While I know that this article has seemingly wandered around many different important topics, nevertheless it is all about trying to help my readers come to a deeper understanding of what it means to celebrate the Holy Eucharist – the Divine Liturgy. As I have tried to express, it means making the Divine Liturgy truly your personal way of offering worship of God. I have suggested that the Divine Liturgy is the worship of God the Father with the Son in the Holy Spirit. It is the ritual that allows me and you to join ourselves with Jesus Christ in offering to God the Father our very lives in deep and complete THANKSGIVING for the very gift of life. Our Liturgy is not the worship of Jesus Christ, in my estimation, but, rather the worship of God the Father, the Creator and Lord, with the Son in the Holy Spirit. This means that I join with Jesus in offering my very life to the Father in thanksgiving for His loving sharing of His very life with me.
This, I know, requires some thought! Our worship is not meant to be ignorant and unintelligible. We are called to intellectually and willfully enter into a ritual that expresses our willingness to offer our very lives back to God in deep and sincere thanksgiving. Of course, as you might guess, this means that we have to be thankful for the lives that have been given to us and to call upon our faith to help us understand that the life each of us experiences is given to us in order that we might spiritually grow and truly be-come sons and daughters of our most high God, in the deepest and truest sense of the word.
What does it means to be a child of God? It means being someone who sees this earthly life as an opportunity to grow in our likeness of Jesus, the Christ and our Savior and Lord. It means that we must desire to change and become more like Him every day.
As we see in the ritual movement of the Liturgy, if we desire to follow Jesus and become like Him, we are lead back to the very Throne of God (i.e., the altar in western conception). The Gospels and the Gifts, which are sent from Heaven, lead us back to the very Throne of God. So the Liturgy is one of the true vehicles God has given us, through Jesus, to lead us back to Him.
If we willingly and voluntarily desire to return to Him, we are conveyed there by His loving help. He never blocks our insight into closer relationship with Him. It is all a manner of choice.
So I would ask my readers, Do you truly want to enter into deeper union with God, the creator and source of your life? If you do, then join with Jesus in offering your praise and worship to the Father by offering your very life back to Him in thanksgiving for the gift of life.
That is the focus and the foundation for our Divine Liturgy. It is the ritual expression of joining ourselves with Jesus, our Savior and Brother, in offering our very selves – lives – to our God in humble and sincere. thanksgiving