The Post-Communion Liturgy:
What Just Happened Here and
What Ought We Do Because of It?
Every time we celebrate the Divine Liturgy a miracle happens. The Uncreated God of the universe lifts us out of time into His Kingdom to commune with Him. The Co-Eternal Father, Son and Holy Spirit invite us and draw us into their midst as adopted participants and sharers by Grace in the Divine Life that rightly and essentially belongs only to Them. And so, as we begin the dismissal segment of the Divine Liturgy, preparing to depart the church at liturgy's end, we sing:
We have seen the True Light! We have received the heavenly Spirit! We have found the True Faith, worshiping the Undivided Trinity; for He hath saved us!
Our wonder at what has just occurred springs from us as worship of the God who is love, and more amazingly, Who loves us, his children who were lost in our sin and are now found by the God who seeks us and saves us. The account of man’s Creation and Fall in human history has been brought to mind. The saving work of God the Father, accomplished through the Incarnation of His Son and completed by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, has healed and reversed that Fall in us by our receiving of the Body and Blood of our Lord, God and Savior, Jesus Christ. And so, our thankful singing continues:
Let our mouths be filled with Thy praise, O Lord, that we may sing of Thy glory! For Thou hast permitted us to partake of Thy holy, divine, immortal and life-giving mysteries. Establish us in Thy sanctification that all the day we may meditate upon Thy righteousness. Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!
In a few moments, the Liturgy is complete. The upcoming calendar is reviewed, with special note being made of the week’s opportunities to “gather as church.” Now it is time to come forward to venerate the Holy Cross and receive the dismissal greeting and blessing. As we do so, the priest intones a triple-glory introduction and the reader begins our final and fitting prayers of thanksgiving for what we have just been given:
I thank Thee, O Lord my God...
To this point, most of us have been familiar with the service. Now, we may not be quite certain what to do. Ideally, we should return to a place in the church where we may pray in our hearts the words that the reader is praying with his lips, until their completion. We should immerse ourselves in the prayers of thanks provided for us by saints whose attentive gratitude may lift and guide our own unpracticed attempts to respond to the miracle of God’s Love that we have just received.
But, if we cannot remain in church in the described fashion, then we should do our best to be thankfully mindful of the miracle of God’s love just given to us, as we quietly and reverently depart the church.
Orthodoxy in America
