How to Benefit from the Holy Liturgy - Pope Kirillos Scientific Family

The priest holds the chalice in his hands, while he continues
the prayer, saying, "He tasted, and gave it also to His own
holy disciples and pure apostles saying..."
Here the priest moves the chalice gently in the shape of a
cross, from west to east, then from north to south, for we
were strangers separated from God, and by the Blood He
shed on the Cross, He brought us back to Paradise, which
faces eastward, as the Apostle Paul says, "Now in Christ,
you who once were far have been made near by the blood
of Christ" (Ephesians 2:13). Moving it from the north to
the south signifies that we were rejected like the goats on the
north, and by the Divine Blood He took us to the right of
God to be with His accepted and beloved sheep.
On moving the chalice, the priest says, "Take, drink of it
you all, for this is My Blood of the New Testament which
is shed for you and many others. Do this in remembrance
of Me."
The Blood of the Old Testament was the blood of bulls and
goats unable to take away sin, as St. Paul says, "For it is
impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away
sins" (Hebrews 10:4), but the New Testament is established
on the Blood of the Son of God who "Takes away the sins
of the world" (John 1:29).
The Lord Jesus offered His Blood to be given for the
forgiveness of sins. He advises us to partake of it always in
remembrance of His passion and salvation and wonderful
redemption on the Cross.
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