Liturgy of Presanctified Gifts, Wednesdays at 6pm

After we partake of tonight’s evening communion, we are invited to “depart in peace”. It may be dark outside by then, and the night into which we must go and in which we have to live, to fight, and to endure, may still be long. But the light which we have seen in tonight’s Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts now illumines the night. The Kingdom, whose presence nothing seems to reveal in this world, has been given to us “in secret”; its joy and peace accompany us as we get ready to continue the “course of the Fast” this Lenten season.

– Alexander Schmemann, Great Lent: Journey to Pascha.