Αναζήτηση αυτού του ιστολογίου
Πέμπτη 19 Απριλίου 2018
The Divine Mysteries.
The Divine Mysteries
Where communion with God is restored
At the Mystical Supper in the Upper Room Jesus gave a
dramatically new meaning to the food and drink of the sacred meal. He
identified Himself with the bread and wine: "Take, eat; this is my Body.
Drink of it all of you; for this is my Blood of the New Covenant" (Matthew
26:26-28). Food had always sustained the earthly existence of everyone, but in
the Eucharist the Lord gave us a distinctively unique human food - bread and
wine - that by the power of the Holy Spirit, has become our gift of life.
Consecrated and sanctified, the bread and wine become
the Body and Blood of Christ. This change is not physical but mystical and
sacramental. While the qualities of the bread and wine remain, we partake of
the true Body and Blood of Christ. In the eucharistic meal God enters into such
a communion of life that He feeds humanity with His own being, while still
remaining distinct. In the words of St. Maximos the Confessor, Christ,
"transmits to us divine life, making Himself eatable."
The Author of life
shatters the limitations of our createdness. Christ acts so that "we might
become sharers of divine nature" (2 Peter 1:4).
From the moment Christ instituted this Mystery, the
Eucharist became the center of the Church's life, and her most profound prayer.
The Eucharist is both the source and the summit of our life in Christ. It is in
the Eucharist that the Church is changed from a mere human community into the
Body of Christ, the Temple of the Holy Spirit, and the People of God. The
Eucharist is the pre-eminent sacrament, as it completes all the others and
recapitulates the entire economy of salvation. Through the Eucharist our new
life in Christ is renewed and increased. The Eucharist imparts life and the
life it gives is the life of God.
The Church is that place where heaven and earth are
united, and where we can live as we were meant to be, as before the Fall. The
Church's Divine Liturgy is that place where the disunity that came with the
Fall is put aside, and communion with God is restored. Our participation in the
Divine Liturgy is the moment when we are restored to the Garden of Eden, and
God and man walk together. The Divine Liturgy unites us to the Heavenly Banquet
which is taking place before the Throne of God.
The Divine Liturgy transcends time, and space, uniting
believers in the worship of the Kingdom of God along with all the heavenly
hosts, the saints, and the celestial angels. To this end, everything in the
Liturgy is seen as symbolic, yet also not just merely symbolic, but making the
unseen reality manifest in our midst.
We do not attend the Divine Liturgy, but participate
in the Divine Liturgy, for in communing with God, we receive the Bread of Life.
The Liturgy lifts us up above the disordered and dysfunctional world, and we
are placed on the path to restoration and wholeness, healed by the
self-emptying love of Christ, and communion with God is restored.
With love in the Risen Lord Jesus Christ,
Abbot
Tryphon
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