Welcome to Refreshing Bread and our series, “The Mission of the Church Today”. Here is Father Calin Tamiian.

This is Father Calin Tamiian again welcoming you to the series “The Mission of the Church Today”.

We’re going to speak about liturghia. Liturghia is a Greek word that speaks about the praise and the worship that we are due to God. We use the word in English as liturgy both in East and West as a modality to name all those beautiful rituals that we are presenting as we sanctify the people of God. But liturghia goes much deeper than just those rituals and praises that we see in the public marketplace or in our churches. Liturghia is the way in which we exhibit or piety first individually and then as a Community of Faith, as the body of Christ.

And when I speak about piety in my tradition as a Byzantine Catholic priest I merely go to my first image in my childhood of my grandmothers and the women in the villages in the Carpathian Mountains I grew up in. I remember the way in which they entered the church. Everything was so gracious, everything was speaking of a presence in the spirit, and even though often their theology was probably lacking a lot of understanding, their hearts were singing, their body was praising, and their mind was focused on one thing - to give thanks publicly to their presence in the Liturgy, to the deep gratefulness and reverence they had for God. So, liturgy for us needs to start the same way: wherever we are and wherever the Spirit of God brings us to witness to him to proclaim the good news, again it's not just the level of our words and our attitude towards the world, but it needs to come from a deep spiritual life. For that I often remind people if we eat several times a day and sometimes we would like to snack between the meals, do we pray likewise? Because as we need food and water to take care of our bodies we also need the exercise of piety in the praises that we bring to God who is the source and the author of all our lives. For that, what is your practice of liturghia today? How do you praise the one who doesn't need anything else from us, but just a deep heartfelt and bodily expressed thank you.

When I’m thinking of the importance of liturghia, this story comes to mind. It is said that during the Russian Revolution of 1917, there was a group of monks living in a monastery. The commander of the Communist Party in that area decided to make an example out of them. Supposedly the monks were all fat and enjoying a good life. So he thought it would be an easy target to point out to the crowds that really religion has no power. And for that he brought out the crucifix from inside the monastery and asked the monks to spit on it and to step on it if they want to save the lives. An interesting thing happened right there in front of all the people. Under the pressure of such persecution the abbot looked at his brothers and said “Brothers, even though we had lived in the past in no accordance with the world of God, today it's important for us to witness to his presence among us”. And instead of spitting or trampling over the crucifix he bowed down and worshiped it, thus, a beautiful sign of the power of liturghia. This story ends with the fact that each and every single one of those monks ended up dying that day, but they died as Saints. And the Liturgy is the way in which the saints come together to worship and to witness and to work in the vineyard of the Lord every day of our lives.

This is the end of episode 2 in the series “The Mission of the Church Today”. Refreshing bread is a production of the Romanian Catholic Diocese, Eparchy St George in Canton, Ohio. Today's episode was offered by Father Calin Tamiian. Our editing and technical support is cared for by Mr. Raul Botha. Thank you so much for listening.

Music by: Kevin MacLeod ("Evening Melodrama", "Revival", "Runaways")