In the last issue of this article, which was before the feast of Christmas, I had already introduced the Holy, Holy, Holy prayer which takes place near the beginning of the Anaphora. It is the prayer, according to St. John’s Book called Revelations, that the angels are constantly singing before the Throne of God. It is a song of praise! It also conveys the image of us standing in the presence of God and offering Him praise. The Holy Table, as you will recall, is also called the Throne of God in our Eastern Church.

Again, I would encourage you to let your imagination enhance your worship but trying to envision standing before the Throne of God and joining together with all the Cherubim and Seraphim in singing this song of praise.

Once we have offered praise to God, Who is Triune, we then begin a sequence of prayers which are directed first to the Father, then remembering the words of the Son, and finally invoking the Holy Spirit to transform the gifts we have brought (i.e., bread and wine) like Jesus did on the night before He surrendered His life in order to reveal to humankind the truth about human life.

The first prayer after the Holy, Holy, Holy, reminds us that we address the Father together with the angels: with these blessed, power, O loving and kind Master. In this prayer Master refers to the Father. The prayer then indicates that we offer praise to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It also expresses the fact the Father gave Jesus, His only-begotten Son, to the world as a human so that we might learn what we need to know about living and not   perish because we have missed the mark.

At that point the prayer recalls what the Father accomplished by sending the Son into the world: fulfilling the whole divine plan concerning us.

Have you ever wondered what the whole divine plan is concerning us? I think that it is critical that we think about what our ideas are about the divine plan. If we are ever to spiritually grow, we have to think about these things. For now, I would just like to throw out this challenge to my readers: What, in your estimation, is the whole divine plan concerning us human beings? This may require you think about the meaning and purpose of your life on earth! This may require you to think about who you are in God’s Kingdom! This may require that you think seriously about why you were created!

After the prayer provides this statement of why the Father sent the Son into the world, we remember quite distinctly what the Son did on the night before he surrendered Himself for the life of the world. We actually remember, at this point, the words reported by the Gospels that Jesus used.

Mystical Supper