The Sunday Pilgrimage

Finding Peace to Pray to the Lord

Sunday church attendance is the most important single pilgrimage of our lives. We must strive to make the most of it for our transformation and renewal. The struggle to find peace in the house of God can be even more acute, however, for those who are healing from trauma. Time in Church is not meant to be painful, but pleasant, in its way. How can we overcome both triggers and acedia to reap the spiritual benefits?

Today I offer one Beauty First approach to the Sunday pilgrimage to Divine Liturgy. This approach can be helpful for those who feel their Sunday routine is rote and dry, for those who find themselves reluctantly home from an enriching vacation, service trip, or pilgrimage, or for those who find the social environment of Sunday worship challenging by nature.

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First, try to get to the church building as early as you comfortably can—if possible, even before the service begins. It’s ok if you don’t make it, but in general in life if we plan to be on time, we’ll be late. So really strive for a Sunday morning that allows you to arrive early for matins, or hours.

Once you’ve arrived, take time before things get busy to light candles, to greet and exchange a few pleasantries with your friends in the icons, and to get physically acclimated to this sacred place. Let your mind, heart, and body settle into this environment on their own, without force. Move among the icons freely, since the church is still mostly empty.

Second, as the service begins, make your focus the beauty of the church, of the music, of the incense, of the icons. Let yourself look around, stare up, or whatever. Praise God for the beauty of His house. Notice details—patterns, lines, proportions, materials, textiles. Short of lying on your back and staring at the ceiling, allow yourself to take it all in.

O Lord, I have loved the beauty of Your house. Psalm 26:8 (Photo of Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church in Carmel, Indiana by T Hudanish)

Third, once you feel quite at peace with God and with the place, start to pray for the people around you, the ones physically present in church who are praying with you. Remember that everyone has a cross, a sorrow, an illness, a heartbreak, or a regret. If not today, soon. Life is short, and temptations are surely in their future. Ask God to shower them with His mercy. Develop a feeling of empathy toward all.

You may even extend this focus to the people not present in the Church, whether known to you or not, whether near or far, whether friends or rivals. There is war and people are suffering. Hospitals and cancer wards take no holidays, and even on Sunday mornings there are sick people suffering and alone.

Next remember the millions of souls who have passed on beyond this life. Many of them died in pain, or from violence, or with important things left undone or unsaid. They can no longer repent, and many have no one to pray for them. Ask God to be merciful to them and shower them with His grace.

And now comes the fourth and final step, for “In peace let us pray to the Lord.” Now that you have made peace with your brother, you will notice that it feels a bit safer to pray to God, face-to-face, like a friend. And here is where you may find that the real healing happens. Now that you are at the step of Truth, it’s time to be honest with God, to be honest about and maybe even laugh at yourself, or to be honest and cry for your sins, and to be happy—full of the sober joyful sorrow—in His presence. With the above program of preparation, lots of things can now be said between you and God.

The natural path of Beauty—principally praise and gratitude; of Goodness—especially the goodness of empathy for others; and then of Truth—face-to-face communication, honest relationship, synodality and sobornost: this is the way that can help us avoid triggers on a Sunday morning and find that the liturgy is really a step forward in our internal integration and development.

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I don’t follow these steps every time that I go to church, nor do I try to force it when I do follow them. But when I am able to follow this pattern, and when it seems to happen of its own accord, I find that this is a very good pattern towards real transformation.

The pattern corresponds to two great paradigms of learning: Beauty, Goodness, Truth, in a concentric unfolding; and: Purification, Illumination, and Deification—this time, in a sequence of concentric deepening.

Moreover, all of these threefold patterns correspond to the classical Trivium, of Grammar-Beauty, Logic-Goodness, and Rhetoric-Truth.

This threefold way is the way we were meant to learn, and in church on a Sunday morning we are preparing to learn something supremely important—the identity of God, through an intimate, face-to-face encounter with the Risen Lord.

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The threefold way, yes. But there is also an important preliminary step that comes before Grammar, just as was the case in the classical schools which invented the Trivium.

For the first two years of their formal education, young boys in fifth century B.C. Athens didn’t learn anything at all that we would consider as school. Instead, they were taught to master their bodies and attention spans through participation in organized games, wrestling, and team sports. There was no medication prescribed; instead they made a virtue of young boys’ crazy bodily energy and mental bouncing ball zaniness.

The teachers knew that before we can train the mind, we need to get that mind-body connection nailed down, and we need to get our children used to discipline, team work, and respecting the leader. This ensures focus, coordination, and helps with spatial reasoning, too.

So, the pattern which I teach here for healing trauma while standing in church is classical Greek education applied to this holy setting:

1. The Body: Show up to church physically, and without hurry or stress. Note the grace and the special fragrance of the church building.

2. The Beautiful: Praise God for the Beauty of His Church; notice the Grammar of divine-human order, and delight in it.

3. The Good: Practice the goodness of empathy with all men, reminding yourself that we are all co-sufferers in this life; follow the Logic of what it means not to judge or reject a fellow sinner, and the divine logic that we must forgive if we would be forgiven.

4. The True: Having reconciled with your brother, then dare to talk to God in Spirit and in Truth, saying the few simple words from your own heart by which you activate the deepest truth of who you are; let the Rhetoric of Moses fill you, talking to God as to a trusted friend and Father.

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There are other ways to approach the worship of the Church, of course. Some recite the Jesus Prayer, even during liturgy, while others follow along with the words of the liturgical prayers carefully. Some feel that singing along is the key. More and more, people are focusing on the importance of intelligent breathing. But if you arrive early for orthros, or attend vigil the night before, then you can be through this suggested sequence well before liturgy starts, and move on to other ways of praying.

I encourage to you to try this version of the Beauty First way for a few Sundays, and let us know what you find. May we receive the spiritual grace and nourishment we need in anchoring our lives around the Sunday pilgrimage.