Words of wisdom from Archimandrite Zacharias

We said that the Liturgy is the fulfilment of the commandment of the Lord: “This do in remembrance of me” (Luke 22:19, 1 Cor. 11:24). When we come to celebrate the Liturgy, because we are fulfilling the commandment, the mystery of the Cross is at work, and we receive grace. When we remember in this way, when we have anamnesis of all the benefits of God, whether manifest or hid, whereof we know or we know not,1 when we remember all His benefits, this sense of gratitude again softens the heart and brings grace. Through this grace we enter into eternity, this grace is eternity, and through this grace we become contemporaries of those events, and able to say “today” at every feast...

Holy remembrance of the wondrous works of God softens man’s heart and fills it with sentiments of gratitude. Gratitude brings an increase of God’s charisms in man and leads him to the perfection of “an honourable disposition” (philotimia), an honest endeavour according to God. It inspires him to prayer and glorification of God, and gives birth within the soul to dispositions and streams of divine love, which are stronger than sin and death. The remembrance of God’s works is not a psychological exercise, and it is not made in order to serve psychological needs, not even the most noble of these. The “wonderful works of God” (Acts 2:11) that we bring to mind are eternal events, wrought by the operation and grace of God; and when they are brought to mind in a spirit of thanksgiving and grateful confession we become partakers of the creative grace and work of God. They prepare us and lead us into a greater fullness of the divine love.

~ Excerpted from The Englargement of the Heart available in the St. Tikhon's Monastery bookstore