The Pre-sanctified Liturgy

In the early Church, when Christians were very few and well “tested,” there existed the practice of distributing the consecrated Gifts to the faithful at the end of the Sunday Eucharist for their daily individual Communion at home; the corporate and joyful Eucharist of the Lord’s Day was thus “extended” to the totality of time and life. This practice, however, was discontinued when the growth in Church membership, the transformation of Christianity into a mass religion, inevitably lowered the spiritual intensity characteristic of the first Christian generations and forced the Church authorities to take measures against a possible misuse of the Holy Gifts. In the West, this led to the appearance of the daily Eucharist - one of the characteristic features of the Western liturgical tradition and piety but also the source of a significant change in the very understanding of the Eucharist. Once the Eucharist was deprived of its “festal” character and ceased to be the feast of the Church, becoming an integral part of the daily cycle, the door was opened for the so-called “private” masses, which in turn altered more and more all other elements of worship. In the East, however, the initial eschatological, Kingdom centered, joyful understanding of the Eucharist was never given up and, in theory at least, the Divine Liturgy even today is not a mere part of the daily cycle. Its celebration is always a feast, and the day of its celebration always acquires a spiritual connotation of the Lord’s Day. As we have stressed time and again, it is incompatible with fast and is not served on weekdays of Lent. Thus, once the daily Communion at home was discontinued, it was not replaced in the East with the daily celebration of the Eucharist, but gave birth to a new form of Communion with the Gifts reserved from the Sunday or “festal” celebration.

It is very likely that at first this “Pre-sanctified” service was not limited to Great Lent but was common to all fasting seasons of the Church. But then, as the number of feasts - major and minor - increased and made the celebration of the Eucharist much more frequent, the Pre-sanctified Liturgy became a characteristic liturgical feature of Great Lent, and little by little under the influence of the Lenten liturgical spirit, of that “bright sadness” of which we spoke, it acquired that unique beauty and solemnity which make it the spiritual climax of Lenten worship.

The service begins with Great Vespers, although the opening doxology is “eucharistic”, “Blessed is the Kingdom of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. . .”and puts the entire celebration in the perspective of the Kingdom which is the spiritual perspective of Lent and fasting. The Evening Psalm (Ps. 104) – “Bless the Lord O my soul. . .” - is chanted as usual, followed by the Great Litany and the 18th portion or kathisma of the Psalter. This kathisma is prescribed for every weekday of Lent. It consists of Psalms 120-134, called “Songs of Degrees.” They were sung on the steps of the Temple of Jerusalem as a processional - as the song of the people assembling for worship, preparing themselves to meet their God: “I was glad when they said unto me, let us go into the house of the Lord...” (Ps. 122:1) . “Behold, bless ye the Lord, all ye servants of the Lord, which by night stand in the house of the Lord. Lift up your hands in the sanctuary, and bless the Lord. The Lord that made heaven and earth bless thee out of Zion” (Ps. 134).

While these Psalms are chanted, the celebrant takes the consecrated Bread preserved from the previous Sunday and places it on the paten. Then, having transferred the paten from the altar to the Table of Oblation, he pours wine into the chalice and covers the Gifts as is usually done before the Liturgy. It is noteworthy that all this is performed with the priest “saying nothing.” This rubric stresses the pragmatic character of these actions, for all Eucharistic prayers have been said at the Sunday Eucharist.

After the Entrance and the evening hymn “O gladsome radiance. . . ,” the two appointed Old Testament lessons from the Books of Genesis and Proverbs are read. A particular rite accompanies the reading, taking us back to the time when Lent was still centered on the preparation of the catechumen for Baptism. While the lesson from Genesis is read, a burning candle is placed on the Book of the Gospel on the altar, and after the lesson the priest takes the candle and the censer and with them blesses the congregation, proclaiming: “The light of Christ illumines all men.” The candle is the liturgical symbol of Christ - the Light of the World. Its being placed on the Gospel during the reading of the Old Testament signifies that all prophecies are fulfilled in Christ who opened His disciples’ minds “that they might understand the scriptures.” The Old Testament leads to Christ just as Lent leads to the baptismal illumination. The light of Baptism integrating the catechumens with Christ will open their minds for the understanding of Christ’s teaching.

After the second Old Testament reading, the rubrics prescribe the singing of five verses from the Evening Psalm (Ps. 141) - beginning with verse 2: “Let my prayer be set before Thee as incense . . . .” Since Psalm 141 was already sung at its usual place - before the Entrance - one may inquire about the meaning of this second singing of the same verses. One may presume on the basis of certain indications that this practice goes back to the earliest stages in the development of the Pre-sanctified Liturgy. It is probable that at the time when this Liturgy had not yet acquired its present solemnity and complexity but consisted simply in the distribution of Communion at Vespers, these verses were sung as the Communion hymn. Today, however, they form a beautiful penitential introduction to the second part of the service - the Liturgy of the Pre-sanctified Gifts.

This second part begins with the Liturgy of the Catechumens - i.e., a set of special prayers and petitions for those who are preparing themselves for Baptism. At “mid-Lent” - on Wednesday of the Fourth Week - special prayers and petitions are added for the photizomenoi - “those ready for illumination.” Once more the origin and the initial character of Lent as preparation for Baptism and Easter are stressed.

The catechumens having been dismissed, two prayers introduce the “Liturgy of the Faithful.” In the first, we ask for the purification of our soul, body, and senses:

Let our eyes have no part in any evil sight;
Let our hearing be inaccessible to all idle words;
Let our tongues be purged from unseemly speech;
Purify our lips which praise Thee, O Lord;
Make our hands to abstain from evil deeds
And to work only such things as are acceptable unto Thee,
Strengthening all our members and our minds by Thy grace . . . .

The second prayer prepares us for the Entrance of the consecrated Gifts:

For behold, His most pure Body and His life-giving Blood, Entering at this present hour,
Are about to be spread forth upon this mystical altar,
Invisibly escorted by a great multitude of the heavenly host.
Enable us to partake of them in blamelessness,
That the eyes of our understanding being enlightened thereby,
We may become children of the light and of the day Through the gift of Thy Christ . . . .

Then comes the most solemn moment of the whole service: the transfer of the Holy Gifts to the altar. Externally this entrance is similar to the Great Entrance of the Eucharist but its liturgical and spiritual meaning is of course totally different. In the full Eucharistic service, we have here the Offertory procession: the Church brings herself, her life, the life of her members, and indeed that of the entire creation as sacrifice to God, as re-enactment of the one full and perfect sacrifice of Christ. Remembering Christ, she remembers all those whose life He assumed for their redemption and salvation. At the Pre-sanctified Liturgy, there is no offering, no sacrifice, no Eucharist, no Consecration, but the mystery of Christ’s presence in the Church is being revealed and manifested!

It is useful to note here that the Orthodox liturgical tradition, different in this from the Latin practice, has no adoration of the Eucharistic Gifts outside Communion. But the preservation of Gifts as reserved sacrament, used for Communion for the sick and other emergency situations, is a self-evident tradition which has never been questioned in the Orthodox Church. We mentioned already that in the early Church there even existed a practice of private “self-communion” at home. We have thus the permanent presence of the Gifts and the absence of their adoration.

By maintaining simultaneously these two attitudes, the Orthodox Church has avoided the dangerous sacramental rationalism of the West. Moved by the desire to affirm - against the Protestants - the objectivity of Christ’s “real presence” in the Eucharistic Gifts, the Latins have, in fact, separated adoration from Communion. By doing this, they have opened the door to a dangerous spiritual deviation from the real purpose of the Eucharist and indeed of the Church herself. For the purpose of the Church and of her sacraments is not to “sacralise” portions and elements of matter and by making them sacred or holy to oppose them to the profane ones. Instead her purpose is to make man’s life communion with God, knowledge of God, ascension toward God’s Kingdom; the Eucharistic Gifts are the means of that communion, the food of that new life, but they are not an end in themselves. For the Kingdom of God is “not food and drink but joy and peace in the Holy Spirit.” Just as in this world food fulfills its function only when it is consumed and thus transformed into life, the new life of the world to come is given to us through the partaking of the “food of immortality.” The Orthodox Church consistently avoids all adoration of the sacrament outside Communion because the only true adoration is that having partaken of Christ’s Body and Blood, we “act in this world as He did.” As to the Protestants, in their fear of any “magical” connotation, they tend to “spiritualize” the sacrament to such an extent that they deny the presence of the Body and Blood of Christ outside the act of Communion. Here again the Orthodox Church, by the practice of reserving the Holy Gifts, restores the true balance. The gifts are given for Communion but the reality of Communion depends on the reality of the Gifts. The Church does not speculate on the mode of Christ’s presence in the Gifts. She forbids the use of them for any act other than Communion. She does not reveal, so to speak, their presence outside Communion, but she firmly believes that just as the Kingdom which is yet to come is “already in the midst of us,” just as Christ ascended into heaven and sits on the right hand of the Father yet is also with us until the end of the world, the means of Communion with Christ and with His Kingdom, the food of immortality, is always present in the Church.

This theological footnote brings us back to the Pre-sanctified Liturgy and the “epiphany” of the consecrated Gifts which constitutes its solemn climax. This “great entrance” developed from the necessity to bring forth the consecrated Gifts which at first were kept not on the altar but in a special place, sometimes even outside the Temple. This transfer would naturally acquire a great solemnity for it expresses liturgically the coming of Christ and the end of a long day of fasting, prayer, and expectation, the coming of that help, comfort and joy for which we have been waiting.

Now the powers of heaven with us invisibly do minister, For lo! the King of Glory enters now. Behold the Mystical Sacrifice, all accomplished, is ushered in. Let us with faith and love draw near, That we may become partakers of life everlasting.

Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia.

The Holy Gifts are placed on the altar and then, preparing ourselves for Communion, we ask that

all our souls and bodies be hallowed with the sanctification which cannot be taken away; that partaking with a pure conscience, with faces unashamed, with hearts illumined, of these Divine consecrated Gifts, and being quickened through them, we may be united unto Christ Himself . . . who has said: “whosoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in him”... that we may become the temple of the Holy and adorable Spirit, redeemed from every wile of the Devil ... and may obtain the good things promised unto us, with all the Saints . . . .

Following this is the Lord’s Prayer which is always our ultimate act of preparation for Communion, for being Christ’s own prayer, it means that we accept Christ’s mind as our mind, His prayer to His Father as our prayer, His will, His desire, His life - as ours. And then Communion begins while the congregation sings the Communion hymn: “O taste and see how good the Lord is!”

Finally, having completed the service, we are invited to “depart in peace.” The last prayer summarizes the meaning of this service, of this evening Communion, of its relation to our Lenten effort:

O Almighty Lord who has made all created things in Wisdom, and by Thine inexpressible Providence and great goodness has brought us to these all-holy days for the purification of body and soul, for the controlling of carnal passions, and for the hope of the Resurrection; who during the forty days didst give into the hand of Thy servant Moses the Tables of the Law . . . enable us also, O Good One, to fight the good fight, to accomplish the course of the Fast to preserve inviolate the faith, to crush under foot the heads of invisible serpents, to be accounted victors over sin, and to attain uncondemned and adore the Holy Resurrection . . . .

By then it may be dark outside, and the night into which we must go and in which we have to live, to fight, and to endure, may still be long. But the light which we have seen now illumines it. The Kingdom, whose presence nothing seems to reveal in this world, has been given to us “in secret”; its joy and peace accompany us as we get ready to continue the “course of the Fast.”