Priest Alexandru Lungu
Taking part today at the first Liturgy served with a great emotion by father Laurențiu, I remembered a course from my university studies, a course of pastoral theology, taught by his holiness Teophanus the metropolitan of Moldavia and Bucovina. He told us that from the whole coverage of that educational course he would have been glad for real if we remembered the following urge he had heard from the memorable Bartolomeu Anania. It was an urge addressed both to the young theologians and to the priests who were recently ordained and it sounded in the following way: Never forget the first Liturgy you served, the emotion which pervaded all the corners of your heart. Always turn with your mind to the felt experience when you gave your first great blessing from the Holy Liturgy and in this way you will get rid of the temptation of routine, which unfortunately has showed up lately.’Living this experience I remembered the first Liturgy I served 7 years ago.
The Liturgy is fire and cleans up all the dirtiness of the world. IN the same time it can burn a heart which approaches it recklessly and becomes senseless in what regards this great gift offered to the people. There are priests I saw crying during the Liturgy, priests who were so profoundly deepened in prayer that they seemed taken away with their mind from their body. I also encountered less laudable things in the Holy Altar, jokes between priests, elbows leaned on the Holy Table and others I keep for myself. Priesthood is a great gift but if it is lived chaotically and recklessly it becomes the appanage of many sins and things which can lead to error the souls of people.
Let us keep the emotion of the first Liturgy; it is maybe one of the most elementary things from the biographical sheet of a priest. From there the grace becomes active or we risk to lose it out of carelessness.
