Priest: Blessed is the Kingdom of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, now and forever and to the ages of ages. People: Amen.

With these words, the priest marks the beginning of a wonderful journey into the Kingdom of God, a journey that we undertake every Sunday together with the angels and the saints. If we think of the Church as an airplane, this is the signal for take-off!

The priest, who is the pilot of this airplane, uses the sacred Book of the Gospels as a guiding tool: it contains the very Word of God that instructs us about how to approach our Creator. He lifts up the sacred Book and blesses with it the altar table in the shape of a cross, as he proclaims the Name of the Holy Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

To bless means to make holy. By making the sign of the Cross over the altar table, the priest invokes the descent of the Holy Spirit that sanctifies the place where the Offering is going to be made. Throughout the service you will also notice that the priest blesses the people with the words, “Peace be with all.” We can also bless ourselves by making the sign of the Cross, and we are encouraged to do that whenever the priest blesses us, or when we hear the Name of the Holy Trinity and of the Mother of God.

If the priest is the pilot, we should not think that we are passengers, but rather the crew. We stand at attention, and we give brief and precise responses: Amen, which means “So be it,” Kyrie eleison, which means “Lord have mercy, “ and others that we will discover throughout the year. We express our joy, gratitude and awe by singing beautiful hymns that exalt the Holy Trinity, our Lord Jesus Christ, His Mother—the most holy Theotokos and ever-virgin Mary, the angels and the saints. These are not characters from a book, but rather persons who are present with us in church, inhabitants of the Kingdom of God that takes shape all around us.

First and foremost, the service is dedicated to God, Who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit—the Holy Trinity above all being. The Father is the Source of All: He gave birth to the Son, the Holy Spirit proceeds from Him and He created both the visible and the invisible world (the heavens and the angelic hosts). The Son is the Word of God from all eternity, and He was born as a man from the Virgin Mary and the Holy Spirit in order to save us. The Holy Spirit that proceeds from the Father sanctifies us; He is the giver of blessings, the greatest blessing being life itself.
The Kingdom of God was prepared for those who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ from the very beginning of the ages. In the Kingdom, Christ sits at the right hand of the Father, surrounded by the angels and the saints. They worship the Lord in a never-ending Liturgy, whose beauty surpasses all imagination. This is our final objective, the destination that we want to reach when we depart from this earth.

Each Sunday, we get a taste of that experience by taking a journey into the Kingdom of God during the Divine Liturgy. Not everyone gets the same benefit, though. If we do not know what the Liturgy is about, it appears as an unending repetition of Kyrie Eleisons and archaic ceremonial acts. It’s like watching an in-flight movie without a headset. Understanding what goes on is therefore the first key to unlocking the experience of the Kingdom. The second key is a prayerful participation. It is not enough to know about the prayers, we need to learn how to pray. This knowledge comes with experience—every week we are in church, we get a little better at it, every Sunday we skip church, we fall back and find it harder to enjoy the service.

The third key to unlock the Kingdom is listening to the Word of God in the Scriptures and living according to it.

The fourth and most precious key is to partake of the most holy Body and Precious Blood of our Savior.

We will learn much more about these keys throughout the year.

Amen—so be it!