#Fr. Alexander Schmemann | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

hieromonkcharbel · 2 years

Text

The joy of the Messiah's appearance abounds in the Church's liturgical services of the Winter Pascha. When the "Hail" of the angelic salutation is translated "Rejoice," as it often is in the church services since in Greek that is what it literally means, there is an even greater presence of the "good news of great joy" for the faithful, since they, together with the whole of creation, are greeted with this salutation again and again in the songs of the festal celebration.

Let creation exceedingly rejoice,

For the Creator fashions himself as a creature.

And He who was before all things now manifests Himself as God newly revealed.

Let the wise men go to meet Him with their gifts;

Let the shepherds clap their hands in faith at the wonder;

and let mortal men join the angels with rejoicing.

Be joyful, O earth!

Behold, Christ draws near to be born in Bethlehem.

Be glad, O sea!

And dance for joy, O company of prophets,

For today you behold the fulfillment of your words.

Rejoice, all you righteous!

Let the kings of the whole earth sing with rejoicing,

And let the nations be in exceeding joy!

Mountains, hills, and valleys,

Rivers, seas, and the whole of creation:

Magnify the Lord who now is born.

Rejoice, O Virgin,

The Theotokos who of the Holy Spirit

Has borne life into the world

For the salvation of all!

One of the most devastating accusations that can be made against Christians is that they have no joy. Joyless Christians are a contradiction in terms. People who are bitter, complaining, condemning, accusing, dissatisfied and depressed are certainly not Christians. They can only be people whose life is untouched by grace, people whose existence is confined to the suffocating limitations of "this world" whose "ruler" is the devil and whose "form... is passing away" (Jn 12:31; 1 Cor 7:31). They cannot possibly be those who belong to Christ and the kingdom of God. For Christians by definition have Christ's "joy fulfilled in themselves" (Jn 17:13). They are people whose joy, which no one can take away, is literally full and complete (Jn 15:11; 16:22, 24).

In his famous book For the Life of the World, Father Alexander Schmemann speaks about the joy of Christians. From its very beginning, he says,

Christianity has been the proclamation of joy, of the only possible joy on earth. It rendered impossible all the joy we usually think of as possible. But within this impossibility, at the very bottom of this darkness, it announced and conveyed a new all-embracing joy, and with this joy it transformed the End into a Beginning. Without the proclamation of this joy, Christianity is incomprehensible. It is only as joy that the Church was victorious in the world, and it lost the world when it lost that joy, and ceased to be a credible witness to it. Of all the accusations against Christians, the most terrible one was uttered by Nietzsche when he said that Christians had no joy.

Father Alexander goes on to say that before Christians can do anything else with all of their "programs and missions, projects and techniques," they "must recover the meaning of this great joy." he says that joy "is not something one can define or analyze. One enters into joy. 'Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord' (Mt 25:21)." And one enters into this joy, this exceeding great joy, he insists, only by entering into the liturgical, eucharistic life of the Church herself. Here, and only here, as in the celebration of the Nativity of Christ and His Epiphany in the world, can a person partake of that joyful reality for which the world itself was created in the beginning.

The above is an excerpt from The Winter Pascha, by Fr. Thomas Hopko

8 notes · View notes

revddan · 7 months

Text

The Bright Sadness of Lent

In the Eastern Orthodox church, the season of Lent takes on a unique hue, referred to as 'Bright Sadness.' This term, coined by Orthodox theologian Alexander Schmemann, is a poetic interpretation of the 'joy-making mourning' suggested by Saint John Climacus in his Ladder of Divine Ascent. It is a concept that harmonizes with lament, which are honest appeals to God that challenge wrongdoing, release pain, and pave the way for God's new life. 'Bright sadness' is not a contradiction but a paradoxical expression of the deep joy that comes from acknowledging our brokenness and yearning for God's restoration. It is a somberness that allows the flame of the Holy Spirit to glow within our hearts until we are guided to the brilliance of the Resurrection. This transformative power of 'Bright Sadness' offers a profound and thought-provoking way to describe Lent, instilling hope in our life with God.

As a community, we are not particularly big on lament, which is the art of wrestling with our pain, the world's pain, the violence rooted in our hearts, and our deep need for God. This is not to say that we ignore or suppress our pain, but rather, we often focus more on the joy and hope that come from our faith. However, the concept of 'Bright Sadness' reminds us of the importance of lament in our spiritual journey. It encourages us to embrace the somberness of Lent, to acknowledge our brokenness, and to yearn for God's restoration. It is a call to balance our joy with a deep understanding of our need for God's healing and renewal. In this journey, we are not alone but united as a community, sharing in the 'Bright Sadness' and the hope it brings.

This week's gospel reading is imbibed with bright sadness. It alludes to crucifixion, love, and life, three things that, if we are honest, don't gel well (at least from the world's perspective). John starts with a strange story. It's a story about a grumbling people wandering in the wilderness, who were bitten by snakes due to their impatience. In their distress, they turned to God, and God instructed Moses to raise a bronze snake on a pole, healing those who looked at it. John connects this story to Jesus, specifically Jesus' crucifixion, making the point that those who look to Christ find true life. John then speaks about God's love for the world, a love ultimately expressed on the cross. This profound and unconditional love offers comfort and reassurance, reminding us that we are deeply loved.

In this season of bright sadness, may we take the time to acknowledge our missteps, those places of hurt within us and around us, to gaze at the cross, as uncomfortable as that often is, and as we do, may the flame of the Holy Spirit begin to burn in our hearts, brighter and brighter, as we make our way together to the brilliance.

------

"As we make the first step into the 'bright sadness' of Lent, we see - far, far away - the destination. It is the joy of Easter, it is the enterance into the glory of the Kingdom. And it is this vision, the foretaste of Easter, that makes Lent's sadness bright and our Lentern effort a "spiritual spring." The night may be dark and long, but all along the way a mysterious and radiant dawn seems to shine on the horizon." - Fr Alexander Schmemann

------

Image: Scott Erickson

0 notes

noeticprayer · 8 months

Text

Distractions are still a problem. It isn’t from a place of judgement when anyone takes issue with lighting candles during the sermon, gospel, etc.

At the same time, the author of this article probably never read Fr. Alexander Schmemann.

The Divine Liturgy is communal prayer zone NOT a zone for private prayers. The Orthodox laity (and clergy) aren’t well-catechized especially in Orthodox countries.

I understand the situation with work, commuting long distances, traffic, arthritis, etc. In those cases, folks are excused with being late.

0 notes

discoveringorthodoxy · 2 years

Photo

“The prodigal son, we are told, went to a far country and there spent all that he had. A far country! It is this unique definition of our human condition that we must assume and make ours as we begin our approach to God. A man who has never had that experience, be it only very briefly, who has never felt that he is exiled from God and from real life, will never understand what Christianity is about. And the one who is perfectly ‘at home’ in this world and its life, who has never been wounded by the nostalgic desire for another Reality, will not understand what is repentance.”

- Fr. Alexander Schmemann -

#Eastern Orthodox #Prodigal Son #Quote #Orthodox Priest #Repentance #Christianity #Greek Orthodox

36 notes · View notes

orthodoxydaily · 4 years

Text

SUNDAY of ORTHODOXY ( 1st Sunday of Great lent)

By Fr. Alexander Schmemann

February 26, 2012

Rejoicing today in the triumph of Orthodoxy on this first Sunday of Lent, we joyfully commemorate three events: one event belonging to the past; one event to the present; and one event which still belongs to the future.

Whenever we have any feast or joy in the Church, we Orthodox first of all look back — for in our present life we depend on what happened in the past. We depend first of all, of course, on the first and the ultimate triumph—that of Christ Himself. Our faith is rooted in that strange defeat which became the most glorious victory — the defeat of a man nailed to the cross, who rose again from the dead, who is the Lord and the Master of the world. This is the first triumph of Orthodoxy. This is the content of all our commemorations and of all our joy. This man selected and chose twelve men, gave them power to preach about that defeat and that victory, and sent them to the whole world saying preach and baptize, build up the Church, announce the Kingdom of God. And you know, my brothers and sisters, how those twelve men — very simple men indeed, simple fishermen — went out and preached. The world hated them, the Roman Empire persecuted them, and they were covered with blood. But that blood was another victory. The Church grew, the Church covered the universe with the true faith. After 300 years of the most unequal conflict between the powerful Roman Empire and the powerless Christian Church, the Roman Empire accepted Christ as Lord and Master. That was the second triumph of Orthodoxy. The Roman Empire recognized the one whom it crucified and those whom it persecuted as the bearers of truth, and their teaching as the teaching of life eternal. The Church triumphed. But then the second period of troubles began.

The following centuries saw many attempts to distort the faith, to adjust it to human needs, to fill it with human content. In each generation there were those who could not accept that message of the cross and resurrection and life eternal. They tried to change it, and those changes we call heresies. Again there were persecutions. Again, Orthodox bishops, monks and laymen defended their faith and were condemned and went into exile and were covered with blood. And after five centuries of those conflicts and persecutions and discussions, the day came which we commemorate today, the day of the final victory of Orthodoxy as the true faith over all the heresies. It happened on the first Sunday of Lent in the year 843 in Constantinople. After almost 100 years of persecution directed against the worship of the holy icons, the Church finally proclaimed that the truth had been defined, that the truth was fully in the possession of the Church. And since then all Orthodox people, wherever they live, have gathered on this Sunday to proclaim before the world their faith in that truth, their belief that their Church is truly apostolic, truly Orthodox, truly universal. This is the event of the past that we commemorate today.

But let us ask ourselves one question: Do all the triumphs of Orthodoxy, all the victories, belong to the past? Looking at the present today, we sometimes feel that our only consolation is to remember the past. Then Orthodoxy was glorious, then the Orthodox Church was powerful, then it dominated. But what about the present? My dear friends, if the triumph of Orthodoxy belongs to the past only, if there is nothing else for us to do but commemorate, to repeat to ourselves how glorious was the past, then Orthodoxy is dead. But we are here tonight to witness to the fact that Orthodoxy not only is not dead but also that it is once more and forever celebrating its own triumph — the triumph of Orthodoxy. We don’t have to fight heresies among ourselves, but we have other things that once more challenge our Orthodox faith.

Today, gathered here together, Orthodox of various national backgrounds, we proclaim and we glorify first of all our unity in Orthodoxy. This is the triumph of Orthodoxy in the present. This is a most wonderful event: that all of us, with all our differences, with all our limitations, with all our weaknesses, can come together and say we belong to that Orthodox faith, that we are one in Christ and in Orthodoxy. We are living very far from the traditional centers of Orthodoxy. We call ourselves Eastern Orthodox, and yet we are here in the West, so far from those glorious cities which were centers of the Orthodox faith for centuries — Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, Moscow. How far are those cities. And yet, don’t we have the feeling that something of a miracle has happened, that God has sent us here, far into the West, not just in order to settle here, to increase our income, to build up a community. He also has sent us as apostles of Orthodoxy, so that this faith, which historically was limited to the East, now is becoming a faith which is truly and completely universal.

This is a thrilling moment in the history of Orthodoxy. That is why it is so important for us to be here tonight and to understand, to realize, to have that vision of what is going on. People were crossing the ocean, coming here, not thinking so much about their faith as about themselves, about their lives, about their future. They were usually poor people, they had a difficult life, and they built those little Orthodox churches everywhere in America not for other people but for themselves, just to remember their homes, to perpetuate their tradition. They didn’t think of the future. And yet this is what happened: the Orthodox Church was sent here through and with those poor men. The truth itself, the fullness of the apostolic faith—all this came here, and here we are now, filling this hall and proclaiming this apostolic faith — the faith that has strengthened the universe. And this leads us to the event which still belongs to the future.

If today we can only proclaim, if we can only pray for that coming triumph of Orthodoxy in this country and in the world, our Orthodox faith forces us to believe that it is not by accident but by divine providence that the Orthodox faith today has reached all countries, all cities, all continents of the universe. After that historic weakness of our religion, after the persecutions by the Roman Empire, by the Turks, by the godless atheists, after all the troubles that we had to go through, today a new day begins. Something new is going to happen. And it is this future of Orthodoxy that we have to rejoice about today.

We can already have a vision of that future when, in the West, a strong American Orthodox Church comes into existence. We can see how this faith, which for such a long time was an alien faith here, will become truly and completely universal in the sense that we will answer the questions of all men, and also all their questions. For if we believe in that word: “Orthodoxy,” “the true faith”; if for one moment we try to understand what it means: the true, the full Christianity, as it has been proclaimed by Christ and His disciples; if our Church has preserved for all ages the message of the apostles and of the fathers and of the saints in its purest form, then, my dear friends, here is the answer to the questions and to the problems and to the sufferings of our world. You know that our world today is so complex. It is changing all the time. And the more it changes, the more people fear, the more they are frightened by the future, the morethey are preoccupied by what will happen to them. And this is where Orthodoxy must answer their problem; this is where Orthodoxy must accept the challenge of modern civilization and reveal to men of all nations, to all men in the whole world, that it has remained the force of God left in history for the transformation, for the deification, for the transfiguration of human life.

The past, the present, the future: At the beginning, one lonely man on the cross — the complete defeat. And if at that time we had been there with all our human calculations, we probably would have said: “That’s the end. Nothing else will happen.” The twelve left Him. There was no one, no one to hope. The world was in darkness. Everything seemed finished. And you know what happened three days later. Three days later He appeared. He appeared to His disciples, and their hearts were burning within them because they knew that He was the risen Lord. And since then, in every generation, there have been people with burning hearts, people who have felt that this victory of Christ had to be carried again and again into this world, to be proclaimed in order to win new human souls and to be the transforming force in history.

Today this responsibility belongs to us. We feel that we are weak. We feel that we are limited, we are divided, we are still separated in so many groups, we have so many obstacles to overcome. But today, on the Sunday of Orthodoxy, we close our eyes for a second and we rejoice in that unity which is already here: priests of various national churches praying together, people of all backgrounds uniting in prayer for the triumph of Orthodoxy. We are already in a triumph, and may God help us keep that triumph in our hearts, so that we never give up hope in that future event in the history of orthodoxy when Orthodoxy will become the victory which eternally overcomes all the obstacles, because that victory is the victory of Christ Himself.

As we approach the most important moment of the Eucharist, the priest says, “Let us love one another, that with one mind we may confess….” What is the condition of the real triumph of Orthodoxy? What is the way leading to the real, the final, the ultimate victory of our faith? The answer comes from the Gospel. The answer comes from Christ Himself and from the whole tradition of Orthodoxy. It is love. Let us love one another, that with one mind we may confess . . . confess our faith, our Orthodoxy. Let us, from now on, feel responsible for each other. Let us understand that even if we are divided in small parishes, in small dioceses, we first of all belong to one another. We belong together, to Christ, to His Body, to the Church. Let us feel responsible for each other, and let us love one another. Let us put above everything else the interests of Orthodoxy in this country. Let us understand that each one of us today has to be the apostle of Orthodoxy in a country which is not yet Orthodox, in a society which is asking us: “What do you believe?” “What is your faith?” And let us, above everything else, keep the memory, keep the experience, keep the taste of that unity which we are anticipating tonight.

At the end of the first century — when the Church was still a very small group, a very small minority, in a society which was definitely anti-Christian when the persecution was beginning — St. John the Divine, the beloved disciple of Christ, wrote these words: “And this is the victory, our faith, this is the victory.” There was no victory at that time, and yet he knew that in his faith he had the victory that can be applied to us today. We have the promise of Christ, that the gates of hell will never prevail against the Church. We have the promise of Christ that if we have faith, all things are possible. We have the promise of the Holy Spirit, that He will fill all that which is weak, that He will help us at the moment when we need help. In other words, we have all the possibilities, we have everything that we need, and therefore the victory is ours. It is not a human victory which can be defined in terms of money, of human success, of human achievements. What we are preaching tonight, what we are proclaiming tonight, what we are praying for tonight, is the victory of Christ in me, in us, in all of you in the Orthodox Church in America. And that victory of Christ in us, of the one who for us was crucified and rose again from the dead, that victory will be the victory of His Church.

Today is the triumph of Orthodoxy, and a hymn sung today states solemnly and simply: “This is the Apostolic faith, this is the Orthodox faith, this is the faith of the Fathers, this is the faith that is the foundation of the world.” My dear brothers and sisters, this is also our own faith. We are chosen. We are elected. We are the happy few that can say of our faith, “apostolic,” “universal,” “the faith of our fathers,” “Orthodoxy,” “the truth.” Having this wonderful treasure, let us preserve it, let us keep it, and let us also use it in such a way that this treasure becomes the victory of Christ in us and in His Church. Amen.

#orthodoxy #icons #sacredart #orthodoxchristianity #originofchristianity

2 notes · View notes

dramoor · 4 years

Photo

Father Alexander Schmemann celebrated the divine liturgy for the last time on Thanksgiving Day. This was particularly appropriate since Father Alexander had devoted his whole life to teaching, writing and preaching about the Eucharist; for the word eucharist in Greek means thanksgiving. At the conclusion of the liturgy, Father Alexander took from his pocket a short written sermon, in the form of a prayer, which he proceeded to read. This was a strange occurrence since Father never wrote his liturgical homilies, but delivered them extemporaneously. These were his words, which proved to be the last ever spoken by him from the ambo in Church.

Thank You, O Lord!

“Everyone capable of thanksgiving is capable of salvation and eternal joy.

Thank You, O Lord, for having accepted this Eucharist, which we offered to the Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and which filled our hearts with the joy, peace and righteousness of the Holy Spirit.

Thank You, O Lord, for having revealed Yourself unto us and given us the foretaste of Your Kingdom.

Thank You, O Lord, for having united us to one another in serving You and Your Holy Church.

Thank You, O Lord, for having helped us to overcome all difficulties, tensions, passions, temptations and restored peace, mutual love and joy in sharing the communion of the Holy Spirit.

Thank You, O Lord, for the sufferings You bestowed upon us, for they are purifying us from selfishness and reminding us of the ‘one thing needed;’ Your eternal Kingdom.

Thank You, O Lord, for having given us this country where we are free to Worship You.

Thank You, O Lord, for this school, where the name of God is proclaimed.

Thank You, O Lord, for our families: husbands, wives and, especially, children who teach us how to celebrate Your holy Name in joy, movement and holy noise.

Thank You, O Lord, for everyone and everything.

Great are You, O Lord, and marvelous are Your deeds, and no word is sufficient to celebrate Your miracles.

Lord, it is good to be here! Amen.”

(Via The Orthodox Church, Vol. 20, No. 2, February 1984)

(Image via wheeljournal.com)

#Last Liturgy #Orthodox Christian #Fr. Alexander Schmemann #Thanksgiving day #Eucharist #Prayer #Thanksgiving #gratefulness #Lord Jesus Christ #God

20 notes · View notes

justinsuvoy · 1 year

Text

youtube

This documentary was produced around the occasion of Fr. Alexander Schmemann's funeral at St. Vladimir's Seminary in 1983. It reflects on the life of this contemporary Orthodox Christian theologian, teacher, priest and friend and the impact he has had on the church in this country and through out the world.

Justin Suvoy

#stvladimirsseminary #fralexanderschmemann #easternorthodoxy #justinsuvoy #justinsuvoyyoutube

#justinsuvoy #stvladimirsseminary #fralexanderschmemann #easternorthodoxy #justinsuvoyyoutube #Youtube

0 notes

revolutionoftenderness · 4 years

Text

“There must be someone in this world…to stand in its center, and to discern, to see it again as full of divine riches, as the cup full of life and joy, as beauty and wisdom, and to thank God for it. This ‘someone’ is Christ, the new Adam who restores that ‘eucharistic life’ which I, the old Adam, have rejected and lost; who makes me again what I am, and restores the world to me. And if the Church is in Christ, its initial act is always this act of thanksgiving, of returning the world to God.”

~ Fr Alexander Schmemann

[St. Basil's Cathedral by Aristarkh Lentulov]

#aristarkhlentulov #alexanderschmemann #eucharist #thanksgiving #christ

1 note · View note

apptowonder · 5 years

Text

“Scribbling in the Sand” -- CCM and Liturgical Catechesis -- Pt. I: Context

So...this may be a bit of a ramble, and I may end up splitting it into multiple parts. But I was listening to the music of contemporary Christian musician Michael Card (pictured above), and thinking about how while I often find myself frustrated by the lack of effort put into CCM on the radio today (and many of my Catholic and Orthodox compatriots, perhaps understandably, refuse to listen to it at all), it got me thinking about the role of music in shaping and forming people of faith in the kanon (rule) of faith.* Obviously, it’s reductive to blame the success or failure of Christian formation and discipleship in America purely on the arts, but music shapes worship and liturgy, and liturgy shapes our spiritual communities more than we realize.

Fr. Alexander Schmemann, in his seminal work, For the Life of the World, writes, “We do not need any new worship that would somehow be more adequate to our secular world. What we need is a rediscovery of the true meaning and power of worship, and this means of its cosmic, ecclesiological, and eschatological dimensions and content.”**

I would question slightly Schmemann’s assertion that there can be nothing new in worship/liturgy. I think that the Spirit has and continues to inspire gifted liturgists to compose offerings of the cosmos to God in new and powerful ways. But his point is well-taken: worship matters, especially in an age where we see an increasing de-valuing of the human person (white supremacy, homophobia, transphobia, anti-immigrant sentiment, etc). Certainly, fixing our liturgies will not miraculously solve our problems. Direct action and advocacy are needed to overcome the injustices in our society, and as surely as St. James the Just once wrote, “faith without action is dead,” Christians need to live out their faith in concrete acts of discipleship on behalf of the vulnerable in our society. But I do think that if American Christianity, and American Protestantism in particular is to “save its soul,” so to speak, part of that healing transformation will or should involve a deepening of the roots of its liturgy, worship and music to once again speak to the deep sacramentality of God’s creation and the time-honored truths of the faith.***

I and various friends of mine have agreed that, as we transitioned from churches with a low view of liturgy (ie, little emphasis on communal prayer, worship music which generated emotional intensity but often failed to teach or form people for communion with God and humanity, central focus on the personality and perspective of the preacher) to churches with a higher view of liturgy (i), we gradually became to feel that our faith and our action felt more integrated. You can no longer easily ignore, “the sick, the suffering, the captives” when you pray every Sunday for their salvation. We felt more inspired and moved to do good works, and when we did so, we felt we were doing not just a social good, but also a deeply holy thing.

As I think back to that Michael Card album, I think about some of the early CCM artists, particularly those involved with the Jesus Movement and the evangelical equivalents of the 60s counterculture and how many of them felt, at their core, like liturgists. That is to say, they wrote music not merely to produce a feeling, but to form their listeners for the life in Christ. Michael Card strikes me as exemplary of this movement. This man does so much research on Scripture and doctrine that he fills entire books with the material that doesn’t make it into his songs. In my next post, I want to focus in on Card’s work in particular, discussing how it shaped and formed my faith in a liturgical manner, and how it might continue to speak to American churches today. Through the rest of this series (yeah, pretty sure this will have to be a series now), I will examine a handful of other artists and trends in the CCM genre from the 60s-present, continuing along this theme of liturgical catechesis, how American Christian music has shaped the church, and how it might shape the church to reflect Christ more courageously against co-optation by bigotry and imperialism in the days to come.

*Greek word κανων, meaning “measuring stick,” where we get the word “canon” in the sense of “regulatory or formative work”.

** Fr. Alexander Schmemann, For the Life of the World (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1963), 134.

***Note: a few caveats. I am speaking as an Eastern Orthodox Christian who was raised evangelical Protestant, but I will be primarily speaking about Protestant contexts in this essay, with occasional references to Orthodox theology where it sheds light on the subject. I know Protestant churches are not a monolith, and a handful of denominations seem to at least be on their way to reclaiming Christianity from the specter of whiteness, heteronormativity and patriarchy. I would cite the UCC, parts of the Episcopal Church and the ELCA as examples. I also do not write with any illusions that Orthodoxy is immune to these problems. I think we have inherited a strong, dignifying and humane liturgy but have thus far had trouble putting its meaning into practice and teaching our youth about how the Liturgy forms and shapes us. All this to say, this piece is necessarily limited in scope but I am aware of and continue to do my part to work towards resolving problems in my own spiritual community. I just feel that as someone who has experienced both liturgical “worlds”, so to speak, I am in a position to offer some thoughts that folks may find helpful.

i. Note: When I talk about “high view of liturgy” vs “low view of liturgy” I don’t necessarily mean “high church” v “low church”. There is nothing about a more contemporary style of worship that precludes having a rich liturgical life. I have been in Masses and Divine Liturgies that seemed wholly detached from their sense of purpose, and I have been in low church contexts where the sense of purpose and responsibility to offer the world up to God has been crystal clear. What I mean more is the problem of some churches who seem to have little to no sense of leitourgia as “the work of the people,” that we are coming together not just for our own edification, but to commune with God and with the world around us, through prayer, worship, teaching, formation, the sacraments/mysteries, etc.

2 notes · View notes