I have been sharing the reasons why our Church, during the Great Fast, traditionally only celebrates the Divine Liturgy on weekends but distributes presanctified Holy Communion on Wednesdays and Fridays in a service know as the Liturgy of Presanctified Gifts. The very first and truly essential characteristic of this Liturgy is that it is an evening service. It is an truly an evening service because it is VESPERS with the distribution of Communion. Vespers, as I am sure my readers know, is Evening Prayer. Drawing upon Jewish tradition, Vespers is always celebrated after sundown and, in fact, marks the beginning of a new day. (This is one of the reasons why the Liturgy, if it is celebrated on Saturday in place of Sunday, is to be celebrated after sundown so that when it is celebrated it is really Sunday).

There is a tradition in the Eastern Church that encourages the faithful to fast before the reception of Holy Communion since fasting is seen as a traditional way to prepare oneself for the celebration of Christ’s presence with us. Therefore the reception of Holy Communion breaks one’s fast. So during the Great Fast, when we fast during the day, our fast is broken by the reception of Communion and, as I shared before, Communion is given to us in order to strengthen our efforts to prepare ourselves for the celebration of the Great Mystery of our Salvation, namely the Death and Resurrection of Jesus, our Savior.

The service of Vespers takes us through creation, sin, and salvation in Christ. It leads us to the meditation of God’s word and the glorification of his love for men. It instructs us and allows us to praise God for the particular events or persons whose memory is celebrated and made present to us in the Church. It prepares us for the sleep of the night and the dawn of the new day to come.

So during the Great Fast this is the perfect service. It begins our movement into a more perfect union (com-union) with God through the reception of the Sacred Gifts which makes Christ present to us in a real and true manner.

The Liturgy of Presanctified Gifts is a “liturgical” service – a true worship service – and not a pious devotion. It, like the Divine Liturgy, brings us into more direct contact with our God since it calls us to actually take our God into our lives in a much more real and concrete way. The act of consuming the Divine Gifts calls us very directly to think about our union with God and more profoundly encourages us to live more like Him.