be offered to God the Father during the Eucharistic Celebration? So, how much effort are we truly putting into our spiritual exercising? Are we becoming more spiritually fit?

“The Face of God”

      Do we realize that each one of us is living a religious life? We all took a vow when we were baptized into the New Life in God and put on Christ. At that time, we renounced Satan and said that we believe in Christ and promised to serve Him. Then we recited the Creed, our profession of faith. We promised to live a life centered on God through Christ, to live a life that is holy so that we might become holy as God our Father is holy. Our life is sacred. We are to live godly lives. And we do this by the way we are practicing our religion.

     Now, what does the word religion really mean to us. It comes from the Latin word religare, which means “to bind up again”. We are to bind ourselves up again in a close intimate relationship with our Source of Life, our Creator. And we are to spend our whole lifetime on this earth trying to do so. After all, we came from God. We belong to Him since He made us and also paid the price for the ransom Satan had on us with sin and its death-hold. And now, we are on our way back to Him. And since God is Spirit, it is through our spiritual life that we reconnect with Him, for we live in and through Him in the world by following the guidance of His Spirit within us. This is the way we practice our religion. For, it is in our spiritual life where we truly find the “Face of God” and reconnect with Him.

     From the time we were conceived, we have had a relationship with God our Creator. After all, we are made in His image and are on this earth to grow into His likeness. Our most intimate relationship comes when we spiritually grow in complete communion with our source of life and love. And the deepest relationship we have is really found in prayer. Archbishop Joseph M. Raya describes the richness of this prayerful state as follows:

“The most exalted and effective prayer is praise, glorification and admiration in awe. Prayer is therefore the act by which man enters into his inner self, calms his imagination, and stills the disturbances of his surroundings to encounter a Divine Person in his own unparalleled beauty, which is the Face of God. Prayer is also encountering Love, and absorbing its majestic power and delight.”

It is no wonder then that St. Paul tells us that our life should become an unceasing prayer to God our Father.

     And this is what we should keep in mind as we get together as a faith community to pray especially during our Divine Liturgies. Sure, we pray quietly within the inner rooms of our hearts to God, but we also come together as the Body of Christ to offer Him special praise, glory and adoration through our ministerial priests in union with our Eternal High Priest, Jesus Christ. And it is at these times that we come “face to face” with God. We bring our sacrificial offering of praise and the gifts of ourselves to our Heavenly Father in union with the sacrifice made once and for all by His Son on Calvary for our sake. Let’s look at it this way:

         From the Nave                    At the Altar               On the Altar                          In Heaven

                  We               with           Our Priest      with      Jesus Christ    together offer to    God

         (Body of Christ)           (Our Visible Head)    (Head of the Whole Body)

During Divine Liturgy, we come together as the complete Body of Christ to offer our prayers of praise, glory and adoration, as well as the gifts of ourselves in communion with the Gift of the ultimate Sacrifice of Love our Savior made for us on Calvary . In doing so, we come FACE TO FACE WITH GOD! After all, we are in His Kingdom.

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Created on January 1, 2001

Updated 09/29/2002