As mentioned before, the people gather as individuals and collectively are elevated and transformed, through Christ and the Holy Spirit, into the Church of God. He notes that the liturgy begins with a real separation from the world. It is not that they leave this world behind because they have forgotten about it or loathe it. They leave this world in order to minister to it:
“They realize . . . that this ascension is the very condition of their mission in the world . . . for there in heaven they are immersed in the new life of the Kingdom; and when after this ‘liturgy of ascension,’ they return into the world, their faces reflect the light, the ‘joy and peace’ of that Kingdom and they are truly its witnesses.”
The conclusion, therefore, of this journey is the end of the liturgy when the members depart from the Church and re-enter the world to be living examples of the Kingdom
Fr. Alexander Schmemann on the Eucharist