Dear Baba,

Help me understand what is happening when we go up to kiss the cross at the end of the liturgy.  Someone is reading prayers but not everyone stays to hear them.  When should I stay and when is it ok to skip the prayers and head into the hall?  Sometimes I see friends I haven’t seen in a while and they aren’t staying for coffee hour so rather than getting shushed in church, we slip out to catch up.

My dear shushed friend, I’m so glad you dropped by to visit with me.  Let me put the kettle on to boil and we can catch up over a nice cup of tea and some goodies and talk about the prayers you are asking about that we call the post-communion prayers.  You know, I received the sweetest little thank you note from your child the other day for the cookies I sent home with you last time we talked.  I believe it is so important to teach your children to make a habit out of showing gratitude.

Showing gratitude takes on many forms.  In some cultures a hearty belch after a meal tells the hosts how much you enjoyed it.  In others a properly written thank you note is the norm.  In some places a reciprocating invitation is appreciated.  But what does God ask of us for the grace, love and salvation He offers to us so generously?

Do you remember the story in the Gospels during Nativity Lent about the 10 lepers who were healed but only one returned to give thanks?  There are so many abundant blessings our Lord bestows up on us and most of the time we seem determined to take them for granted.  Communion is one of the most common I’m afraid.

The prayers read at the end of the liturgy are the prayers of gratitude that are offered after partaking of the life giving Body and Blood of our Lord and Savior.  These gifts are given to us as life itself and the source of our strength.  In the pre-communion prayers we understand that and ask that they be unto life and do not consume us who partake unworthily. If we have communed with Our Lord and Savior, we need to then follow up with the post-communion prayers and tarry for but a few minutes after liturgy and give thanks.  Put simply, if you received communion, you should stay for the post-communion prayers... period. 

It is so easy to fall into complacency about receiving communion.  We may even convince ourselves it is our due.  One of the stories that always made a huge impression on me was that of Arius.  He led quite a heresy in the early centuries of the church.  He was unrepentant despite convincing the patriarchs and emperor otherwise– he felt it was his due to approach the chalice.  He developed quite a stomach ache the evening before his “planned” confrontation at the Cathedral. He secreted himself away to a public toilet seeking relief.  Within moments his entrails exploded out of him.  Of course, this is dutifully recounted in the hymnology of the church.

Now we do not regularly have heretics blowing up in the parking lot after liturgy, but that does not mean we are dealing with something any less powerful than the actual physical presence of Our Lord.  The presence of our Savior burns the unworthy ...”as wax melts before the fire.”  And here is the catch – we are unworthy.  We can never by our own bootstraps pull ourselves up to being worthy.  But at the same time, that also doesn’t mean we don’t make the effort of shedding all the unnecessary baggage we drag along either. How’s that for a nice pickle to be in?  What can we do?  Do we give up and just assume we’ll never be worthy?  Oh no my dear, not at all.

We do our part.  We prepare, we repent and turn our lives Godward.  We go to confession and we pray.  We attend the services and over the course of the liturgy, with greater and greater focus and purity of heart we draw closer to the absolute pinnacle of the service – communion [the Holy Eucharist...which means ‘thanksgiving’ in Greek!]  And then we pause and give thanks with our brothers and sisters in Christ and participate in the Postcommunion prayers.

Where we could not make ourselves worthy on our own, God does for us.  He meets us on the road just as the father met the prodigal son who had come into his right mind and was returning home.  His light shines into all the dark cavities of our hearts and rather than blowing us up, He takes residence in the temple that is our body.  He prays in us and through us.   What incredible healing blessings come from that.!! As Metropolitan Jonah warned in his talk, once the power and light of God is let loose in us, we will indeed feel it.  All the delusions, sins and darkness that cake the walls of hearts will be purged clean – in bits, pieces and chunks.   And through it we grow closer to God.   He so loves His fallen creation that He pulls us closer and heals us and makes His light to shine in us – if only we’ll let him. 

This is the active process of salvation.  It has become the rather anecdotal question “Are you saved?”  Let me point out an interesting thing in the grammar of the liturgical tradition of the Orthodox Church.  Throughout the services we pray “Save Us, O Son of God” except in the joyful hymns sung after communion.  When we sing “We have seen the True Light…” we say the words “for He hath saved us.”  It is past tense.  It is accomplished in God’s timeless glory.  Our salvation is in uniting ourselves to Christ and that is truly what happens when we approach the Chalice.  We taste the fountain of immortality.  What a gift freely given by our loving Lord and experienced in the liturgy where heaven and earth are joined in worship.  Uniting ourselves to God is after all our purpose in life.  How very appropriate then that we tarry just a few minutes to join in offering the Post-communion prayers of thanks for this most profound gift.  Your friends I’m sure can wait that very short time as can that cup of coffee.

With enveloping hugs;

Baba