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October 2021 Going to Church
Further, one must go to church not inattentively.
For, it is always possible that one may go to church not in a way worthy of
praise but rather of condemnation, i.e., by going and not receiving any
spiritual benefit. Approaching the church, you must leave every care and worry
about your affairs at the threshold in order to enter with a serene mind.
Entering the church, you must put on reverence like a garment, remembering to
Whom we are coming and to Whom we intend to address our prayers. Having taken
your place in the church (best of all, the same place each time), you should
gather your thoughts and mentally stand before the face of the omnipresent God,
offering Him reverent worship in body and spirit, with a contrite heart and in
humble reverence. After this, you must follow, without wandering thoughts,
everything that is going on — what is being sung and read in the church — all
the way to the end of the service. That is all! In this way, we won’t be bored
in church, looking here and there and starting conversations, and we won’t be
wishing that the service be over soon. Instead, passing from one prayerful
feeling to another and from one reverent thought to the next, we will be like
those in a fragrant garden, moving from one group of flowers to another.
Saint Theophan the Recluse (1815-1894)
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