The Divine Liturgy: Incarnating The Reality Of Christ’s Glorious Presence In The Ordinariness Of Human Existence

Tonight, in solidarity with the week-long International Eucharistic Congress (IEC) 2016, which is being held in my home city of Cebu, I would like to write my reflective post on the divine relevance of the liturgy in the spiritual life of God’s lovers. This reflection is largely informed by my readings of Anglican Eucharistic theology. The Anglican understanding of the liturgy is incarnational. What do I mean with this? This means that God in Christ meets us in our own humanity, in the ordinariness of our lives, and in our lowly human experiences through the liturgy. This further means that the liturgy—with all its acts, gestures, postures, words, silence, sacral objects, pastoral vestments and prayers—points beyond itself to the very reality of Christ’s Incarnational Presence with us who are His lovers, and this reality is manifested when we gather together as His Church to meet His Transcendental Presence in and among us. This is the significance of Christ’s words: “For where two or three are gathered together in my Name, there am I in the midst of them.” (St. Matthew 18:20). When believers gather together to celebrate the Divine Liturgy, this very liturgy ushers them into the Transcendental Presence of the Risen Christ. For the Apostles never got to personally recognize the Risen Christ while they were walking on the Road to Emmaus; yet their eyes were opened and they knew and recognized the Lord only when He began to break bread and eat with them (See, St. Luke 24:35).

However, let us not forget that the ultimate goal of the liturgy is the Transcendent and Immanent Christ Himself, Who through the liturgy deigns to meet us within the sphere of our human experience. Another beautiful Anglican perspective about the liturgy is that it is a means of bringing us to the very Reality of Christ’s Person (i.e., the mediational character of the liturgy). The sacraments (especially the Most Holy Eucharist of the Lord’s Table) and the liturgy are the means ordained by the Lord for us to gain nearness to Him. The liturgy is very significant for all lovers of Christ because it brings us to Christ’s loving Presence and ushers us into the very Reality of Christ’s Person and His lovely Character. In order to fully benefit from the liturgy’s grace-giving effects into our minds, hearts and spirits, we should understand the liturgy as the mediating avenue that brings us to the Reality of Christ’s Presence. We should therefore not look at the liturgy simply as pious pageantry, an emotive theatrical device, or an aesthetic exercise devoid of Reality. Likewise, we should not also approach the liturgy with a kind of obsessive-compulsive attachment to the point of neurotic scruples; instead we should use the liturgy as venue by which we can touch the Lord and experience His Life-Giving Reality into our parched spirits and hungry hearts. God in Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit is the Ultimate Goal and the Summum Bonum of our spiritual life. The liturgy is a means towards our inward sanctification and outward transformation. The liturgy is like a raft, a vessel so that we will be able to reach the goal of God’s nearness and proximity. Yet, the Triune God Himself is the Ultimate Goal; and the liturgy is simply the means towards Nearness and Divine Union with Him.

Finally, the liturgy as per Anglican perspective, is a pedagogical and catechetical device for our spiritual instruction. The liturgy incarnates through arts, symbols and music the sublime and profound truths of our Holy Faith. The liturgy portrays in symbols and metaphors the unfathomable mystery of Christ’s Presence in us, with us, and among us His community of lovers—Christ’s own Church. Christ, all throughout His public ministry showed through His inspired words, actions, gestures and silence the Inner Life and the Compassionate Heart of the Triune God. Based on the precedents set by her Incarnate Lord, the Church likewise makes use of symbols, gestures and sacramental acts, rites, silent moments, and spoken words to incarnate and reveal the Blessed Triune God to us: symbol-making and language-speaking humans. The liturgy exhibits, incarnates, and makes manifest the Triune God’s all-pervasive and immanent presence in the cosmos and in our human life.

The Divine Liturgy allows us to participate in the very Life of the Triune God, even while we are yet in this “valley of tears and sorrows”. The majesty exhibited in the liturgy is only a foretaste, a pledge, and a mirroring of our future glory in the coming Kingdom of the Heavens. The semiotic, symbolic and sacramental nature of the liturgy becomes our means of experiencing and touching the very Reality of the Invisible into our visible and ordinary circumstances as human existents. The liturgy is God’s gift to us so we will be enabled to live a life of “reigning with Christ” even while we are still immersed in the ordinary and the commonplace struggles in our life as sinful and frail humans. Why not approach the Lord today by immersing yourself in the blissful experience of the unsearchable riches of Christ revealed in the Divine Liturgy with the community of Christ’s believers in the Church now? “Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us… Therefore, let us keep the Feast.” (I Corinthians 5:7-8). “Come! Taste and see that the Lord is good!” (Psalms 34:8). Come now at the Lord’s invitation and eat from His Table this very day. Amen, a thousand times Amen!

About Prof. Henry Francis B. Espiritu

Prof. Henry Francis B. Espiritu is Associate Professor-VI of Philosophy and Asian Studies at the University of the Philippines (UP), Cebu City. He was the former Academic Coordinator of the Political Science Program at UP Cebu from 2011-2014. Currently, he is the Coordinator of Gender and Development (GAD) Office at UP Cebu. His research interests include Islamic Studies particularly Sunni jurisprudence, Islamic feminist discourses, the writings of Al-Ghazali on tolerance and pluralism, Turkish Sufism and Public Theology. He can be freely contacted at his email address: espirituhenryfrancis@yahoo.com.