The Awful Sacrifice

Awful = agheful “worthy of respect or fear, striking with awe”

Sacrifice = sacra “sacred” + facere “to make, to do”

For St. Maximos and the early Christian Church,
the purpose of liturgy was the transfiguration of the world,
not just the moral well-being of believers.
The heart of liturgy is sacrifice,
and the purpose of sacrifice is to make holy.
Liturgy was conceived
(and is presently so understood in the Orthodox tradition)
as the primary work of all people,
and the field of this work was not merely
the horizon of the individual soul, but the whole world.
The Church was embedded in the cosmos
and the cosmos in the Church.
The Church’s mission is, through the Holy Spirit,
who is everywhere present and fills all things,
to bring about the reciprocal transfiguration
of the cosmos and itself as the New Creation.
The responsibility of people on the earth was
–and is–
to liturgize the world,
and by so doing, heal its divisions
in an ecology of transfiguring light. — Vincent Rossi

“Rise, let us be on our way.” – John 14:31

Happy solemn Feast of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ!