I came across this nice piece and thought about our many attendees who are of the Roman or Latin tradition and who will be introduced to a new translation of the Novus Ordo Liturgy this Sunday. This also dovetails nicely with our recent program on Feasts of the Jews.
In the Extraordinary Form, the West retains the Psalms of Assent and many of the older generation will remember with fondness the opening words of the Mass: Introibo ad Altare Dei . . .
Psalm 42: Judge me, O God, and distinguish my cause from the
nation that is not holy: deliver me from the unjust and deceitful man.
For thou art God my strength: why hast thou cast me off? and why do I go sorrowful whilst the enemy afflicteth me?
Send forth thy light and thy truth: they have conducted me, and brought me unto thy holy hill, and into thy tabernacles.
And I will go in to the altar of God: to God who giveth joy to my youth.
To thee, O God my God, I will give praise upon the harp: why art thou sad, O my soul? and why dost thou disquiet me?
Hope in God, for I will still give praise to him: the salvation of my countenance, and my God.
I hope all will enjoy this well prepared article.
In the Old Covenant economy, the Jewish people would come into the
presence of the Creator in a special way through pilgrimages to the
temple in Jerusalem for high holy days such as Yom Kippur. To worship at
the Temple was the paramount way of worshipping the Creator. The Temple
offerings of animal sacrifices, incense, wheat, wine and oil all were
given to the Creator, especially on high holy days that celebrated the
mystery of the Jews’ salvation, which were accompanied by Jews not
native to Jerusalem making a pilgrimage to the Temple. On this
pilgrimage from other parts of Jerusalem, special Psalms from among the
Psalter (specifically Psalms 119-133, LXX) were especially appropriate
for singing along the journey. These songs of ascent speak of a journey
up to the mountain of Jerusalem. Incidentally, in the Byzantine
Tradition, these same Psalms make up the typical Kathismata for Friday
Evenings, which is a fitting parallel to mark the start of the Sabbath.
As Christ came to bring the kingdom of God and fulfill the ancient
prophecies, the geographical locus of the kingdom was shown to be
ultimately within the hearts of those who call upon His name, and was
not dependent upon Jerusalem or any other city, as Christ Himself noted
in John 4. Thus, every synaxis of the people of God in every city would
culminate in God’s presence that is not bound by location, but is
instead made manifest by the sacrifice of Praise which brings the
Eucharistic Presence of Christ to His people on Earth.
Despite the lack of strict geographical focus in the Christian age, in
the historical and cultural context of the Byzantine Empire, there was a
similar journeying, which was exhibited in the stational aspect of the
liturgy. Antiphons and troparia would be sung at chapels and churches
that people visited as part of a journey, which culminated in arriving
at the temple wherein the Eucharist was to be celebrated on the
particular day. People would join in this stational procession as the
crowds of the clergy and faithful approached their homes. The worship
would culminate at the cathedral or parish church with the most
relevance to the feast of the day. Along this road, antiphons, litanies
and troparia gave the theological and liturgical context to the feast of
the day. By singing “Come let us worship and bow before Christ”, the
faithful on the journey would realize the reason why they were making
this procession. The antiphons were therefore an integral part of the
journey to the New Jerusalem, just as was done with the Psalms of Ascent
to the Old Jerusalem.
In our day and age, so many distinctions would appear to separate us in
our cultural context from these ancient societies described above. Our
parish liturgical life begins and ends in the same building on the
typical Sunday. There is no corporate journey to worship God that brings
the faithful to multiple sites en route to the final destination of the
day. Regardless of the lack of physical motivation in a stational
liturgy or a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, which justifies the enarxis, there
is still the needed spiritual (re)alignment of the heart that shows
that the enarxis is needed today. Our hearts need to receive the context
and significance of what we are about to do in the liturgy. The enarxis
is critically important for our hearts then, because there are so many
distractions afforded by the luxury of modern life, and the enarxis
calls us to that reality. We are called to realize the presence of the
Kingdom of God at the beginning of the Liturgy, when the celebrant
proclaims that the Kingdom of the Father, and of the Son, and of the
Holy Spirit is blessed. The first litany is that of peace, recalling our
need for peace and quiet, as well as opening our hearts to ask God to
give ourselves and others his mercy. The antiphons themselves sing of
our call to worship God, and can also remind one of the feast that is to
be celebrated that day, which flows together with what is sung at the
troparia and kontakia. The Trisagion is a pinnacle of realizing our call
to celebrate the heavenly reality as well as the feast of the day, as
we leave our human songs of praise to God from the Psalter or the
inspired hymnographers, which describe our need to come and worship God.
As we sing the Trisagion we leave the earthly perspective of praise,
and join together with the heavenly choirs by proclaiming, “Holy, Holy,
Holy”. To immediately enter the angelic choir without the right
perspective would be jarring, for we so often live in neglect of this
heavenly reality. Even worse, to observe the Holy Anaphora without
aligning our hearts with the invisible realities that escape so many
people today, we would but earn our condemnation. By instead preparing
to enter into the Holy Presence of God by reminding ourselves of the
eternal Truth through the enarxis, we cast aside our distractions and
modern worries and receive the same mystical vision which Elisha asked
for on behalf of his servant (2 Kings 6:16-17).
The enarxis serves to clam our hearts and open our eyes to the
heavenly hosts who are in awe of the Divine Presence, who comes to us
mystically through the Holy Eucharist. These are the cultural elements
and context that reinforce that the enarxis is not only relevant today,
but is if anything more relevant than the previous centuries such as
those of the Jewish ascent to Jerusalem and at the peak of the Byzantine
Empire. Because of this, the Byzantine Churches must not lose sight of
the importance of this liturgical expression of faith. May God grant us
eyes to see, as He once did to Elisha’s servant.
http://prayerofsaintephrem.wordpress.com/2011/11/22/come-let-us-worship-and-bow-before-christ/?mid=535
