Noetic. Shortly after the anaphora we hear, “That our God, the Lover of mankind, having accepted them upon His holy and most heavenly and noetic altar as an odor of spiritual fragrance, will send down upon us divine grace and the gift of the Holy Spirit, let us pray.” It’s a really pretty petition, but what exactly does it mean? Noetic itself derives from the Greek adjective noetikos (intellectual) the verb noein (to think) and finally from the noun nous (mind) - neat etymology, huh? So for our purposes we can think of noetic as referring to the part of a mystical experience, i.e., the Divine Liturgy itself, that we partake of as a mental activity involving our intellect. More simply put, it’s the aspect of our worship that (hopefully) keeps us thinking about it later on Sunday and throughout our week. You hear it again during the post-Communion prayers, specifically in a petition to the Most Holy Theotokos, asking that she “enlighten the noetic eyes of my heart” right before the nunc dimittis/ Song of Simeon (Now let Thy servant depart in peace… St. Luke 2:29-32). In other words, what our hearts feel as we partake in Holy Communion, our intellect should strive to embrace (if not fully understand) before we leave the temple and go on about our day.
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