www.byzcath.org Forums Mysteries: The Life of Worship Vespers, Matins & the Divine Liturgy The Revised Divine Liturgy What does Divine Liturgy mean to you?

--Moderator--please feel free to move this if you feel it belongs in a different thread. I know the topic is "The Revised Divine Liturgy" but I thought since we are having some hot and heavy discussions, this is pertinent to people's feelings (pro or con) on the Revised Devine Liturgy."

This is something that someone in another thread asked me and I had to think about. I wound up answering with a longer than anticipated post. But I was thinking as I wrote. In another thread on this section of the forum an Administrator posted some very beautiful things about the Divine Liturgy, and how it keeps him coming back.

Just curious--what to do you think of your Divine Liturgy? Not just Byzantine Ruthenian. Not just any type of Eastern Catholic. What makes you go back week after week? (Presuming you do! No rebuke intended.) What do you like about it or what do you not like about it. But most important--how does it make you feel? Not how do you feel about it. But how does it make you feel?

Tim

The Divine Liturgy means absolutely everything. "the liturgy is the summit toward which the activity of the Church is directed; at the same time it is the font from which all her power flows."
(Vatican II, Sacrosanctum Concilium # 10)

Set beside that teaching, "how it makes me feel" is not merely an intrusive question, it is utterly irrelevant.

Fr. Serge

I will agree with Father Serge to the extent that how the Liturgy makes one feel is an incorrect question.

I suspect that the real discussion here is what effect do the specific rubrics, texts and music have upon the worshipper. And perhaps the larger context of such a discussion would involve the effects of changing the rubrics, texts and music after it has been embraced and, of course, the whole aspect of worship (Cardinal Ratzinger questions the reordering of worship to make it about educating man because it detracts from the worship of God).

I say that the Spirit has guided the Byzantine Liturgy to its current form for very specific reasons. And that it is up to Him, over time, to continue to guide it. Others say it is the property of man and that he can reform the Liturgy to reflect the ideals of the world that is contemporary to the individual reformer.

I stand corrected. You both know much more than I do about this topic than I. But then again, as I think about it, is it irrelevant? Would we do something if we didn't like it or get something out of it? Does God really want us to show up in Church and sing the prayers just because we have to? Or does he want us to truly FEEL what we are saying? And truly believe it? Does God want meaningless worship? Is that why Christ died on the cross? I don't think so. That's not love. And it was love that motivated Jesus to do what he did. Wasn't it? John 3:16. So how could feelings not have anthing to do with the Divine Liturgy? Love is an emotion, not a meaningless word. Otherwise we are being hypocrites, as Christ pointed out in the Gospels. (And I mean the true meaning of hypocrite, not the modern version.)


But I am still interested in what I asked in my original post of this thread. The Liturgy--words, rubrics, music, etc. obvously make a difference. Otherwise people would go to any church that was convenient-Catholic, Protestant, Evangelical, etc. All of those Christian Churches have different rubrics, words, music. But we don't embrace them. Why? To most people there aren't that many differences between one Christian denonomination and another. (Note-my opinion only! I have no facts to back it up. No statistics or studies.) Ask an average Christian why some Evangelicals handle poisonous snakes and you now the answer you will get. Do they realize those groups of Christians use Mark's Gospel as their reason? Most likely not.

But my gut feeling after talking with Lutherans, Orthododox, Byzantines, RCCs, Evangelicals, United Church of Christ, Methodists and any number of other Christians is this--most people don't understad the differences between them. They have never thought about it. Again, my opinion only. But that is what I have found in talking to them about Christ and Church. The same way it seems most RCC members don't seem to know much beyond what the nuns, priests or laypeople taught them in catechism. They have never heard of Eastern Catholocism let alone the differences in Rites among the Roman Catholic Church. Or the details and history of Papal Infallability. They take it as rote, without really digesting it and knowing it.

Many people do things out of habit. It's what their parents did. It was the major religion in their home town. But do they really understand it? Do they truly know and feel what it means to belong to their religion?

That's why I ask again--what does the Divine Liturgy mean to you? Perhaps instead of how do you feel about it, what do you think of it? How does it compel you, if it does?

I apologize if I offend anyone, but I'm just curious. What does the Divine Liturgy mean to you?

Tim

Of the top of my head, here are a few things the Divine Liturgy means to me:

Receiving the Eucharist, the very Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, given for my salvation
Hearing the Word of God sung out unabashedly
Joining in prayer together with a community
Hope
Being linked in an unbroken chain through history to Christ and even back to his ancestors such as David and Jesse and Abraham who worshiped in the same liturgical fashion
Being called to holiness
Peace
Seeing perfection surrounding me in the icons, the worship, the swelling up of praise for God, the Gospel, and the Eucharist
Setting aside all worldly cares and having an hour-and-a-half where my yoke is easy and my burden is light
Joy

The source and summit of our Christian life; the deifying and Life-giving Mysteries; visible Communion with my Patriarch, Church and all those who profess the catholic faith; the Logos heard, seen, and worshipped; the Church celebrating the eternal and heavenly Liturgy in our midst, which is heaven on earth. Many other things could be said, but that is a start.

Respectfully, I disagree. I think it is a perfectly valid question because feelings can often be a powerful motivation for behavior and even belief. And behaviors and beliefs are at the core of liturgy: in itself, whether one attends, and why.

-- John

Wondering and Diak have expressed some beautiful quailties of our beloved Divine Liturgy and I concur. However, it has changed for me over the past seven months. I do not "feel" the same any longer while attending Divine Liturgy. The Ruthenian reformation has constructed a wall that acts as a barrier to my worship. Instead of an experience of profound peace and deep worship, I am riddled with knots in my stomach because of "adaptations to modern times", rubrics changes, and the multitude of musical and translation awkwardness. I have attempted to adapt, but I cannot. And I suspect that I would never be able to adapt to these innovations. I have prayed with deep contrition that I might be able to accept the reform--but alas, my conscience continually cries out in agony. This is one reason, (albeit a major one), that I feel called to Holy Orthodoxy.

R

An honest question. I'll try to give an honest answer. Sometimes, I go out of love for Jesus Christ. Sometimes I go for hope of reward and to make further "progress" in the spiritual life. Sometimes I go out of a sense of religious duty: I have to go. Sometimes I go because it is expected of me by family, pastors and friends. Sometimes I go simply out of hope: that maybe something good will happen to make this worthwhile. Etc. And sometimes, I feel all of these motivations on the same day.


I attend liturgy in the Orthodox Church. I like it because, for me, it represents the fullness of the Tradition of the Eastern Church: communion with God, in Christ, through the Holy Spirit, and thereby with the neighbor, as the apostles taught the fathers taught us.


I have a mixture of human feelings at different times: joy, interest, curiosity, boredom, enthusiasm, fellowship, etc.

Increasingly, perhaps because I am in middle age, I also feel a certain degree of comfort because of the regularity of the Divine Liturgy. No matter what else happens, no matter what else changes, the Liturgy does not change. (At least, that is true in the Orthodox Church when compared to the amount of liturgical change that has recently taken place in the Roman Catholic Church and the Byzantine-Ruthenian Catholic Church.) The unchanging quality about the Liturgy increasingly represents the constant presence of God and the constancy of His steadfast love and His abundant mercy.

But, there is another "feeling" --if I can call it that-- which I experience sometimes at Liturgy. It is beyond words, and it (to me) signals communion with God. I do not attend Divine Liturgy to get that feeling but because of it: because it signalled to me that this is where I could commune with Christ, in honesty and even in peace.

-- John

For me, the Divine Liturgy is stepping out of this world and getting a glimpse of Heaven. I get a stronger sense of the sacred and the divine in the Divine Liturgy than I do in Western churches.
Man was made in the image of God, not vice-versa.
In my opinion, the Western churches, in one degree or another, are bent on making God into the image of man.

Now that's a VERY interesting response. In what way do you think the Western churches are trying to do that? Why would they want to? Do you include the Roman Catholic Church as a western church? And what exactly about the Divine Liturgy makes you step out of this world and get a glimpse of heaven?

Please--I am not making fun of you. I said pretty much the exact thing myself a bit back. For me it happes the strongest when we sing in Slavonic. I still feel connected with God simply with the words of the Divine Liturgy--presuming I can left my head out of my way and let go. But when I get going in Church Slavonic my soul flies faster than a Saturn V rocket taking off from Cape Kennedy!

What does it for you?

Tim

I should've been more explicit. I meant especially the American Catholic Church, which I think has been more influenced by the zeitgeist of the sixties than any other American church. You know: the radical feminists, nuns, and liturgists. Now it's creeping into the American Byzantine Catholic Church.
I think I could remain a Catholic in Europe, where there is reverence & decorum. (I have traveled in Bavaria, France, and Austria.)
As for America, I often wonder who exactly is in charge here: the radical feminists or the bishops?
I am seriously considering joining Holy Orthodoxy, which has not let the culture creep into the liturgy. Churches should change society, not society change churches.

Thanks for the response. I was not trying to trap you or anything like that. I am truly curious as to how people feel and see things going on in our Churches.

But please, I would truly like an answer as to how the Divine Liturgy moves you so strongly that you feel you are getting a glimpse into heaven. Again, I am not making fun or you, I mean this with all respect. That's the point of this entire thread that I started--how does the Divine Liturgy affect you and why? Exactly what is it that moves you so deeply?

I know what it is to me, I just would like to know what it is for others.

Tim

For me, the Divine Liturgy is a glimpse into heaven, because all of one's senses are involved:
1) Sight - the beautiful icons.
2) Touch - the annointing with oil.
3) Smell - the aromatic incense. The more the better!
4) Hearing - the bells, the Word of God, the prayers, the homily.
5) Taste - the body & blood of our Lord in the Eucharist.

I totally agree!

Timothy