As I have tried to share with you, my readers, it is critical that when we attend the Divine Liturgy that we so   dispose ourselves to offer our lives,   together with Jesus, back to God in true thanksgiving for the gift of life. Of course we have to be psychologically disposed to do this. If we don’t like our lives or, in some way, feel dissatisfied with our lives, we cannot possibly worship God like Jesus did. It is critical, I believe, that we thank God from the bottom of our hearts for who we are, knowing that He chose to create us as we are. We are His creation and what He creates He sees as good.

I wonder if you have ever thought about why we pray these words in the Epiclesis of our Divine Liturgy: we offer to You this spiritual and unbloody sacrifice. What does it mean that we offer a spiritual and unbloody sacrifice? Almost immediately after this we pray: We offer to You, Yours of Your own, in behalf of all and for all.

A clue to what our spiritual and unbloody sacrifice is rests, I believe, in these words: Yours of Your own. This raises another question: What do we have that is God’s own?

As I think about it, I realize that my life is a participation in God’s own life. It is His thought of me as I am, animated by His Spirit, that makes me, me. Nothing comes into existence that does not exist within God as an idea, to use human terms. (In saying this I must qualify my words. The only way that I can attempt to express the mystery of creation and my existence is to posit a relationship between my existence and His awareness or consciousness of who and what I am). It is our belief that all created things have their existence in God and cannot claim they are the source of their existence. God is the One Who calls us into existence.

I truly believe that our worship, our Divine Liturgy, is meant to be thought provoking, helping us to realize what we do by way of worship. The Divine Liturgy is not something that just the priest does by himself. It is a communal activity which requires also individual involvement. I also think this is why we hear these words several times in the Liturgy: BE ATTENTIVE!

I believe that true worship must be intelligent and thoughtful if it is to be true worship. Everyone can think about the words that are prayed even if they can’t sing. Participation is meaning what is said and done in the Liturgy!