I was getting ready for church when I was hit with sudden feeling of nausea, as hunger hit in a big way. In the past sixteen hours I had (somewhat foolishly) eaten only popcorn and a small piece of beef jerky, and I had put in an extra hour of work during the graveyard shift. My body was having none of it.

Having taken the time this morning to prepare a pot roast and veggies for the crock pot, and put the ingredients for a loaf into the breadmaker, I was already running late. Now, in order to avoid feeling worse, I was going to have to eat something, and at this rate I’d get to church with a half-hour to spare without even being able to take communion.

So I decided to stay home instead. I lit candles, said morning prayers, and put on a CD of chant music. It was a nice quiet morning, and I’m feeling better now, but you know…it really stinks to have to miss church.

It’s been three years and two parishes since my first experience of the Divine Liturgy, and it is as wonderful and overwhelming now as it was then. Earlier this week on his blog, Fr. Stephen posted this quote from Archimandrite Zacharias about the nature of prayer and worship:

The Divine Liturgy is worship; there is prayer and a whole life there, the life of Christ. In the Holy Eucharist, we accomplish the exchange of our limited and temporal life for the unlimited and infinite life of God. We offer to God a piece of bread and a little wine, but in that bread and wine, we place all our faith, love, humility, expectation of Him, all our life. And we say to God, ‘Thine own of thine own, we offer unto Thee in all and for all.’ We offer to God all our life, having prepared ourselves to come and stand before Him and do this act. And God does the same: He accepts man’s offering and He puts His life – the Holy Spirit – in the gifts, transmaking them into His Body and Blood, in which all the fullness of Divinity is present, and He says to man, ‘The Holy things unto the holy.’ God accepts our gifts and fills them with His life, and He renders them back to us.

How blessed I am to have found the Church. Lord, have mercy on me.