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

valuable gems in it. Ask for the repose of your departed
loved ones, by name. Confess to God that you are a stranger
in this world and one day you will proceed to your real
homeland, as those who have proceeded us in departure.
Then reverently ask God to keep you in His faith until the
end, granting you His peace to complete your struggle.
After completing this part, the congregation responds, "As it
was, so shall it be, from generation to generation and to
the age of ages, Amen."
As the priest witnesses humbly that we are strangers in this
world, the congregation also bears witness that we are
temporal strangers, but infinity and eternity is only for God
who is the same, "Yesterday, today and forever" (Hebrews
13:8), and we are strangers whose, "Life is even a vapour
that appears for a little time and vanishes away" (James
4:14), so they sing the wonderful hymn which implies that
God was from the beginning and shall be forever. "He who
is blessed and omnipotent, the King of kings and Lord of
lords, who alone has immortality, dwelling in
unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see,
to whom be honour and everlasting power, Amen" (1
Timothy 6:15-16). When Moses asked God about His name,
He said, "I am who I am" (Exodus 3:14). It is a Hebrew
expression that means, "Who is and who was", God also
says about Himself , "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the
beginning and the end", says the Lord, "Who is and who
was and who is to come, the almighty" (Revelation 1:18).
We pray at the beginning of the Mass saying, "O Master and
Lord, God of truth, who existed before the ages and
reigning forever" (Anaphora).
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