Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Congratulations with the feast of the Resurrection of the Lord!

Today during the Divine Liturgy we heard only one Epistle reading and one Gospel reading. In past years we discussed these excerpts; therefore let’s talk about something else today. We all pay special attention to the Gospel and, to a lesser extent, the Epistle, but there are also other Biblical texts that are used during the Liturgy, of which we should also take note. The first of such texts that we hear at the Liturgy is Psalm 102 (103). Today let’s focus our attention on it.

This psalm is not the shortest, and thus in our parish, as is the case in many others, it is sung in an abbreviated form. However, may of you are familiar with the text of the whole psalm as it is read fully at the all night vigil (the fifth of the ‘Six Psalms’).

It seems to me that it is not by chance that this psalm is sung at the beginning of the Liturgy. Let’s remember that the Divine Liturgy has different names, and that one of them is the Eucharist, which in Greek means thanksgiving. The main and central prayer of the Liturgy is a thanksgiving prayer of Man to God. It begins with the priest’s exclamation “Let us give thanks unto the Lord,” after which the choir sings “It is meet and right…” At the same time the priest in the altar, in a quiet voice, reads a wonderful prayer in which he, as if from the whole congregation, thanks God for all He has given us: for creating us and our world, for saving us from sin through suffering on the Cross, for opening to us a path to Heaven, and for accepting from us this service, i. e. the offering or sacrifice of bread and wine. We believe that at the end of this thanksgiving, God truly does accept our poor offering, sanctifies it, and changes it into the Body and Blood of Christ. At the end of the service we receive Communion and, naturally, with much gratitude thank God for this!

Having remembered the central idea of the Divine Liturgy, it remains for us to delve into the words of the 102 (103) psalm, so that it becomes clear why we sing this and not some other psalm at the beginning of the Liturgy. The psalm begins with a call to bless the Lord, i. e. to glorify and thank Him, because He has done and continues to do so much for us. This blessing must be done with everything we have within us, that is, from all our soul and heart. The author lists much for what we can and should bless and thank God. Here he talks about how God forgives our iniquities, heals our diseases, crowns us with mercy, renews us, is not angry forever, does not deal with us according to our sins, but on the contrary, forgives us, removes our transgressions as far from us as the east is from the west.

On one hand, this psalm parallels the main thanksgiving prayer of the Divine Liturgy; the main theme of both the psalm and the prayer are thanksgiving to God for all His great blessings. On the other hand, one could think that those blessings about which the author of the psalm writes are fulfilled only in the Divine Liturgy. The second half of the psalm remembers how lowly man is, what a short life he has, how quickly he disappears off the face of the earth. In the Old Testament, people were lost and never received fully those mercies about which we hear at the beginning of the psalm. Only in the New Testament, only after the Cross, only in the sacraments of the Church, and especially in the Divine Liturgy, are the words of this psalm fully and completely fulfilled.
Today let’s remember that all the texts of Holy Scripture used throughout the Divine Liturgy are wonderful and full of deep meaning. Of course, it is difficult when we attend church to put aside all our worldly problems and cares and to concentrate our attention on what is most important, on thanksgiving to God for everything, especially for His death on the Cross and for the Divine Liturgy. The 102nd (103) psalm, which is sung at the very beginning of the Liturgy, wonderfully reminds us of what is most important and calls us to be attentive to this. Therefore, let’s not be late to the service, but on the contrary, come on time and attentively listen to the words of this most sublime psalm!

priest Alexis