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The Liturgy of Praise in the Book of Revelation and in the Church Today
Father Matta El-Meskeen (Matthew the Poor)
This article justifies the traditional rites and practices in church worship utilizing the Book of Revelation as a superlative example.
Anyone who reads
the Book of Revelation carefully finds before him a detailed heavenly picture
of all the different kinds of liturgical rites that accompany the prayers and
praises offered in the church every day, along with the eucharistic mystery. He
sees white robes, censors, incense, and a burning coal on the altar, golden
crowns, candlesticks, an altar and "a lamb as it had been slain,"
cherubim, archangels, angels, heavenly powers, twenty-four elders and the hosts
of redeemed, general and particular praises and responses and hymns of
rejoicing, lyres, prostrations, new names and crowns and consolation in no
small measure.
Among the things they say to God in heaven is, "Who shall not fear and
gory thy name, O Lord? For thou alone art holy" (Rev. 15:4,) which shows
that nature is compelled to glory God at the revelation of his holiness.
When the glory of God is revealed, it is impossible for any of his creatures to
stand silent before him. "And I heard every creature in heaven and on
earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all therein, saying, 'To Him who
sits upon the throne to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever
and ever'" (Rev. 5:13.)
And when the whole creation cries to the glory of God, the four living
creatures (who are responsible for the created beings) say, "Amen"
(Rev. 5:14.)
Is not this a wonderful heavenly picture of the Church singing praises in all
its liturgical services, when the worshippers sing in response to each other,
"Holy, holy, holy, Amen Hallelujah?"
And when in olden times the churches went to great lengths to secure the relics
of the martyrs in order to build their altars over them, was it not a picture
of the heavenly truth which we are now explaining and whose seals we are
opening? "I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for
the word of God and for the witness they had borne" (Rev. 6:9.)
For just as the heavenly altar is borne upon the souls of the martyrs, so the
altar in the church is borne upon the same witness, and the blood of the
martyrs is a living part of the liturgy of prayer.
Even the teaching of the Church that there is a true participation with us by
the angels and the spirits of the saints in all the liturgical services,
prayers and praises, and that they stand around the altar, is clearly borne out
by the Book of Revelation, when the glorious sight of the angels serving before
the throne side by side with all the souls of the just made perfect was
revealed to John (Rev. 5:11.)
So, the church does not follow invented fables!
Nor the rules and rites and teachings of men!
Nor some forms of Judaism, including the remains of supererogatory acts of
worship!
The Book of Revelation stands as an eternal witness to the spirituality of
all the principles and types of liturgy and sets an eternal seal on its
prayers, its praises, its incense, and its sacrifice.
It declares and bears witness that the traditions of prayer, praise and service
given by Christ to the disciples, and the order and system received by the holy
apostles under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, are eternal and not subject
to time. They are based not on symbols, but on realities, which we shall
continue to live even in the next life, when each of us will take his rightful
place around the divine throne and be taught the mystery of angelic praise, so
that we may serve the same liturgy, perhaps even in the same words, but in
indescribable glory.
So, it is clear that the work of the Church now is to pave the way, through
daily services and the offering of the Eucharist, for the revelation of the
Kingdom of God. And in these days we carry out mystically our part in the
service of God, as a new creation awaiting the revelation of the coming of
Christ, not in idle longing nor in ineffective hope, but in prayer and praise
every day and every hour.
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