LITURGY…THE WORK OF THE PEOPLE OF GOD

Timothy Patitsis, in his outstanding book "The Ethics of Beauty," makes the case that the only two alternatives for us as human beings living in this world are 1) liturgy or 2) war. At first, this may seem odd or confusing because most people, after all, would normally juxtapose the phenomenon of war with peace. That is, peace is what happens in the absence of war. But not so for Patitsas. The “default” condition of human existence, according to God’s plan, is not peace but liturgy.

Not simply liturgy as something that happens for us in the Church on Sunday mornings or other feast days, but liturgy as the default state of the entire cosmos in harmony with itself by virtue of the way it offers up to the Holy Trinity its everlasting praise. Patitsas’ point is that it is worship which brings about peace and harmony among the human race and with the earth itself. As the Bible says, “Glory to God in the highest” is the only way for “peace on earth and good will among men.” The one sets the stage for the other.

Liturgy then is the natural state of human existence. Just as the Jews sought to copy their worship on earth with the worship of the angels in heaven, so we fulfill this intent by uniting heaven to earth and thereby make an “earthly heaven.” Furthermore, this is not merely a poetic comparison of opposites: that is, not simply a convenient, semantic simile but a genuine interpenetration of the unseen with the seen, of the future with the present, of the Creator with the created. Jesus Christ as the God-man accomplishes all of the above in Himself, through His birth, death, and Resurrection, especially.

In addition to this, the holy fathers relate that the Divine Liturgy, which manifests the Church as an earthly heaven, invites us as human beings to fully personalize within our hearts the entire liturgy of the cosmos. That is, every heart must become its own hidden and interior Church, wherein an unceasing liturgy of sacrifice and praise is offered up to God. In this way, one can see the mystical life of the Church in three interrelated dimensions: the first, heavenly (through the angelic worship); the second, earthly (through the Divine Liturgy); and third, through the liturgy that is “veiled” within the human heart. When all three of these “liturgies” are actualized and effected, peace and harmony reign supreme.

But this is not how we human beings live. So many people today, our nation’s youth for sure, question the existence of God due to all the war and blood that continues to be shed. How can one reconcile the suffering and death of innumerable innocents with a God of love? (A rallying cry among the new atheists). But from the vantage point of eternity, this is an absurd question, kind of like truncating WWII to the occupation of Paris. “Paris in the dark” (the Nazi occupation) is but one point in a continuum of history that ends in 1945, with the victory of the Allies. So too will the victory of Christ at the end of time—like VE Day—be the point from which all human suffering is finally understood: that is, as a retrospective perception in Christ. Suffering will only “make sense” when one sees Jesus at the end of time as the “Lamb of God slain before the foundation of the world” (Rev. 13:8).

It will be seen then, of course, that the cause for all the warring of history is not about perceived injustices (moralism), nor about the right to “blood and soil” (fascism), but because of the loss of liturgy. For it is axiomatic that when we human beings are no longer capable of truly "liturgizing," of making an earthly heaven, then (in liturgy's absence) chaos, hate, and bloodletting will “rule the day.” 

Fr. Paul Jannakos