I was recently listening to a sermon by Father Daoud Lamey - renowned Coptic Orthodox preacher and the priest of Saint Mark Coptic Orthodox Church of Cleopatra (Heliopolis, Egypt) - when I began listing the many ways in which we take church for granted. Not just as a building, or a body of people, but as a faithful system of support.
Written by Verena Hana
Abouna Daoud Lamey states the following transgressions which many of us engage in against the altar, knowingly and unknowingly:
1. Permissiveness of unpunctuality
2. Indifference while entering the church
3. Carelessness about fasting before Communion
4. Permissiveness of leaving before the liturgy ends
5. Spirit of anger or judgment during the liturgy
6. People who give themselves the absolution to take Communion
7. Competition between the deacons and even the clergy
8. Preoccupation with hymns and rites instead of the spirit of prayer
9. Improper prostration instead of prostration during the liturgy
10. Excessive movement, talking, phone calls, and children moving around
11. Leaving the liturgy and immediately occupying ourselves with worldly matters
12. Dressing inappropriately for the church
13. Thinking Communion is a guaranteed right
14. Receiving Communion having taken foreign teachings that oppose the fear of God
16. Nodding off or zoning out during the liturgy
17. Neglecting the sacrament of Repentance & Confession
18. Attending the liturgy and not much else - lack of activity in various church services
Many of us are guilty of partaking in at least one, if not more, of the aforementioned transgressions, sometimes even subconsciously. I am certainly guilty of committing many items on the list above from time to time. In fact, I am so accustomed to viewing many of these transgressions as "okay"; we all do them, they must be "okay" right?
Wrong. Severely wrong. We have taken the House of God for granted for God knows how long. And we lack the appropriate sense of remorse because we have normalized it.
It's okay to take Communion without confession.
It's okay to take a call during the liturgy; it won't take long, so why not?
Leaving before the end of liturgy? Abouna said everything he needed to say and pray, what are we waiting for?
We have become experts in Self-Justification. Against the One who carried the sins of the world so that we may have hope, joy, life, and a chance at existing freely (free of the rule of the devil). We absolve ourselves of sins we are entitled to bear while the Holy One humbled Himself, bore our image, lived among us, and died to redeem us of our sins. He, the Blameless Lamb, fulfilled the economy of salvation, by sacrificing Himself for our sake.
"O, You, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world, have mercy upon us..."
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