Thank you Fr Peter. This reminds me that when we pray the words, or the equivalent of, Lord come to our aid, Lord, make haste to help us, this too reflects very ancient traditions, as encouraged by St John Cassian the Roman, who advocated this being a frequent prayer to be used by Christians, even outside the Liturgy. The Jesus Prayer reflects it, and the first part of the Hail Mary, like the Jesus Prayer, comes straight out of the words of the Gospels themselves. It is helpful to be mindful of ancient traditions of Christian, and even Jewish worship, (from which it is derived), in our worship today. Sometimes I have noticed that even churches who avowedly have rejected liturgical traditions, end up making up what amounts to their own, sometimes far less good and helpful too ! They can tend to leave out important aspects of prayer and worship that the Bible otherwise encourages. Looking at it in terms of a meal, quite apart from the Holy Communion aspect, which certainly is that, the liturgy provides a balanced diet of all of the elements that are helpful to us. This is the same as the traditions of the Temple and Synagogue worship that we have inherited from our Jewish brothers and sisters. Jesus and the Apostles, would of course have been very used to these latter traditions as active participants. It should be noted that the only aspect that Jesus, the Apostles or the Prophets before them condemned about liturgy, was in merely going through the motions without entering into it in our hearts with love and concern for one another.
Posted on: Mon, 03 Feb 2014 03:20:53 +0000
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