8 (of 8) AVATAR Apr. 14, 1987 at 18:25 Eastern (25138 characters) LESSON SEVEN: THE PLACE OF LITURGY IN THE SACRAMENTAL SYSTEM As the Incarnation is the central mystery of Christian teaching and faith, so also is the Holy Eucharist the central mystery of the Sacramental system, in which that Incarnate Mystery is made manifest to men. There are seven sacraments. Each of them is pre-ordained in some way for special connection with the central mystery - the Eucharist. Baptism opens the way for those who wish to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, and enables them, by incorporating them into Christ and into His Mystical Body, to offer due praise and worship and adoration to the Father. It makes them one with Christ, and in Christ, and through Him and His priesthood and sharing in it, giving the power to offer sacrifice to God, and to earn, in joining with His Sacrifice of Self, forgiveness and redemption for the rest of mankind. Confirmation strengthens us in the service of God, and enables us to live lives of purity and sanctity so necessary for us to fulfill our priestly offices undefiled. We all know that a liturgy offered by an unworthy priest is still a valid sacrifice, because the REAL minister of that sacrifice is Christ Himself. But in another sense, it can be said truly that an unclean priest does defile and tarnish in some sense that sacrifice - if for no other reason than that it often results in turning away from the face of the Lord those who might otherwise have loved it. Penance (The Sacrament of Reconciliation/Confession) prepares us for the worthy offering of the Sacrifice, and for worthy reception of it and its graces, by removing the uncleanness we have incurred upon ourselves by our sins, and it restores us to the state of pristine purity which was ours at Baptism. The Sacrament of the Sick, sometimes called "Extreme Unction" or the "Last Anointing" is the final application of that sacrament, preparing us for that personal and face-to-face union with Christ which we await in the other world, and which is now seen "as in a dark mirror, but then as face to face." At Extreme Unction we obdinarily receive also what is commonly known as the Viaticum - "via tecum," something to take along with us on the way. Usually, in the middle ages, a portion of food to sustain the traveler on his way. The connection for Holy Orders is obvious. Without a sacrificing priest there IS no sacrifice, and no sacrament. Christ is always THE priest - invisible except to the eyes of faith. The celebrant is the visible offerer, standing in the place of Christ, and acting in His Name and in the Name of the Church. Matrimony is equally vital. Holy Orders can be thought of as the marriage of a man to Christ and to His Church for the purpose of spiritually begetting new children for the Kingdom of Heaven. Matrimony is that sacrament destined to provide the souls to be saved, to be brought into the Kingdom of Heaven. It should be evident from that that the cooperation of priest and parents in the raising of children to the proper service of God is of the most vital importance, not only for the Church, but for the children themselves. The whole intent of this course was to make clear to each of you how incredibly vital to the process of adoration, praise, thanksgiving and glorification of the Father each of you is. You are not superfluous adjuncts, with whose presence and active participation the Church can actively dispense; you cannot be attached and detached at will, or at the whim of any individual. You are part of the Body of Christ, one with Him. Our willing absences from worship, our laxity in disciplining ourselves, in learning of the Kingdom and God's Plan, our tendency to forget that we are but passers-by in this world, all of them inflict injury on that Body. Each of you is as vital to the proper functioning of this Mystical Body as any other member of it. There are *roles* which may be more important than other roles within it, even as in a motor the removal of a thing as tiny as a distributor rotor will cause a complete and total failure to function at all - but no *individual* is more important to it than any other. You have a tremendous heritage. You are the children of God. Live up to your heritage; don't leave things up to others to do for you; without you the Church is lacking something. Without your perfect cooperation, it is still not perfect; and this is why Christ could COMMAND us to be as "perfect as my heavenly Father is perfect." Perfection is at the extreme range of our grasp. Consecutive lifetimes would not be enough for us to achieve that perfection by ourselves. We NEED the Eucharist in order to accomplish those tasks - to achieve that perfection, to fulfill the Plan of Christ. Epilogue: Some Comments About Prayer. In closing, I would like to make a few observations about the nature of prayer itself. Because most of us have been raised to "say our prayers" at the specified times and places, we have, for the most part, grown into the idea that prayer and saying prayers are equivalent, pretty much the same thing. Not so, I'm afraid. There is a vast difference between "saying prayers" and "praying." If Satan can quote Scripture to his own purposes, then surely others can mimic the actions of true prayer for purposes of their own - often without even knowing it. All the things human beings do in the name of love, they more often than not do instead for motives far less noble. In his Epistles, St. Paul warns us that we should "pray always." And, I suppose, at first blush it would seem an impossible thing to do, and that therefore we ought not take it quite literally. After all, who can pray while sleeping? Or when one's mind is occupied with serious matters like staying alive in potentially deadly situations? Who can pray while trying to duck enemy bullets and keep one's mind thoroughly on the business of survival? But St. Paul DID mean it quite literally - that we should pray literally "always." Continuously, without end and without ceasing. Since it's impossible for any of us to pay continuous attention to *anything* it must therefore be possible (since Scriptures do not lie) to do so, even when we are NOT consciously aware of what it is we are doing. I mentioned in an earlier portion of this series that there was an ancient expression which ran, in Latin, "agitur sequitur esse," "doing comes after being." Or, rather more colloquially, "what you do depends upon what you have become." Prayer, for a Christian, ought NOT to be something one does from time to time so much as it ought to be the natural outflow of his being. Prayer, in its most fundamental form, is an awareness of the Presence of God. "Talking to God," or "having a conversation with God" are particular forms of prayer, but they are not the essence of it. One does not speak to someone who is not there, nor does one carry on conversations with the absent. Prayer, then, in its purest form, is the constant, though often unconscious, awareness of the Presence of God. In much the same way as those with chronic pains grow accustomed to its presence. One doesn't pay attention all the time to the pain in injured backs and legs, particularly when there are other things to do. But at some subliminal level one IS aware of it - one anticipates pain in every movement, and begins to adjust one's movements when turning, standing, sitting, walking, to account for a pain that soon WILL be there. And that, too, is done without real thinking. If the pain ever did disappear, that by itself would be quite a distraction for quite a while, until the new reality is adjusted to. This is not to say that the awareness of God is a pain, or even like to one. It is simply to point to the consciousness that lies behind all prayer. Without that constant, quiet awareness, we do not have "prayer," we have only "prayers." "Agitur sequitur esse." Birds fly, fish swim, horses run, dogs bark. It is in their nature. So, too, it is in the nature of Christians, once they have committed themselves to the following of Jesus Christ, to be aware constantly of His Presence and that of His Holy Spirit. One some level there is a constant communication going on - a revelation of the Will of God on one level, and a constant and reaffirming "be it done unto me according to Thy Will..." Petitions for gifts and favors are a part of it, of course, but much more a consequence of the existence of that awareness than the cause of anything. How, then, OUGHT we to say prayers? Well, it might not be a bad idea to compare two of Our Lord's prayers, and see how HE did it. We have been accustomed for centuries - if by nothing else, then at least by the common expressions and practices we share with each other in the business of going about the minutiae of daily life - to think of prayer as an action by which we petition God for some favor - health, sustenance, the necessities of daily life; rather less frequently as an action by which we reply in gratitude for something God has done for us or our loved ones; even less frequently as intercessory for others, mediating, in a sense, in petition for the forgiveness of others; even less than that as simple adoration and glorification without one or more of the others added. There are two prayers of all those I know which display most singularly ALL the qualities of proper prayers. Yes, Virginia, there IS a "proper" way to pray. As in all things which deal with the interchange of ideas, thoughts, needs, emotions, between intelligent creatures, there are "proper" and "improper" ways to do things. Most are simply matters of consideration and manners - and when it comes to dealing with the Almighty, we surely ought not expect ourselves to be less polite and courteous than with each other. The Apostles once wondered how best to pray, and inquired of Our Lord, begging Him to teach them how to do it. One wonders at what might have prompted them to ask a peculiar question like that; perhaps it was the evident nature of Our Lord's firm bonding with His Father; perhaps it was that they had seen Him at prayer, and watched Him lose Himself in contemplation; perhaps it was no more than THEIR continuing awareness of HIS continuing awareness of His Father's Presence. Who knows? At any rate, ask, they did. And Jesus gave him the "Our Father" as the sample of prayer. "...When you pray, pray thusly: 'Our Father....'" As in every conversation or any attempt to communicate, it ought to be made evident 'with whom' one wishes to speak. Surely not, in this case, to 'awaken' God to our intention to speak to Him. He's fully aware of that long before we are. The need is, I think, for us to remind *ourselves* as to the nature of Him with whom we intend to speak. It helps to avoid the enormity of presumption, of taking God for granted, of having the familiar become contempt. And so the prayer begins, "Our Father, who art in heaven." But since we speak here to God, the Creator of all men, our first duty is not to ask, but to praise and glorify. The next phrase clearly follows that pattern: "....hallowed be Thy Name." Next is shown a proper spirit of reverence, and of two sentiments proper to reverence - submission and obedience to His Will. "...Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done on earth, in the same way as it is done in Heaven." Then, and then only, do we dare ask that we be given "this day our daily bread." And even more important than the need for daily bread, the need to be forgiven: "forgive us our sins, in exactly the same way as we forgive one another." A frightening phrase, that, particularly in view of how singularly UN- forgiving we are toward each other as a rule! And, in conclusion, the recognition of our absolute dependence on divine largesse: "...and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." Then, always the most important part of any prayer, the doxology of praise and glorification, the single overriding purpose of everything that exists, including human life, that God might be glorified in all things: "For Thine is the Kingdom, and the Power, and the Glory..." True, the addition is probably a gloss on the Scriptures (the Eastern Rites maintain the phrase as official practice, like the Protestants and Orthodox); but the antiquity of the gloss is evidence, I think, of the sentiments of the Church universal. And at that time, the Church was *still* "one" - unlike today. It may not be terribly evident, but the prayer of Christ at the Last Supper, the one we commonly call "the High Priestly Prayer of Christ," exhibits the same sentiments, and surprisingly enough, exhibits them in the same order. I won't go into detailed analysis here, I'll simply print the relevant portions for your own meditations. I don't think you'll have much problem drawing the proper parallels between the two. "Father, the hour has come! Glorify Thy Son that Thy Son may glorify Thee, even as Thou hast given Him power over all flesh, in order that to all Thou hast given Him He may give everlasting life. Now this is everlasting life, that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Him Whom Thou hast sent, Jesus Christ. I have glorified Thee on earth; I have accomplished the work that Thou hast given Me to do. And now, do Thou, Father, glorify me with thyself, with the glory that I had with Thee before the world existed!" "I have manifested Thy Name to the men Whom Thou given me out of the world. They were Thin and Thou hast given them to me, and they have kept Thy Word. Now they have learned that whatever Thou hast given me is from Thee; because the words that Thou hast given Me I have given to them. And they have received them, and have known of a truth that I came forth from Thee, and they have believed that Thou didst send Me." "I pray for them; not for the world do I pray, but for those whom Thou hast given Me, because they are Thine; and all things that are Mine are Thine, and Thine are Mine; and I am glorified in them. And I am no longer in the world, but these are in the world, and I am coming to Thee. Holy Father, keep in Thy Name those whom Thou hast given Me, that they may be one even as we are one. While I was with them, I kept them in Thy Name. Those whom Thou hast given Me I guarded; and not one of them perished except the Son of Perdition, in order that the Scripture might be fulfilled. But now, I am coming to Thee; and these things I speak in the world in order that they may have My joy made full in themselves. I have given them Thy word; and the world has hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I do not pray that Thou take them out of the world, but that Thou keep them from evil. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in Thy truth. Thy word is truth. Even as Thou hast sent Me into the world, so I also have sent them into the world. And for them I sanctify Myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth." "Yet, not for these only do I pray, but for those who through their word are to believe in Me, that all may be one, even as Thou, Father, in Me and I in Thee; that they also may be one in us, that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me. And the glory that Thou hast given Me, I have given to them, that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and Thou in Me; that they may be perfected in unity, and that the world may now that Thou hast sent Me, and that Thou hast loved them, even as Thou hast loved Me." "Father, I will that where I am, they also whom Thou hast given Me may be with Me; in order that they may behold My glory, which Thou hast given Me, because Thou hast loved Me before the creation of the world. Just Father,the world has not known Thee, but I have known Thee, and these have known that Thou hast sent me. And I have made known to them Thy Name, and will make it known, in order that the love with which Thou hast loved Me may be in them, and I in them." (John 17:1-25) The intense love and burning desire for oneness and for the love of one another is very nearly overwhelming here. And this just before He went out to offer finally that sacrifice of which we have just spoken, the sacrifice which was to redeem an entire world. The relative value norms and procedural steps I pointed out earlier are clearly followed in this great prayer: "Father, I thank thee..." And it becomes clear as well that every prayer, of whatever other class it may partake, must also be a prayer of thanksgiving, praise and adoration. And so, a true prayer will NOT be "either" a prayer of petition, or of thanksgiving, or of repentance and propitiation, or of glorification, but EVERY true prayer will contain ALL of these elements. You will all remember, I hope, how carefully I pointed out that the Divine Liturgy, the supreme prayer, is a sacrifice, THE sacrifice of Christ, living, dead, risen and ascended, for the salvation and redemption of mankind. And there IS only one such sacrifice, not one repeated, not one re-played. One. But the concept of sacrifice is not as simple as some have presumed. "Sacrifice" is defined as that a) "offering of the life of a person or animal or of an object as propitiation or homage to a deity;" b) something so offered; c) a giving up, destroying, permitting injury to, or foregoing of some valued thing for the sake of something of greater value or having a greater claim." As you can see, the first keynote of sacrifice is that it is an "offering." A gift - not something "extorted," either by force, or by fear of punishment. A giving of something from one to another - a taking away of something from oneself and a transfer of it to another. The second keynote is that it is always, in a religious context, intended as an offering of adoration and/or propitiation, expressing homage to a deity. Thirdly, in most religions, propitiatory sacrifice is accompanied by the destruction of the object offered, and in the Old Testament, the Covenant of the Jewish People with the Lord, with a SHARING of the very gift offered. The idea was also quite common with many of the ancient mystic cults of the Roman Empire. The Cult of Mithras, for example, included being baptized in the fresh blood of a slaughtered bull, after which the neophytes would share in a meal of the slaughtered beast. I would like to add here a parenthetical comment that most of the comments which attribute Christian practice to a "copying" of the Mithraic cult forms is erroneous. The Cult of Mithra POST-dates Christianity, and is, if anything, rather more a parody of Christian practice, than the other way around. Necessary to the concept of "sacrifice" is the concept of "priesthood," at least in any religious sense of the term. In every major religion throughout history there have been those especially set aside for the worship of their deity. Among the ancient Jews it was those who were descended from Aaron and Levi. The priests and Levites. (They were quite different groups in their functions, remember. "Priests and Levites" is not a phrase which composes a juxtaposition of synonyms.) These are specially trained for the special function, the knowledge of the rites involved in the formal worship of the god. It is no different in our own case, except in one particular. Well - maybe TWO. In every case there are three facets of priesthood involved. And in the case of Christianity, the Victim offered by the Priest is the Priest Himself. In the first facet of priesthood we have the High Priest, Christ Himself, who offers Himself in substitution (the function of sacrifice IS to substitute) for the rest of us. And the priest who stands at the altar, taking the visible place of Christ at the head of the visible community, the portion of the Communion of Saints which is visible to our fleshly eyes. And there are those who have been baptized, the people, who, having been baptized into Christ have entered into Him and become one with Him. The members of a Royal House, a Royal Priesthood. It is important to remember that fact of Baptism, that, in Baptism we DO become "one with Christ" as well as "in" Him. But it is important to remember, too, what things Christ *was* - lest we fail to participate as fully as we might in all that Christ is. Christ is a King. Clearly shown in the narrative of the Nativity. We share in that kingship, which will be exercised at the end of time, after the Second Coming and at the Great Judgment, when we, according to His promise, "shall sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes..." Christ is prophet as well. The main element of prophecy is not, as so many suppose, the ability to foretell the future, but the fact that every prophet witnesses to the Truth of God, the validity of His Law, and to the evil being done contrary to that law. This is one of our functions in this life, and a duty incumbent on every Christian. Christ is the Victim for Mankind. He lived and died and rose again to save mankind from the ancient enemy of mankind and from mankind's own sins. We, too, must so live *our* lives that they might contribute to the redemption of others, however guilty they may be. Far from condemning the guilty and punishing them, it is for us to offer ourselves in propitiation for them, exactly as Christ offered His innocent self for us. Christ is the priest who offered that victim. And, as He offered Himself, so, too, must you and I each offer ourselves, instead of something or someone else. Note particularly that the sacrifice cannot be of something we "own" or "have" - it must be the very sacrifice of self. Naturally, that *does* imply that we WILL offer as well of what we possess. Christ is Judge. And we shall share in that as well, though this is given us to share only after He has come in power. And lastly, but surely not least, He is, in His capacity as the Head of Mankind, the New Adam, its high priest, burdened with the responsibility of offering to God adequate homage and adoration, and along with it, the love and faith that are due from His children to a Loving Father. It is far too common a thing that the laity think of themselves as "only laity," in the sense that the job of praying at the Liturgy belongs to the priest, and all they need do is be present and put an envelope into the collection. Not so. Since each baptized member shares in the priesthood of Christ (although in a way different from that of the 'ordained' priesthood), the responsibility for prayer, adoration, glorification and propitiation rests equally on all of us alike, not more on one than on another. The presence of laity and their active participation is not a "lovely extra" but a necessity, if the sacrifice is to be worthy of one offered to the Father. This is YOUR place. You are not only WANTED here, you are NEEDED. It is up to you to make the best of it, true. And to live up to the responsibilities you bear as one of those baptized into Christ. There is more than a small likelihood that each of you has dodged some of that responsibility from time to time. That's what makes it so distressing to see so many crowding the back, standing in the vestibule, desperate to leave the liturgy in such great haste - it is clear from that behavior that there is no interest in praise and adoration, glorification and propitiation, but rather the unburdening of oneself, when it ought to be the SHOULDERING of a burden. And so we end. I hope I have helped, in some small way, to show more clearly the great magnificence of the Liturgy and our places in it. Praised be Jesus Christ Almighty, from Whom all blessings flow. THE END