Gestures ritualized by the liturgy take their value less from what they are than from what they evoke in us. For example, do you, during the Little Entrance, think about God’s Gospel coming into the world in   order to lead you to a deeper union with God (The Gospel book is carried from God’s Throne [the Holy Table] into our world [nave of the church building] and leads us back to His Throne). Further, during the Great Entrance, the symbols of life are brought from heaven to earth and then taken back to heaven. These are but two examples of the gestures of the liturgy which signify what is happening in the spiritual dimension.

We do well to not only listen to the liturgy but to also look at the gestures that are being ritualized. Most of us are sufficiently aware of the correct responses to the prayers of the liturgy that we can afford to also visually experience the liturgy. The liturgy, when it is correctly celebrated, is designed to engage us through all of our senses (i.e., sights, sounds, smell, actions) in the worship of God. This reminds us that we must be engaged in the worship of God with our whole self.

Mystical Supper

The Divine Liturgy makes good use of the wealth of human expression common to all sacred celebrations, but in a new order and to a transcendent end. Its mission is to express and reiterate nothing else than the mystery of the love of the Triune God for the scattered multitude of humans. It draws its explanation of this mystery from God’s own revelation, the holy Word, the Bible, developing the play of its symbols around the great, meaningful themes of the community of the redeemed, who also appear as the People of God, the Bride of God, the Temple of God and, in a word, the Body of Christ, the incarnate Word of God. Such in very truth is the new community that God has purchased for himself with the blood of Christ, a community which unceasingly brings together the multitudes called to salvation by commemorating the act of Redemption in a liturgy wholly centered on the mystery of that body and blood, the Eucharist.

It is from this point of view that we must learn to see our Christian meetings, however far they may seem to us from that mystical ideal outlined in Scripture. To strive towards a better understanding and sounder performance of the liturgy is no substitute for the act of faith by which we recognize in our congregations the People of God.

This is why we come to worship with faith, reverence and the fear of God and join our voices and hearts not only with Christ Himself and His Holy Mother, but with all the saints and angels in offering unending praise, thanksgiving and worship to God, Who we name as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Let us strive to make the Liturgy our personal worship of God!