We Are Ascending: A Practical Guide to Preparing for the Liturgy
Father Mark Leondis teaches how to prepare for Liturgy, and why a priest doesn't say "Good Morning" at the opening of the service
NOTE: This is the second in a four part series based on adult education classes taught at Saint Mark Greek Orthodox Church in Boca Raton, Florida. The previous class was on “Tools vs. Rules” and the additional classes will be added here later. Those classes will discuss the saints and reading the Bible.
Blessed is the Kingdom…
The priest does not greet everyone with “Good Morning.” Nor does he begin the Divine Liturgy immediately by saying “Let Us Pray,” nor simply “Welcome.”
When the Divine Liturgy begins on Sunday morning at Saint Mark Greek Orthodox Church in Boca Raton, Florida, Father Mark stands before the holy altar, lifts the Gospel book, makes the sign of the cross, and says something far more radical.
Blessed is the kingdom of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
What he is doing is proclaiming the arrival of the kingdom of God on earth. This means if what he said is true; if we really are going into the kingdom of God; that leaves us with a huge question. How can you possibly prepare yourself for such a thing?
We all prepare ourselves for those things we believe are important. Many people spend years preparing for their wedding day. They plan for weeks, months and even longer to be able to execute a few hours perfectly. A man might spend months studying for a big job interview. In fact, most people take their preparation for almost every event very seriously.
But when it comes to the Divine Liturgy, the temptation is to wing it. We wake up. We check our phones. We scroll the news. We yell at our kids in the car. We pull into the parking lot, rush through the doors, and suddenly hear, “Blessed is the kingdom.” (Well, that’s assuming we arrive early enough for that.)
Our bodies have arrived. Our minds and hearts are sometimes still in the parking lot or back at the house.
In our four week August adult education series after Vespers, this past week Father Mark tackled this exact problem. How does an Orthodox Christian actually prepare to encounter Christ in the Divine Liturgy?
To begin to answer, we must start with this: Sunday morning does not begin on Sunday morning.
The Compass Needle
There is a temptation to divide our lives into two distinct worlds. There is the church world, which happens on Sunday morning. And then there is the real world, which happens Monday through Saturday.
Orthodox Christianity doesn’t allow for that division. “The Divine Liturgy is connected to everything that happens during the week,” Father Mark taught. “How I speak to my spouse prepares me for the Liturgy. How I treat the person who irritates me prepares me for the Liturgy. Whether I pray... whether I repent... how I use my money, what I watch... prepares me for the Liturgy.”
You cannot spend six days forming your heart in one direction and expect to instantly turn it toward God on Sunday morning.
Father Mark used a helpful image. Think of the heart like a compass needle. Throughout the week, that needle is constantly being pulled by competing magnetic fields: work, anxiety, money, social media, family drama. The needle spins wildly sometimes.
Prayer helps to bring the needle back. Repentance brings it back. Reading Scripture brings it back. Fasting brings it back.
Saint Paul told the Thessalonians to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thess 5:17). This doesn’t mean standing in front of an icon corner for twenty-four hours a day. It means acquiring a direction. When we finally arrive on Sunday morning, we aren’t starting cold. We have been walking toward the altar all week.
Ascension Theology?
Father Mark shared a story about a local, evangelical Protestant pastor from down the street who brought his “worship team” to Saint Mark for a private tour. Father Mark was happy to show them around. The pastor told him he wanted his team to understand something that the Orthodox Church grasps intuitively: “Ascension theology.”
“We’re ascending,” he explained. “We’re always going toward Christ. We’re going toward that holy altar. Our worship is not us-focused. Our worship is Christ-focused... We’re always walking toward that holy altar.”
The Protestant team was stunned by their tour of the Orthodox Church. For them, it was said, church was a speech, a sermon, and a band. For the Orthodox, it is an ascent into the kingdom.
But it’s tough to ascend if you don’t know where you are going. This is why we have to prepare the mind. We have to learn the language of the Liturgy. We need to know why incense is offered, what the Trisagion means, and why the priest says, “Let us lift up our hearts.” That last line is not filler. It is an instruction. Lift your heart. Bring everything you carried into the building upward toward God.
Father Mark suggested doing something simple yet helpful: read the Sunday Epistle and Gospel before you come to church. “Imagine how differently you will hear the Gospel when you already know the story.” (And if you come to Matins, and follow along, you’ll get even more!)
Preparing the Mind vs. the Heart
Preparing the mind is the easy part. Preparing the heart is where the real work happens. You can understand every theological nuance of the Liturgy and still have a heart that is completely unprepared to receive Christ.
Jesus was quite clear. In Matthew’s gospel, he states “If you bring your offering to the altar and there recall that your brother holds anything against you, leave your gift at the altar, first go and be reconciled to your brother.” He connects quite clearly that how we relate to others has an impact on how we relate to God. “You cannot say ‘I love God,’ but will not forgive my brother.’ You cannot say ‘I am going to take communion’ and simultaneously choose to hold onto hate; it just doesn’t work that way,” Father Mark stated.
The Eucharist is communion. It is communion with Christ, communion with His Church, and communion with one another. This requires examining the heart.
Are you feeding anger?
Are you marinating in resentment?
This is where repentance and confession come in. Confession is not a courtroom where bad Orthodox Christians are punished. It is medicine. It is the tool Christ gave us to clean the house of the heart before the Guest arrives.
The Threshold to Sunday
Saturday night in America is often seen as the climax of the weekend. Many people treat Saturday night as their chance to go out with friends, to stay up late and to exhaust themselves. On the other hand, the church sees things differently. Father Mark also thought that we might view Saturday night as a doorway into Sunday.
Does this mean Orthodox Christians cannot hang out with friends or live a life on Saturday night? No! This is not a new set of strict rules; rather it is a matter of space. As Father Mark stated, are you preparing space for what is going to occur tomorrow? Maybe this involves reading the Gospels before bedtime. Perhaps it involves laying out your clothes so the morning is less chaotic. Maybe it simply means getting to bed 30 minutes sooner.
Anticipation changes experience. When you anticipate meeting Jesus Christ, your heart arrives before your body does.
The Purpose of the Fast
Then comes Sunday morning, and the final preparation: the body. Christianity is not a religion simply of the mind. We worship God with our whole person. We stand, we bow, we cross ourselves, we smell incense, we taste the Eucharist.
And we fast. The Eucharistic fast—abstaining from food and drink before communion—is not an arbitrary endurance test. It is not designed to see if you can survive until noon without coffee.
“Fasting teaches the body to participate in our longing for Christ,” Father Mark explained. You wake up hungry. But instead of immediately satisfying that hunger with a bowl of cereal, the hunger itself becomes a prayer. The body begins to say what the soul should be saying: I am waiting to be filled.
“Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4).
When you approach the chalice physically hungry, anticipation peaks. The first thing you receive that day is Jesus Christ.
(Note: Fr. Mark was clear that the young, the elderly, pregnant women, and those on medication should consult their priest and doctor. The Church is a hospital, not a courtroom, and uses wisdom as she cares for the souls of those who have bodies with particular weaknesses.)
Listen to the class yourself:
Protecting the Stillness
When Sunday morning finally arrives, then comes the biggest test: keeping the stillness. In the first ten minutes after waking, what do most of us do? Most likely we pick-up our phones and begin checking our social media, our e-mail, perhaps the news. Three or four Instagram scrolls deep before our feet have ever touched the floor, and now there are fifty different voices in our mind.
No wonder many cannot concentrate during the Divine Liturgy. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the very first thing you hear isn’t the world’s voice but rather God’s?
Father Mark described his own Sunday morning routine with his father-in-law. They drive to church in near total silence.
“I am going to meet Jesus Christ today,” Fr. Mark said, summarizing the one thought we should carry with us. “Not, I have to go to church. Not, I hope Father doesn’t preach too long... I am going to meet Christ.”
If you truly believe that, you don’t just arrive at church. You enter it intentionally. You light a candle. You venerate the icons. You don’t bring the noise of the world into the sanctuary.
You arrive ready to ascend.
When the priest finally raises the holy gifts and says, “The holy things for the holy people of God,” everything snaps into focus. The prayers, the fasting, the Saturday night quiet, the silence in the car—it was all leading to this moment.
When the priest declares, “Blessed is the kingdom of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit,” the people respond, “Amen.” This “Amen” represents the culmination of all your work throughout the week. It says: Yes. This is why I forgave. This is why I fasted. I have come to enter the Kingdom.
Then, and only then does something marvelous happen. Instead of giving you a symbol or a memory, Christ gives you Himself.
Your preparation didn’t make you worthy of receiving such an amazing gift. There is absolutely nothing anyone could do to earn this kind of gift. Your preparation only made you ready to accept His Gift.
A Practical Guide to Preparing for the Liturgy
Based on Father Mark’s class, here are the concrete steps we can take to prepare our minds, hearts, and bodies to encounter Christ on Sunday morning:
Read the Scripture ahead of time: Look up and read the Epistle and Gospel readings for the upcoming Sunday before you arrive.
Learn the commemorations: Take a few minutes to read about the specific saint or feast day being commemorated that weekend.
Reconcile and forgive: Examine your heart for anger or resentment. Reconcile with anyone you have a conflict with before approaching the chalice, utilizing the sacrament of confession as medicine.
Guard your Saturday night: Treat Saturday evening as the doorway to Sunday. Consider ways we can shift away from exhausting, worldly activities and intentionally create space for spiritual anticipation and rest.
Keep the Eucharistic fast: Abstain from food and drink on Sunday morning before Liturgy (consulting your priest and doctor regarding medical or age-related exceptions) to let your physical hunger become a prayer of longing for Christ.
Protect the morning stillness: Avoid the temptation to immediately reach for your phone, check email, or scroll social media and the news when you wake up.
Enter with intention: Don’t just casually walk into the building, and remember even the Narthex is a prayerful place and not really for chit chat. Best practice: arrive early, light a candle, venerate the icons, and pray to transition your mind fully toward the altar.