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Lex Orandi Lex Credendi, Est |
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Written by Fr. Christopher Metropulos
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This old Latin
phrase, meaning "the rule of prayer is
the rule of faith", has been used for centuries by the Church to tie how we
pray and worship to what we declare we believe. But why are these two areas of
faith tied together? Does it really matter?
The way we pray is profoundly affected and shaped by what we believe. And what
we believe is informed and shaped by how we pray. This is the way of the
Christian faith precisely because we hold that faith and works are always
intimately joined together.
That means that how we pray and worship when we come together as a body of
believers, as Church, reflects our doctrine and displays our faith. That's why
we Orthodox don't "reinvent the wheel" every Sunday, but practice the Divine
Liturgy, the time-tested pattern of worship that has remained faithful to the
fullness of Christian worship, joining with the angels before the Sapphire
Throne.
Don't forget that the word "liturgy" comes from a Greek word meaning "the work
of the people." Each time we gather as the Church to worship and pray, this
worthy "work" is another opportunity for us to make visible that which we say
we truly believe. That's why it matters as much how you pray as what you pray.
We pray, never alone, but in the company of all the faithful followers of our
Lord since the beginning of time. We never pray "by ourselves."
This attitude about worship flies in the face of the prevalent modern emphasis
on worship as entertainment. Orthodox worship is focused on adoring God alone,
in contrast to the apparently self-centered "seeker sensitive" religious acts
of contemporary popular religion.
But does this pattern of worship and prayer have to be uniform? Well, yes and
no. We Orthodox have a history of unity in the midst of diversity, not slavish
uniformity. While our worship has an identifiable pattern, there is much room
for local expressions of prayer and piety, all completely faithful to the
fullness of Holy Orthodoxy.
The overall pattern of worship consists of the service of the Word and the
Eucharist.
The Service of the Word, the initial part of timeless Christian worship,
focuses on the reading of scripture, preaching, and singing spiritual songs to
tie us into the scriptural focus of that particular service. The troparia and
kontakia, the hymns of the day, focus our attention on the spiritual lessons
found in the lives of the heroes of the faith we remember on a given day. The
readings from the Epistles and the Holy Gospel allow us today to sit at the
feet of the Apostles and even our Lord Himself and be instructed by these
Spirit-breathed words of wisdom. The preaching of the Gospel and the
declaration of the faith in the Creed round out the Service of the Word and
lead us to the second part of timeless Christian worship.
In the Service of the Table, the Eucharist, the faithful enter into the most
intimate aspect of divine worship. Here we watch as the Bread and Wine of the
Holy Eucharist come from the altar and are walked through the congregation as
Christ Himself is "invisibly escorted by the hosts of heaven." Christ comes
among us in the mysteries of Bread and Wine, the stuff of this world, and will
soon become for us "real food" and "real drink," the kind of food and drink
that ultimately feeds and quenches our deepest hunger and thirst.
This part of the service is reserved only for those who have paid the price to
become the faithful. This is the time where we dare to call upon Him as Father
and say "Our Father...." Then God takes our offerings of Bread and Wine and
ourselves and accepts them on His holy altar, but He doesn't keep them. No, He
has no need for Bread and Wine. He does what He always does with any gift we
offer Him, whether it be bread and wine, money, our time, and even our very
lives: He takes our gifts and fills them up with Himself, and then gives them
right back to us, nourishing us with His very life.
This is the timeless pattern of Christian worship. It is here in the midst of
this kind of worship that we learn how to pray and we watch our lives being
shaped and transformed by this timeless wisdom of prayer.
Fr. Christopher Metropulos
is founder, host, and executive director of the Orthodox Christian Network
(OCN) and the Come
Receive The Light national Orthodox Christian radio program (www.myocn.net). He is
pastor of St. Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church of Fort
Lauderdale, Florida,
where he and his wife Georgia are raising their six children.
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