"What Are You Doing, O Man?"

As a postscript to my post “I Promise to Get You Out of Here…”, here is an excerpt from a sermon by St. John Chrysostom (hat tip: Eric Obermeyer):

St. John Chrysostom, “about those who forsake the divine assemblies, and about those who occupy themselves with secular matters and vain talk during the time of the Dreadful and Mystical Table,” in Gus George Christo (trans.), Homily 9 on Repentance and about Those Who Have Forsaken the Assemblies, and about the Sacred Table and Judgment, _On Repentance and Almsgiving_ [The Fathers of the Church, Vol. 96], Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1998, pp. 127-128:

“What are you doing, O man? When the priest says: ‘Let us lift up our mind and our hearts,’ why do you not affirm and say: ‘We lift them up to the Lord’? You are not afraid? You are not ashamed of being found a liar at this terrible moment? Bless me, what a wonder! The Mystical Table is prepared, the Lamb of God is sacrificing Himself for you, the priest is struggling on your behalf, spiritual fire is gushing forth from the undefiled Table, the Cherubim are standing by and the Seraphim are flying, the six-winged creatures are covering their faces, all the bodiless powers together with the priest are interceding on your behalf, the spiritual fire is descending, the blood from the Immaculate Side is emptying into the vessel for your purification, and you are not afraid, you do not blush, and you are found a liar at that terrible moment? The week has 168 hours and God set aside for Himself one hour only, and you spend it in worldly and ridiculous affairs and in company? With what boldness do you later approach the Mysteries? With what conscience, since you infected it? I wonder if you would have dared to hold dung in your hands and then touch the hem of the garment of the earthly emperor? Never! Do not see it as bread, neither think that it is wine, for the body does not eliminate them in a toilet like other food. Neither say this nor think it! Just as a burning candle does not leave a trace and nothing remains of itself, likewise believe in this case that the Mysteries are spent inside the body together with its essence. For this reason while you approach, do not think that you partake of the Divine Body from a man; rather, believe that you partake of the Divine Body from the very Seraphim with the fiery spoon that Isaiah saw; and when we partake of the Saving Blood, let us believe that our lips touch the very Divine and Immaculate Side. Therefore, for this reason my brethren, let us not be absent from the churches, and inside them let us no longer occupy our time in conversations. Let us stand with fear and trembling, with our eyes lowered and the soul elevated, with silent sighs and loud shouts of the heart.”

Here is a link to the whole sermon.