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| Byzantine priest at Communion |
Here is a very beautiful prayer that can be prayed after receiving Holy Communion - beseeching the God of our personal and communal transformation. Notice the words fire and burn appear a couple of times: "You are fire and burn the unworthy," and "Burn up the thorns of my sins." There are more than a few Christians who love this kind of talk. They have in mind a fiery God who is perpetually in a bad mood and angry with a world he regrets having made. They imagine God reserving his blue flames for those who are not like them. How tiresome. To be sure, God is fiery, but God's only fire is love. I didn't make that up.
"Come Holy Spirit,
fill the hearts of your faithful
and kindle in them the fire of your love..."
Here's the Post Communion Prayer:
O You who give me willingly Your flesh for food, You who are fire and burn the unworthy, consume me not, O my Maker, but rather pass through me for the integration of my members, into all my joints, my affections, and my heart. Burn up the thorns of all my sins. Purify my soul, sanctify my mind; strengthen my knees and bones. Enlighten my five senses. Establish me wholly in your Love.
And what would we look like if our five senses were enlightened by the fire of God's love? And what would we look like if God's fire of love got into even our joints?
