bl es s ed is the k in gd om mind, the heart, and the soul to certain thoughts and prayers. Some are corporate thoughts—when the priest prays for peace in the world, we are all supposed to be thinking of the same thing. But when he prays for forgiveness of sins, we can call to mind our own sins. For too many years I have stood at the altar and watched people witness the Divine Liturgy without being real participants in it. Perhaps this is why Orthodox Christians are perpetually late or miss the service altogether. After all, it is just a ritual that will be repeated virtually the same way next week, right? Yet when we examine the petitions and actions of the Divine Liturgy, we realize that each one calls us to participate. The word liturgy comes from two Greek words—leitos, meaning “people,” and ergon, meaning “work.” Liturgy literally means “the work of the people” and implies that worship is a divine work for all of us. Whether by offering a response—note that every Liturgy book says “people” next to each response, not “choir” or “chanter”—or by joining our prayers with the prayers of the service, the faithful in attendance indeed have a lot of work do. When we come to worship and truly do the work of the people, when we pray the service, it becomes more than a ritual; it becomes alive, and we feel as though we belong to the Divine Liturgy, and the Divine Liturgy belongs to us. The Liturgy is a parable. To the untrained eye and the unopened heart, it is a ritual involving a man in robes, a choir, altar servers, processions, incense, and candles. As Christ said in His reference to Isaiah, one can see but not see, hear but not understand. However, to the one whose heart is open, whose eye is trained, and who yearns to experience God, the Liturgy opens the gates to the Kingdom of heaven and allows the most ordinary of people to leave the world for an hour or so each week and enter heaven for a short time. The purpose of this book is not to take the mystery out of the service but to help you understand and appreciate the mystery that
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