Re: orthodox worship

Every One: I went to lunch the other day, the Thursday before I was chrismated. The frien told me that it was very hard for him to leave his old Episcopalean congregation, the friends, the surroundings, the warmth. Yet he felt that he and his wife both had to search out something right for them. He said that Orthodoxy was tough for the first two years. The liturgy, the incense, the various postures of worship. However, the practice made more perfect. He said something very interesting to me, he said, I deepened my faith, but I learned for the first time how to worship., to participate in the entire action and function of a church in worship. He and I both feel that it is a comfort to know that when the liturgy is going you are in the chruch temporal and celestial. You are surrounded by all those that have gone before. The sacrific of the eucharist is not a mere reenactment but the actual sacrific of Christ for us, as if 2000 years have not passed you are there with Christ as he says to you take eat, drink ye all of this. His actual body and blood becomes part of your physical body and his spirit part of yours. Where else in the Christian church can you find that? I ask, does your current evengelical church present you with Christ in person, not just in spirit. I think not. As i have stated before the OC has all 52 cards in the deck, not kust some of them.