What practical steps can we take to offer worship that is well pleasing to God?

First: Lift the heart up to heaven where the soul meets the heavenly, and her longing for heavenly life grows. St. John Chrysostom says, “When you open the veil of the sanctuary, have faith that heaven too has opened its gates.”

Concerning worship on the Lord’s Day (Sunday), St. Clement of Alexandria locates the offering of the liturgy in the movements of one’s living spirit and in constant contemplation of the things of heaven, for the purpose of enjoying the glories of the Lord’s resurrection. He says, “He, in fulfilment of the precept, according to the Gospel, keeps the Lord’s Day, when he abandons an evil disposition … glorifying the Lord’s resurrection in himself. Further, also, when he has received the comprehension of scientific speculation, he deems that he sees the Lord, directing his eyes towards things invisible … So is he always pure for prayer. He also prays in the society of angels, as being already of angelic rank, and he is never out of their holy keeping; and though he prays alone, he has the choir of the saints standing with him … And the form of his prayer is thanksgiving for the past, for the present, and for the future as

5 St. Augustine, Lectures or Tractates on the Gospel According to St. John 15.24–25 (NPNF I/7:105–106) amended.

6 St. Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on the Gospel of St. John Book 3, On John 6.29 (LFHCC 43:358) amended.

already through faith present … He is ever giving thanks to God, like the living creatures figuratively spoken of by Isaiah.”⁷

St. Basil the Great says, “‘Adore the Lord in his holy court’ (Ps. 28:2 LXX) … Many assume an attitude of prayer, but they are not in the court because of the wandering of their mind and the distraction of their thoughts coming from vain solicitude. It is possible to consider the court in a still loftier sense as the heavenly way of life. Therefore, ‘They that are planted’ here ‘in the house of the Lord’ which is the Church of the living God [cf. 1 Tim. 3:15], there ‘shall flourish in the courts of our God’ (Ps. 91:14 LXX).”⁸

“‘The voice of the Lord is in power’ (Ps. 28:4 LXX) … ‘The voice of the Lord in magnificence’ (Ps. 28:4 LXX). Magnificence is virtue extraordinarily great. He who performs great actions becomingly, such a one hears himself called magnificent. When the soul is not enslaved by the pride of the flesh, but assumes a greatness and dignity proper to it because of its awareness of its attributes received from God, in this soul is the voice of the Lord. Therefore, they who entertain noble thoughts of God, contemplating sublimely the reasons for creation, and being able to comprehend to a certain extent at least the goodness of God’s providence, and who besides are unsparing in their expenditures and are munificent in supplying the needs of their brothers, these are the magnificent men in whom the voice of the Lord dwells. In truth the magnificent man despises all bodily things, judging them deserving of no account in comparison with the unseen world. No difficult conditions will grieve the magnificent man; nor, in short, will any suffering greatly trouble him, nor will the sins of paltry and contemptible little men move him, nor the impurity of the flesh humble him. He is difficult of access to the humiliating passions, which cannot even look upon him because of the loftiness of his mind.”⁹

Second: The believer knows himself . He knows that he has become a child of God through baptism and that he is a member of the body of the only begotten Son. He is a temple of God, in which the Holy Spirit dwells; so, he converses with the Holy Trinity and practices his worship appropriately, confident in his communion with God.

St. Anthony says, “He who knows himself knows God, he who knows God must worship him as is proper.”¹⁰

Lactantius says, “piety is nothing else than the recognition of God as a parent.”¹¹

7 St. Clement of Alexandria, The Stromata, or Miscellanies 7.12 (ANF 2:545) amended.

8 St. Basil of Caesarea, Homilies on the Psalms 13 (FOTC 46:198).

9 St. Basil of Caesarea, Homilies on the Psalms 13 (FOTC 46:202–203).

10 St. Anthony the Great, The Letters of St. Antony: Monasticism and the Making of a Saint , trans., Samuel Rubenson (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995) 4.15: p. 211.

11 Lactantius, The Divine Institutes 3.9 (ANF 7:77).

Third: The believer knows his mission . Lactantius says, “if any one should ask a man who is truly wise for what purpose he was born, he will answer without fear or hesitation, that he was born for the purpose of worshipping God.”¹²

Fourth: The believer realizes that he is begotten of light . He will not rest in darkness or ignorance. In speaking of the Christian practice of facing the east when praying, St. Clement of Alexandria affirms our new birth in Christ Jesus, the Sun of Righteousness, who dawns upon us: “And since the dawn is an image of the day of birth, and from that point the light which has shone forth at first from the darkness increases, there has also dawned on those involved in darkness a day of the knowledge of truth. In correspondence with the manner of the sun’s rising, prayers are made looking towards the sunrise in the east.”¹³

Fifth: Attention to one’s internal and external purity. St. Clement of Alexandria says, “Woman and man are to go to church decently attired, with natural step, embracing silence, possessing unfeigned love, pure in body, pure in heart, fit to pray to God. Let the woman observe this, further. Let her be entirely covered, unless she happen to be at home. For that style of dress is grave, and protects from being gazed at. And she will never fall, who puts before her eyes modesty … Such ought those who are consecrated to Christ appear, and frame themselves in their whole life, as they fashion themselves in the church (1 Cor. 11:22).”¹⁴

“So it is said that we ought to go washed to sacrifices and prayers, clean and bright; and that this external adornment and purification are practiced for a sign. Now purity is to think holy thoughts … For sanctity, as I conceive it, is perfect pureness of mind, and deeds, and thoughts, and words too, and in its last degree sinlessness in dreams. And sufficient purification to a man, I reckon, is thorough and sure repentance.”¹⁵

Sixth: Commitment to a life of thanksgiving and praise which endows the soul with true joy. St. Anthony says, “When you go to bed with a contented mind, recall the blessings and generous providence of God; be filled with holy thoughts and great joy. Then, while your body sleeps, your soul will keep watch; the closing of your eyes will bring you a true vision of God; your silence will be pregnant with sanctity, and in your sleep you will continue consciously to glorify the God of all with the full strength of your soul. For when evil is absent from man, his thankfulness is by itself more pleasing to God than any lavish sacrifice. To Him be glory through all the ages. Amen.”¹⁶

12 Lactantius, The Divine Institutes 3.9 (ANF 7:77).

13 St. Clement of Alexandria, The Stromata, or Miscellanies 7.7 (ANF 2:535). 14

St. Clement of Alexandria, The Instructor (Paedagogus) 3.11 (ANF 2:290).

15 St. Clement of Alexandria, The Stromata, or Miscellanies 4.22 (ANF 2:435).

16

St. Anthony the Great, “On the Character of Men and on the Virtuous Life” (attributed to St. Anthony) in The Philokalia: The Complete Text, Volume I , trans., G. E. H. Palmer et al., eds., Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain, and Makarios of Corinth (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1979) 170: p. 355.

“You should know that the body’s sufferings belong to it by nature, inasmuch as it is corruptible and material. The disciplined soul must, therefore, gratefully show itself persevering and patient under such sufferings, and must not blame God for having created the body.”¹⁷

St. Clement says, “‘Whatsoever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and His Father’ (Col. 3:17). This is our thankful revelry. And even if you wish to sing and play to the harp or lyre, there is no blame.”¹⁸

“You shall imitate the righteous Hebrew king in his thanksgiving to God. ‘Rejoice in the Lord, you righteous; praise is comely to the upright’ (Ps. 33:1–3), says the prophecy. ‘Confess to the Lord on the harp; play to Him on the psaltery of ten strings. Sing to Him a new song.’ And does not the ten-stringed psaltery indicate the Word Jesus, who is manifested by the element of the decad ? [i.e., number ten which is represented by the letter Iota in the Greek numeral system, and the first letter of the word, Jesus or Ιησούς.]”¹⁹

“The Spirit, distinguishing from such revelry the divine service, sings, ‘Praise Him with the sound of trumpet’; for with sound of trumpet He shall raise the dead. ‘Praise Him on the psaltery’; for the tongue is the psaltery of the Lord. And ‘praise Him on the lyre’ (Ps. 150:3, 5). By the lyre is meant the mouth struck by the Spirit, as it were by a plectrum. ‘Praise with the timbrel and the dance,’ refers to the Church meditating on the resurrection of the dead in the resounding skin. ‘Praise Him on the chords and organ.’ Our body He calls an organ, and its nerves are the strings, by which it has received harmonious tension, and when struck by the Spirit, it gives forth human voices. ‘Praise Him on the clashing cymbals.’ He calls the tongue the cymbal of the mouth, which resounds with the pulsation of the lips. Therefore He cried to humanity, ‘Let every breath praise the Lord,’ because He cares for every breathing thing which He has made. For man is truly a pacific instrument.”²⁰

St. Basil the Great says, “He should give thanks to God, aweful, glorious, and holy, and do nothing in a spirit of contention and vainglory (Phil. 2:3) but for God’s sake and to please Him; ‘for God has scattered the bones of them that please men’ (Ps. 52:6 LXX).”²¹

Seventh: Prayer occurs in the human conscience. St. Basil says, “But we do not rigidly confine our petition to words; nor do we imagine that God requires to be reminded by speech. He knows our needs even though we ask Him not. What do I say then? I say that we must not think to make our prayer complete by syllables. The strength of prayer lies rather in the

17 St. Anthony the Great, “On the Character of Men and on the Virtuous Life” (attributed to St. Anthony) in The Philokalia: The Complete Text, Volume I , trans., G. E. H. Palmer et al., eds., Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain, and Makarios of Corinth (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1979) 72: p. 340.

18 St. Clement of Alexandria, The Instructor (Paedagogus) 2.4 (ANF 2:249).

19 St. Clement of Alexandria, The Instructor (Paedagogus) 2.4 (ANF 2:249).

20 St. Clement of Alexandria, The Instructor (Paedagogus) 2.4 (ANF 2:248).

21 St. Basil of Caesarea, A Discourse on Ascetical Discipline (FOTC 9:35) amended.

purpose of our soul and in the deeds of virtue that extend to every part and moment of our lives.”²²