Tag Archives: Worship

The Church is Paradise on Earth

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Icon of the Holy Liturgy, Michael Damaskenos, from the 16th century Cretan school

Icon of the Holy Liturgy, Michael Damaskenos, from the 16th century Cretan school

With the worship of God you live in Paradise. If you know and love Christ, you live in Paradise. Christ is Paradise. Paradise begins here. The Church is Paradise on earth, exactly the same as Paradise in heaven. The same Paradise as is in heaven is here on earth. There all souls are one, just as the Holy Trinity is three persons, but they are united and constitute one.

Our chief concern is to devote ourselves to Christ, to unite ourselves to the Church. If we enter into the love of God, we enter into the Church. If we don’t enter into the Church, if we do not become with the earthly Church here and now, we are in danger of losing the heavenly Church here and now, we are in danger of losing the heavenly Church too. And when we say ‘heavenly’ don’t imagine that in the other life we will find gardens with flowers, mountains, streams and birds. The earthly beauties do not exist there; there is something else, something very exalted. But in order for us to go on to this something else we must pass through these earthly images and beauties.

Whoever experiences Christ becomes one with Him, with His Church. He experiences a mad delight. This life is different from the life of other people. It is joy, it is light, it is exultation, it is exaltation. This is the life of the Church, the life of the Gospel, the Kingdom of God. ‘The Kingdom of God is within us.’ Christ comes within us and we are within Him. This occurs just in the way a piece of iron placed int he fire becomes fire and light; once it is removed from the fire it becomes iron again, black and dark.

In the Church a divine intercourse occurs, we become infused with God. When we are with Christ we are in the light; and when we live in the light there is no darkness. The light, however, is not constant; it depends on us. It is just like the iron which becomes dark when removed from the fire. Darkness and light are incompatible. We can never have darkness and light at the same time. Either light or darkness. When you switch on the light, darkness vanishes.

Elder Porphyrious, Wounded by Love, pp. 90-91

Continuity of Worship

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Jewish Temple Liturgy

Jewish Temple Liturgy

Jewish worship was liturgical. There was a specific order of service to be followed, and deviation from that order of service was a serious matter (as Aaron’s sons Nadab and Abihu quickly discovered) (Le 10:1-2). The twice daily sacrifices were accompanied by choirs singing psalms, and accompanied by instruments (2 Chron 5:12-14).

A remarkable continuity of worship practice exists between the Old Testament and the New, between Jewish worship and that of Christians. It is clear from the book of Acts that the earliest Christians were “continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house” (Acts 2:46). Moreover, the lame man was healed as “Peter and John about to go into the temple” (Acts 3:3). And again, Luke says of the early church, that “were all with one accord in Solomon’s porch” (Acts 5:12). After the apostles were miraculously released from prison, the report was made to the “captain of the temple and the chief priests”: “Behold, the men whom ye put in prison are standing in the temple, and teaching the people” (Acts 5:25). After they had been beaten and released, it is said of the apostles: “And daily in the temple, and in every house, they ceased not to teach and preach Jesus Christ” (Acts 5:42).

Following the Babylonian captivity (and perhaps even before then), the Jews had two centers of worship. The most important center of worship was Jerusalem, which was were the temple was, and were the twice daily sacrifices were held. But those who could not be present at the temple gathered at the synagogue, which had its own liturgical style. This was the center of worship for the diaspora, and was where Paul went first on his missionary journeys (Acts 13:14-15; 14:1; 17:1-3; 18:4-6). Even in the book of Acts, it is clear that there was a particular order of worship, with an exhortation following the reading of the law and the prophets. W. O. E. Oesterley, in his book “The Jewish Background of the Christian Liturgy”, writes that basic form of Jewish Liturgy was 1) the reading of Scripture, and 2) prayer. The reading of Scripture included some sort of homily or exhortation; the prayers were varied in form, but followed an over all structure. The prayers tended to focus more on praise, thanksgiving, and confession of sins; intercessory prayers and supplications were secondary. The singing of psalms was interspersed throughout the services, binding the individual elements of the service together.

Christian Community House

Christian Community House

The apostles, those with them in the upper room, and the converts following the feast of Pentecost were all Jews, and all familiar with liturgical worship. They continued in that worship in the temple, but also went from house to house celebrating the eucharist. It would be quite unexpected for Jews, used to liturgical worship, to conduct their services in any other way.

Gabe Martini, in his “On Behalf of All” blog, notes how church architecture has followed, and continues to follow, the architectural model bequeathed to us from the Jews. There is a remarkable continuity of worship between the Old and New Testaments.

You can read more here: Remaking the Temple of the Lord 

Worship, Veneration, and the Axion Estin (It is Truly Meet)

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The following is slightly modified from my book “Why Mary Matters”.

 

Icon of the Theotokos, "All of Creation Rejoices in Thee."

Icon of the Theotokos, “All of Creation Rejoices in Thee.”

The theotokian (or hymn to Mary) known as Axion Estin (or It is Truly Meet), is sung in the Orthodox liturgy, and is part of the daily prayers in most Orthodox prayer books. It reads as follows:

It is truly meet to bless you, O Theotokos,
Ever blessed and most pure and the Mother of our God!
More honorable than the cherubim,
and more glorious beyond compare than the seraphim.
Without corruption you gave birth to God the Word.
True Theotokos, we magnify you!

Protestants would likely be uncomfortable with this hymn; I know I was. Yet as Robert Arakaki demonstrates, the expressions of this hymn are entirely biblical.

 

Blessed — “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear!” (Luke 1:42)

Theotokos (God-bearer) — “And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” (Luke 1:43; see also Isaiah 7:14, Matthew 1:21-25, Luke 2:6-7, Revelation 12:5)

Ever-blessed — “From now on all generations will call me blessed….” (Luke 1:48)

All-holy — “But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: ‘Be holy, because I am holy.’” (I Peter 1:15-16)

Utterly pure — “Blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God.” (Matthew 5:8).  “Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure.” (I John 3:3)

Mother of God — “The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel– which means, ‘God with us.’” (Matthew 1:23, cf. Isaiah 7:14)

More honorable than — “You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings the Cherubim  and crowned him with glory and honor.” (Psalm 8:5)  “And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ.” (Ephesians 2:6) (Arakaki, Why Evangelicals Need Mary 2012)

If we can accept that the various phrases of the Axion estin hymn are biblical, what then is the problem? Why would a Protestant find this hymn so troubling? Robert Arakaki provides us with an  answer.

Many Protestants are afraid that venerating Mary will eventually lead to worshiping her. Protestants’ confusion when Orthodoxy claims that it venerates Mary but does not worship her arises from differences in their understanding of worship. Where the sermon is central to Protestant worship, the center of Orthodox worship is the Eucharist. (Arakaki, Why Evangelicals Need Mary 2012)

The evangelical converts to Catholicism, Scott and Kimberly Hahn, describe their difficulties with these different definitions of worship.

I could not figure out why it was that it seemed to be that Catholics worshiped Mary, even though I knew worship of Mary was clearly condemned by the Church.  Then I got an insight: Protestants defined worship as songs, prayers and a sermon.  So when Catholics sang songs to Mary, petitioned Mary in prayer and preached about her, Protestants concluded she was being worshiped.  But Catholics defined worship as the sacrifice of the body and Blood of Jesus, and Catholics would never have offered a sacrifice of Mary nor to Mary on the altar. (Hahn and Hahn, Rome Sweet Home: Our Journey to Catholicism. 1993, 145)

We can all agree that worship is due to God alone. Yet we honor the hero and the celebrity; why then would we not honor the heroes of the faith? Why not show the Blessed Virgin greater honor than that which we offer a singer, a soldier, or a sports hero?