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Holy Spirit is at the centre of Eastern liturgical theology. Every celebration in the East is explicitly understood as a positive action of the Holy Spirit in the Church. The entire sacramental liturgy is centred on an appeal to the Holy spirit, who is asked to acquaint believers with the blessing of which Spirit made Christ the bearer at the resurrection (Romans 8: 11), so that it would be handed on by him to many.^[1] St.Basil says, “Participation in liturgy, leads us to communion with the Holy Spirit; it is within the context of worship that Spirit bestows the knowledge of God.”^[2] This Knowledge of God helps the Church to realize the Mission of God in this world. Thus the worshippers are anointed by the Holy Spirit for the work of the Kingdom of God. The Third person in the Trinity is always animating the Church and humanity as a whole.^[3] The Spirit is in many ways the divine person closest to humans in the economy of God’s relations with them. It is only through the presence of the Holy Spirit a human person is able to know God and enter into the saving reality of God. Eduard Schweizer said, “Long before the Spirit was a theme of doctrine, the spirit was a fact in the experience of the Community.”^[4] According to Eastern tradition the Church took its origin on the day of Pentecost.^[5] St.John Chrysostam said, “Without the Spirit, there is no Church”.^[6]          

Epiclesis – Pneumatology of Liturgy

Epiclesis is the prayer which expresses the presence of the Holy Spirit. The literal meaning of epiclesis is calling upon or invocation. The invocation of Holy Spirit is the solemn affirmation that everything in life that which is positive and good is accomplished by the Spirit of God.^[7] It is the prayer addressed to God to send/descend the Holy Spirit.^[8] The Epicletic prayers denotes that Pentecost may be renewed and ever remain in the Church as a present reality and living experience. The work of the Holy Spirit is well explained in the Epicletic Prayers. The main ideas in the West Syrian Epiclesis are; the Spirit is consubstantial with the Father and the Son; the Spirit enlightens our minds to understand the depths of the divine Wisdom and by the dwelling of the Spirit we are made places of incessant worship.^[9]

Epiclesis – Recalling Pentecost

Epiclesis is the time when the worshiping community is revivified of the presence of the Holy Spirit. It is a sign of the continuous experience in the participation of the divine life of Trinity through Holy Spirit. Thus an extended Pentecost is realized in the life of the Church. It is through the activation of the Holy Spirit that the Church lives and acts in this world.  These prayers in our liturgy are both consecratory and communion epiclesis; consecratory in the sense that it appeals for the transformation of the bread and wine into Christ’s body and blood. Communion in the sense that it appeals for the sanctification of those who receive the mysteries on which Holy Spirit is called upon.  Epicletic prayers are prayers for the re-enactment of Pentecost in the life of the Church. It is to be noted that the first Pentecost was experienced by Mary at the time of annunciation. This Pentecost celebrated in the womb of Mary was incarnative.   Thus Epiclesis is to result in incarnation or deification. In other words the Prayer of Epiclesis is to make us perfect as God (Matt. 5:48). Besides that, by celebrating the Pentecost, the Church celebrates the mission of the Holy Spirit as the communication of new life, life divine to the humankind.

The descent of the Spirit which effects the consecration of the Bread and Wine, is often compared to the descent of fire.  Fire is the symbol of Spirit In early Syriac literature . The aim of consuming fire is sanctification. This sanctification leads to incarnation, in other words deification. The mystery that occurred at the moment of the incarnation and the mystery that occurs at the epiclesis in the Eucharistic Liturgy are seen throughout all Syriac tradition as intimately connected.^[10] Further it leads to the establishment of the church, as the priest prays for the communicants, so that they produce good fruits and deeds for the benefit of the Church, and for the soundness of their body, mind and soul.  This is not for the wellbeing of the faithful and the Church, but to the very being of the church. The Spirit sanctifies the faithful, and thus confirms the Church.

The realization of Salvation in the church is in Holy Spirit.  Jesus already fulfilled the economy of salvation in his earthly life by the salvific events, but the realization of salvation in each person is fulfilled by the coming of the Spirit. Epicletic prayers lead to this realization of salvation in the life of the Church. This salvation is to be made “contemporaneous” to be conceived by the Church. What Christ has once fulfilled and what is to be happened at the second coming of the Christ is made present to help us to experience is by Holy Spirit. Thus Holy Spirit makes “contemporaneous” the Christ event.^[11]  The mission of the Church is done upon this contemporarisation. The Church as a community of the new covenant confidently invokes the spirit, that it may be sanctified and renewed, led into all justice, truth and unity, and empowered to fulfill its mission in the world.^[12]

Pentecost event is the celebration of the Holy Spirit in the life of the church. The same Spirit who was active throughout the salvation history was then poured out into the community of new covenant of God. It was the event which triggered the missionary church into action. The ‘Great Commission’ of Jesus derives its meaning and power wholly and exclusively from the Pentecost event. It is said that after Creation and Incarnation the outpouring of the Spirit is the third great work of God. The epiclesis as a prayer denotes that Pentecost may be renewed and may ever remain in the church as a present reality and living experience.

Epiclesis in the daily life of the faithful

The biblical and theological basis of the Epicletic prayers proves that the Epicletic prayers are not static expressions in liturgy. They are vibrant and rich in the potential they pose for the daily activation of the Church. Epicletic prayers are not only the summit of the sacramentaries but also the locus of ‘liturgy after liturgy’. Epicletic prayers are in fact the mission mandate being recalled in the daily life of the Church. Mission of the church is done through the ‘Epicletic life’ of the church. When the Church prays for the coming of the Spirit it is a call for the church to draw near, to open up to and become aware and activated by the Spirit.  When the church prays epiclesis, the church is called back to the sacred duty of interceding for the world as the Spirit intercedes for us according to the will of God (Rom. 8:27) and witnesses with our spirit that we are God’s children (Rom. 8:16). Epicletic life of the church is a movement of the koinonia in vertical and horizontal directions. The church is to move towards God and at the same time to move towards the world. Through the Spirit the pneumatised human becomes a creator of life, justice and beauty and acquires authentic Christian liberty that of a human filled with the Spirit, who does not fear either life or death.

By Rev. Johnson M John

It was during my college days I overcame the illusions created by my 3^rd Grade – Social Science classroom where, Ms. Hema Philip Viswasam, who hails from Tirunelvely in Tamil Nadu taught ‘Indian States’. For us she is a Tamilian, who belong to the Seventh Day Adventist church, a wife of a Naga, who blends saree,’ mullappo’, Idli-Sambar with Western Church music and Pork delicacies.  In her class she taught the Panorama of Indian states where most of us felt awe and wonder towards our ‘Myriad’ India. But the whole effigy was shattered into pieces when one of our room-mates said “ Iam a zou and I belong to Zou-land”. The pieces were later crushed to dust when the other class-mate told me “ We belong to Bodo-land”. Though they are sewn into the fabric of India both identities continue to live with a feeling of ‘illegitimate’ knots in the whole fabric. The quest for national feeling began there. How much Indian Iam?  It was increased when the German wife of my dear friend, a Christian Priest epitomized the ethos of a ‘Syrian Christian Kochamma’. It haunted me when the ‘Lebanese Muslim’ husband of my cousin started enjoying ‘Red-Fish curry’ with tears in his eyes.

Is there anything called Indianness? How much Indian am I? What makes me an Indian? What are the factors that determine my Indianness? – The questions at the base of our national feeling go on.

Nationalism and National Feeling – National feeling is closely related to ideology. An ideology can be defined as a comprehensive and mutually consistent set of ideas by which a social group makes sense of the world^[i]. The concept of national feeling and interests emerged with the evolution and arrival of nation states in the world scene during the modern period of world history. National feeling draws its ethos from the cultural history and moral heritage of the state. National feeling helped in the evolution of nationalist movements which often targeted the foreign elements in its vicinity. Indian nationalist movements got accelerated impetus at the colonial canon. Nationalism in India has come as an activity opposed to the colonial rule and it moved towards the expulsion of the colonial power and gaining independence.

Nationalism implies the coalescing of smaller groups into a larger inclusive identity that incorporates the lesser ones. The coalescing includes that of the territories of the smaller groups. It refers itself back to a shared history of all those that constitute the nation^[ii]. Indian national feeling gave birth to the ‘Secular Democratic Nationalism’ at the dawn of our Independence. It was ideologically inclusive of castes, color, gender, creed etc. Thus Aryan blended with Dravidian; Saurashtrian sat with Angami in the Parliament; Topo studied with Aiyengar; Kaur shared the same meal of Masih from Indian Railways Catering Services; Ms. Cherian nursed Choudhary in AIIMS. The credentials of our “Secular Democratic Nationalism” continue.

But India has been described as a land of stark contradictions. There is a rich India and the poor India; urban India and rural India. But perhaps nothing beats the schizophrenic dissonance between ‘ideating’ India and ‘implementation’ India^[iii]. Though our secular democratic credentials loom large before our eyes, the erosion that has happened to these values is at an alarming phase.  The recent decades of Indian history has witnessed an array of events that has been doing large scale damage to our democratic and secular ideals. Those events pose the real challenges in defining our ‘Indianness’. A deeper understanding of these challenges and our timely response to these is the need of the hour.

1. Legitimization of communalism – The recent demand by the communal forces for scraping the word ‘secular’ from the preamble of Constitution of India reminds us how communal we have become over the years. Over the years the electoral politics and other forces in India succeeded in making our localities and spheres communal than ever before. Religious communal organizations have appropriated the label of nationalisms – thus gave birth to Hindu, Muslim and Sikh nationalisms. Though they are not nationalisms, but fundamentalist exclusive religious identities, they are now referred to as nationalisms. Thus Hindu Mahasabha and Muslim League have been masqueraded as nationalist movements. When nationalism is reduced to identity politics and priority is given to a religious community, those who are outside the ‘community’ become the ‘other’ and consequently discarded from the society.
2. Pandora’s box of Electoral Politics – Individual and factional ambition and the greed and calculated fickleness that it engenders, has played its part in colouring electoral politics in India^[iv]. Electoral politics has been diminished to   populism rather than implementation of democratic principles. Rather than ensuring equality and justice, electoral politics is more concerned in recent years to woo the emotional and popular religious sentiments of people. If we, as a voter, examine the composition of NDA, its ideological coherence becomes evident. BJP, Shiv-sena, Shiromani Akali Dal, Asom Gana Parishad are natural ideological allies as their politics is based on a common premise: the belief that religious minorities should be hegemonic in their home territories.  The two issues that are burning our electoral politics over the past two decades are the building of Ram temple on the ruins of Babri mosque and the extension of reserved quotas to Other Backward Classes on the strength of the recommendation made by the Mandal Commission.
3. Stereotyped Identities – It’s a high time to doubt whether the government apparatuses themselves are stereotyping identities of communities, organizations and religions.  The NGOs that uncover the government failures has been labeled as Anti-national, evident from the concerns raised by MHA against Green Peace India. A couple of years back some terror suspects caught by Mumbai police were taken to the media covering their faces with fresh Keffiyeh – red-white head-gear worn by middle-eastern men was the epitome of stereotyping. Recent years, the vocabulary of illicit, illegal and unauthorized have become synonyms intended to criminalize religious and linguistic minorities. Muslim is used as a synonym to anti-national by the Hindutva forces, as they themselves identify as the ‘majority community’. Worse is the regional minorities’ concern. The typical chauvinist Indian man perceive a North-Eastern girl as the object of his sexual tantrums.
4. Terrorizing the Other – Hostility has grown in our land over the years, whether it is govt sponsored or religion – validated. People of this land live as they are refugees. Voice of dissent is often responded with iron wrists and armed forces. Disagreement is treated as traitorous. Dalits, Adivasis live in no-man’s land. Fake-encounters are on rise than ever before.  Being soft is seen as week. A conscious attempt is made by forces to portray ‘the other’ as anti-national, anti-social, illegal and immoral. The uprising of naxal-movements should be read in these lines. Living cultures of living communities has been hijacked by the dominant systems, though this make no sense at all, as culture relates itself to social groups and their self-expression.
5. Global Players – We cannot close our eyes towards the global changes happening. The changing gender roles, sexual equations, class movements, peoples’ movements, economic contours are to be addressed locally. Our decision makers have become more distracted by the irrelevant and inappropriate.  Indian national interests have been diminished to the interests of a handful of business tycoons. Whether it is FDI or Arms procurement our systems have become puppets in the hand of a few global players.
6. Religiousity Vs. Spirituality. Religiousity is different from religion. The end purpose of religiousity is seldom worship per se, but is more often the means of demonstrating wealth and power. Religiousity binds the gullible with superstitions and ensnares them with the false promises of fake-gurus thriving on media attention and magnanimous donations.  These days ‘entrepreneurial holy men’ have become the stalwarts of our democracy and spirituality. One has only to see what Hindutva and the sangh parivar has done to Hinduism, what the Taliban and ISIS have done to Islam, what the supporters of Khalistan have done to Sikhism, and what the Goa Inquisition has done to the local catholics.

At this juncture,  where a ‘Culture of the Sepulchre’^[v] is propogated, the aam aadmi cannot afford to be silent and numb. We can no-longer afford to ignore the strong symbiotic relationship between the afore-said concerns and our national feeling. We cannot shelter ourselves and our children from the real face of India anymore. We need to be open to the heritage that our nation has owned from the dawn of civilization. Our heritage is not restricted to hidebound relics; rather it is a living history in which we partake everyday of our lives.^[vi] At mid night on 15^th August 1947, independent India was born as its first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, proclaimed ‘ a tryst with destiny – a moment which comes but rarely in history, when we pass from the old to the new, when an age ends and the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance’.^[vii] The national identity is born out of a blend of complex concerns and eternal wisdom.

We have to address the paradoxes in our everyday lives by participating and struggling forward. The recent movie ‘piku’ depicts young woman who moves on different planes simultaneously, addressing mundane with the spiritual with equal gusto. Our identity is a complex phenomenon, which has to be evolved consciously and jointly, addressing different issues, confronting a myriad of realities, dreaming the wild-ecstasies and living together with people of living cultures. The recent challenges to my national feeling accelerate me to my greater ‘roles’ in this country.

By Dinoo Anna Mathew

“So then, my brothers, because of God’s great mercy to us I appeal to you: Offer yourselves as a living sacrifice to God, dedicated to his service and pleasing to him. This is the true worship that you should offer”. (Romans 12:1)

The Old Testament word that comes close to worship is ‘stand to face God’.  Worship is an awareness that we are always standing before God in truth and in spirit.  It is a deep consciousness of our God’s presence.   A true Christian worship, irrespective of its form and elements, should be a proclamation that Christ and the word of God direct our lives.

In the book of Amos, Chapter 5: 23&24, we hear the prophet Amos speaking harshly about worship in those days:

“I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.  Take away from me the noise of your harps; I will not listen to the melody of your harps.  But let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever flowing stream.

This verse helps us reflect upon and re-visit the concept of worship. It states that justice and righteousness are imperative for true worship. In the New Testament, we find these qualities reflected again in Jesus teaching about faith. This brings to the fore an integral aspect of worship – faith.

How do we celebrate our faith in worship? It is through internalizing and practicing the qualities of faith that Jesus taught us. Three of these qualities are touched upon here – love and compassion, justice, and right relationship with God and our fellow beings.

Faith should be expressed in our love for our Creator and God, love and compassion to our fellow beings and to nature. We are surrounded by people who struggle to come out of their poverty, by people who are victims of substance abuse, human trafficking, by people who are orphaned and lost. In celebrating our faith, how do we discern the will of God for the sort of compassionate service that is required of us individually and as a faithful community?

Second, to celebrate our faith, we need to understand and act upon what is just in God’s sight. The prophet Amos highlights our responsibility towards justice when he talks about worship and faith. “Let justice roll down like waters, And righteousness like an ever flowing stream”.  Does our faith in our Lord and His teachings generate a responsibility within us for our neighbors, for those who are discriminated against, the poor and the marginalized? A sense of justice can grow only through re visiting these aspects.

Third, celebrating faith involves setting our relationship right with God and with our fellow beings. It involves a conscious awareness that God is seeking us always and looking forward to a constant fellowship with Him. In the book of Hosea chapter 6:6, we read ‘I want your constant love, not your animal sacrifices. I would rather have my people know me than burn offerings to me’.  Our relationship with our fellow beings, (not just who belong to our own community), is also important for true worship. If our relationships are marked by bitterness, hatred, selfish interests, we cannot offer true worship to God, unless and otherwise there is reconciliation.

Viewed from this perspective, worship cannot be separated from our daily actions whether it be at  home, our work place or any of our other earthly engagements. Worship then should not be confined to symbolic attendance in Church services. It should be integrated with our life and work. We need to evolve an attitude that we are in worship not just in sacred places, but even when we are engaged in our most earthly business.  Worship is work, is a protestant idea that reminds us, that in worship we bring before God what we do. Faith in action thus becomes important if we are to worship in truth and in spirit.

Our faith and worship should evolve within us an attitude that we are always before God not in expectation of rewards for our deeds, but to be drawn closer to God each time.  Each time we worship, we need to keep our hearts and minds open to humbly meet our God and be ever ready to respond to His call for Mission.