Written by: Catechist Branislav Ilić
Liturgical time is inseparably bound to the structure of real, flowing time, and Orthodox worship is shaped in accordance with three cycles of time: the daily, the weekly, and the annual cycle. Day and night constitute the rotation of the Earth around its axis, while the year marks its revolution around the Sun. The lunar month consists of four seven-day phases. References to these cycles are also found in Holy Scripture. The daily cycle of services comprises those offices appointed to be performed each day: Vespers, Compline, the Midnight Office, Matins, and the First, Third, Sixth, and Ninth Hours. The Divine Liturgy, however, does not belong to this daily sequence, for the Mystery of the Eucharist stands beyond time; it belongs to eternity. Thus, the Liturgy is not a part of the daily cycle, but rather its summit, its center, and its ultimate goal.
Divine worship is a gift of God’s love and a sacred reality in which man enters into communion with the Lord. One of the briefest definitions of prayer states: prayer is a conversation with God. Indeed, prayer is our sincere and wondrous dialogue with God—a dialogue that sanctifies, educates, and directs us towards the essence. The Liturgy is our life. In the Liturgy, we acquire a conciliar mind, learning to give thanks with one mouth and one heart for the ineffable gift of life. The Holy Spirit gathers us into unity in the Liturgy, and through it we become participants in the divine life of Christ. According to patristic experience, if Baptism is the putting on of Christ, then the Liturgy is life in Christ and the reception of Christ within oneself.
The Liturgy is the model of culture and of all education. The great teacher of the Church from the early centuries of Christianity, Saint Clement of Alexandria, teaches that culture is the fruit of human creativity guided by the Logos (Christ). By these words, the saint reminds us that only those works which arise from the synergy between God and man possess true value and can rightly be called fruits of culture. Through the Liturgy, Christ calls us to humility, renewal, reconciliation, trust, purification, thanksgiving, and all other virtues and ascetic struggles of our will, without which there can be no union with Him who leads us into eternity. In this spirit, the God-wise Apostle Paul addresses Christians of all times: “Be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God” (Rom. 12:2).
Through the entirety of sacred worship, founded upon the Liturgy as the crown of all life in Christ, the Church, as a caring mother, educates her children, spiritually builds them up, guides them, and supports them on the path of salvation. In worship, man is realized as an active and dynamic being directed towards personal communion with the Holy Trinity. In worship, man is fulfilled as a liturgical being and as a priest of creation, grounding his existence and deification in communion with Christ. In this context, Metropolitan John Zizioulas of Pergamon emphasizes the sacred role of man, stating: “Man is the priest of creation, entrusted from the beginning with the task of offering it—that is, of lifting it up—to the Creator. The presence of man in the world is by its very nature priestly and liturgical. However, man cannot fulfill this successfully as an isolated individual, that is, by separating his role from other people and from creation, but only in relation to them. It is impossible for a priest and minister in the world to exist otherwise than within the spectrum of communion.” The perfect and harmonious sacred community to which Metropolitan John Zizioulas refers is realized through the liturgical prayer of the Church. All forms of prayer share a common characteristic: prayer always has an active dimension—it is always an expression of our personal openness to the Other and our need for communion. The ever-memorable Metropolitan Amfilohije of Montenegro and the Littoral emphasizes that “prayer is the most perfect method of self-knowledge and self-denial,” and further concludes that it is the only normal rhythm of life and of man’s relationship to God and to creation.
The fundamental characteristic of catechesis in the early Church is its organic connection with the sacramental and liturgical life. Catechesis flows from the Holy Mysteries and returns to them; that is, it leads to the life of grace and springs forth from it. The truth of this reality is best confirmed by the catechetical teachings of Saint Cyril of Jerusalem, as well as those of Saint Ambrose of Milan. Liturgical catechesis is prayerful and penitential. There can be no true and sound word about God, much less genuine knowledge of Him, without repentance. Hence, every word of the Church—especially every liturgical and worshipful word—is from the very beginning imbued with the tears of repentance and permeated with a penitential spirit and prayer. Prayer, as the confirmation of a life in virtue, is a necessary condition and means for acquiring the grace of the Holy Spirit. Saint Seraphim of Sarov emphasizes that the goal of the Christian life is the acquisition of the Holy Spirit, while virtues are the means towards that goal: “Prayer, fasting, vigil, and all other Christian works are good in themselves, but they do not constitute the goal of our Christian life. They serve as indispensable means for attaining that goal. The true goal of our Christian life consists in the acquisition of the Holy Spirit of God.”
Saint Theophan the Recluse teaches about the educational significance of prayer in the following way: “The Christian life is not merely natural, but above all a life of grace. The goal of life is the deification of man, his living union with God. All good works are but means for acquiring the Holy Spirit. Only a good deed performed in the name of Christ bears this fruit. Everything we do for Christ abundantly fills us with the grace of the Spirit. The very acquisition of the Holy Spirit (which is the fruit of all virtues) brings salvation. He prepares His dwelling in both body and soul. His grace enters into our being and transforms it. It translates us from corruption to incorruption, from the death of the soul to life in the Spirit, from darkness to light, from the enclosure of our being (where passions dwell like beasts) into a radiant temple of God.”
From all that has been said, we conclude that prayer is the breathing of the soul, just as air is the natural breathing of the body. Thus, life and prayer are entirely inseparable, for life without prayer is a mode of existence deprived of its most essential dimension. By living in a constant atmosphere of prayer—through participation in sacred worship and through a personal rule of prayer—Christians grow spiritually and are truly formed. Prayer awakens us spiritually and leads us back from the wrong path onto the true one. Standing rightly (in humility) before the face of God, breathing through prayer, and directing our steps through a life of virtue, we shall walk the narrow path that leads to the joy of life. Dostoevsky offered perhaps the shortest and most concise definition of evangelical and Orthodox pedagogy: prayer is education. We shall conclude our discourse with the words of Saint Justin of Ćelije: “The principal method and the principal power of evangelical Orthodox education is prayer. Through it, every Christ-seeking person harmonizes his inner dispositions. Prayer gives rise to new feelings; new feelings ascend into new thoughts; and all of this flows into new dispositions—God-loving and man-loving. Constant prayerfulness continually creates new feelings and new thoughts, and thus man is always enriched with fresh love for God and for his fellow human beings.”