Liturgical Preparation

Before Divine Liturgy begins, preparations are made. Holy bread used in the sacred service is baked by trained members of the church. There is a special recipe and a special seal placed upon the bread. During the liturgy, the priest cuts the bread in a specific way and says prayers over it. A certain part of the bread is consecrated and through the Holy Spirit, becomes the body of Christ. That is served during communion to the faithful who have prepared themselves with fasting, repentance, and prayer. The remainder of the bread is given to the entire parish at the end of the liturgy. Other preparations are made before the service, as well. Icons, holy pictures of Christ, the Mother of God, and the Saints are decorated for veneration during special feast days. These icons are not worshiped. They are considered “windows to heaven.” They show us Godly people and serve as a reminder of how we should live. Special candles are set out and lit throughout the church year, different colors representing different feast days and the varying seasons of the church. “Everyone baptized into Christ should pass progressively through all the stages of Christ’s own life, for in baptism he receives the power so to progress, and through the commandments he can discover and learn how to accomplish such progression. To Christ’s conception corresponds the foretaste of the gift of the Holy Spirit, to His Nativity the actual experience of joyousness, to His Baptism the cleansing force of the fire of the Spirit, to His Transfiguration the contemplation of divine light, to His crucifixion the dying to all things, to His Burial the indwelling of divine love in the heart, to His Resurrection the soul’s life-quickening resurrection, and to His Ascension divine ecstasy and the transport of the intellect into God. He who fails to pass consciously through these stages is still callow in body and spirit, even though he may be regarded by all as mature and accomplished in the practice of virtue” – St. Gregory of Sinai Volume Four of The Philokalia.