Secret Prayers from Pre-Sanctified Liturgy & World Orthodoxy

[Maria]

Father Seraphim Holland posted this over at paradoxis.
His church is St. Nicholas Orthodox Church in McKinney, Texas.
http://www.orthodox.net

Since his post is an excellent explanation of the Secret Prayers from the Pre-Sanctified Liturgy,
I have reprinted it here.

• “O God, great and worthy to be praised, who through the life-giving death
  of Thy Christ hast translated us from corruption to incorruption: Deliver
  thou all our senses from deadly passions; setting over them as a good ruler
  the understanding that is in us. Let our eye have no part in any evil
  sight; let our hearing be inaccessible to all idle words; and let our
  tongue be purged from unseemly speech. Purify our lips which praise thee,
  O Lord. Make our hands to abstain from evil deeds and to work only such
  things as are acceptable unto thee, establishing all our members and our
  minds by thy grace.”

  - The Divine Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts of our
  Father among the Saints Gregory the Dialogist, First Prayer of the
  Faithful, in the first litany after the Litany for the Catechumens

  This is typical of a “secret prayer” that the priest prays during any
  liturgy. Almost all of them are intricately and beautifully theological,
  focus on the incarnation and the resurrection, and are intercessory for the
  people.

  The “secret prayers” are intense prayers in which the priest, whether he be
  unworthy or not, must marshal all of his attention, standing before the
  Lord, and, according to his God given and God demanded role, intercede for
  the people. They are meant to be said silently or in a low voice;
  concentration and compunction is paramount! In some churches, the new thing
  is to say some of these prayers loudly, for the people to hear, even moving
  a microphone to ensure this. I suppose this works for some, but I prefer
  our tradition, because the priest is not teaching during these prayers, or
  thinking of anything else, except to intercede for his people, in the
  presence of God, despite his unworthiness.

  Of course, for the typical sinful priest such as myself, the intense
  knowledge (I will not call it a “feeling”; it is not) of standing before
  the presence of God is not always present, even though God IS always
  present. I am glad we read so much of the Old Testament regularly, such as
  the entire Psalter weekly, and concentrate on it during Great Lent. We live
  in a permissive and casual age, but the Jews were not casual about
  approaching the presence of God! We do it in the Christian Holy of Holies
  at every Liturgy; they did it once a year, and because of our forgetfulness
  and laziness, holy things become too common.

  God has not changed! He is still an unapproachable fire and a blinding
  light, however, in the name of the Son of God, we may approach Him. This is
  a great privilege, especially for the priest, and there are moments when
  the full significance of this privilege, which is possible only because of
  the incarnation of the Son of God, His death and resurrection, is
  understood.

  Today was one of those moments. This particular prayer always shakes me,
  and when I say “Deliver thou all our senses from deadly passions; setting
  over them as a good ruler the understanding that is in us” I tremble,
  because simultaneously I am thinking that this “understanding that is in
  us” is the God-man Jesus Christ and His All Holy Spirit, which take up
  their abode in sinful human flesh and purify it, and also the understanding
  that is natural to man cannot in any way approach God. This natural
  understanding dominates our lives, and makes them mediocre and shows us to
  be liars by our actions, even though we call ourselves Christians and say
  we love God with all of our heart, soul and mind.

  I suppose that this prayer posits another “definition” of salvation – that
  our natural understanding that is in us would be refined and perfected to
  be as the God that chooses to make His abode in us. There is no salvation
  without change, and this change is outlined in this prayer: our senses are
  delivered from deadly passions, we have no part with evil, in other words,
  we are perfected! This is a process that takes place only by grace, which
  is to be in the presence of God, Who is the understanding that is within
  us. We are praying this prayer as we are preparing to partake of the body
  and blood of Christ, bringing Him within us. Therefore , this prayer is a
  profoundly Eucharistic prayer, and the ultimate purpose of the Eucharist is
  the perfection of man, made a god by grace.

  I preach incessantly that salvation is not merely to be forgiven our sins;
  it is the perfection of man. The understanding of this is the most profound
  difference between Orthodoxy and all other religions that proclaim Christ.
  This prayer shows the Orthodox understanding of the Cross, death and
  resurrection – it is bringing us from corruption to incorruption. It is
  absolutely and permanently linked to the defeat of the passions within us,
  and not only the forgiveness of the sins which those passions give birth
  to.

  May God help us all to put off all of our sinful passions and to become
  perfected. May we never forget that this is the holy purpose of our life!

[Barbara]

Thank you for posting this, Maria. I hate to say, though, that after reading what this same priest wrote
on a different site lavishly praising a known homosexual "shepherd" among RocorMp clergymen, I can barely force myself to read what probably is a useful explanation. It was nauseating to me to read that garbage.
Is there another source on the Secret Prayers that you happen to know about ?

[jgress]

I think the phrase is "Balaam's ass", i.e. the story from the Old Testament about a donkey into whose mouth the Lord put a prophecy. The donkey obviously was not a prophet, but the Lord can use anything He wills.

Of course, when Fr Seraphim claims to have these wonderful feelings, we can't tell how much he's being delusional or whether God is really granting him some kind of grace, any more than Protestants or Catholics or those of other religions who claim this or that experience. We can be certain he is not in the True Church, though, because of his church's membership of the WCC.

[Maria]

I think the phrase is "Balaam's ass", i.e. the story from the Old Testament about a donkey into whose mouth the Lord put a prophecy. The donkey obviously was not a prophet, but the Lord can use anything He wills.

Of course, when Fr Seraphim claims to have these wonderful feelings, we can't tell how much he's being delusional or whether God is really granting him some kind of grace, any more than Protestants or Catholics or those of other religions who claim this or that experience. We can be certain he is not in the True Church, though, because of his church's membership of the WCC.

I agree. When I was a Roman Catholic, I remember going to Latin Masses when I was a young child. The silence during those Masses was striking. With all the solemnity, beautiful vestments, smells of incense, and candles, one could feel the mystery and sacredness of the events. However, when the Novus Ordo (NO) Mass came on the scene with the continual liturgical revolutions including agape, clown, beer, and bikini masses, there was no longer any sense of the sacred. It just became a commonly shared meal consisting of the breaking of bread and the sharing of wine. Then came the Charismatic Renewal in which a person was encouraged to speak in tongues and other emotional outbursts.

What Father Seraphim is doing is precisely what the Charismatic Renewal encourages: becoming emotional.

When Priests silently recite the Secret Prayers, yes, those prayers are to call Christ's Priests to be present to the moment at which Christ becomes present and the Holy Spirit changes the Holy Gifts into His Sacred Body and His Precious Blood upon the Holy Altar. It is an awesome event that requires our full attention and complete repentance.

[Maria]

This topic has been moved from Liturgy to World Orthodox.