Thus, every year, together with the whole world above and below, with the Heavenly Church and with all nature, we can be witnesses and participants in the events that took place "for our sake and for our salvation."

These events, which relate to the economy of our salvation, although they occurred once in time, have not gone irretrievably into the past. They took place when, in the words of the Apostle, "the fullness of time had come" (Galatians IV, 4). In them the mystery of God's love for man was fully revealed, the mystery of the redemptive feat of "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world" (Rev. 13:8). Therefore, in the temporal world, they have become unshakable points of eternity, through which all creation passes and to which we have the opportunity to partake through divine services. In worship, everything is in the present, because everything in it is in eternity, so we have nothing to grieve about the lost past.

Each such point in eternity in our temporal world is not only experienced by us at a certain moment in time, but also casts rays of its light, which are sometimes perceived long before the feast itself and which continue to shine to us even after we have already passed through this luminous point.

In two weeks we will celebrate the Exaltation of the Cross of the Lord. The feast has not yet come, but in the divine service we already feel the approach of this luminous point.

Starting from August 1, we hear the Exaltation of the Cross – "Having inscribed the cross, Moses". The same thing happens in even greater fullness when the feast of the Nativity of Christ approaches. A whole month before its onset, the divine service begins to prepare us for the passage of this luminous point of eternity. Beginning with the feast of the Entry of the Most Holy Theotokos into the Temple, we already feel that together with the whole world we touch Her, because on this day we sing the Nativity irmoi "Christ is Born." And two weeks later, on the feast day of St. Nicholas, we sing the first stichera of the Forefeast: "Adorn Thy Cave," "O Zion, Triumph," and "Virgin Brideless," which conclude the stichera for the Lord, the Invocation at the Litiya and at the verses of Great Vespers.

Especially remarkable, in the sense of preparing our souls for the reception of the coming feast, are the last two stichera. In the first of them, we turn to the "city of Christ God," which is preparing to lift up the Creator "in the cave and manger of Him who rectables" and ask to open to us the gates, entering through which we can see with our spiritual eyes "with the hand of the Sustaining Creation," "as the Infant wrapped in swaddling clothes," and in the second, as if having already entered these gates and seeing the "Author of our salvation," the Virgin Without Bride, the Mother of God, we turn directly to Her, asking Her to reveal to us the great mystery of our salvation. The closer we come to the luminous point of the holiday, the brighter the light emanating from it illuminates us. During the five days of the feast, culminating in the Eve of the Nativity of Christ, the divine services reveal to us with ever greater depth and completeness this great mystery, into which the Holy Spirit leads us. Church and, finally, the very feast of the Nativity of Christ comes, the point of eternity that we are passing. Here the boundaries of time are erased and the mystery of eternity is revealed, because, as Metropolitan Philaret says: "Christ still descends from heaven and is so close to us that we, like pastors or magi, can meet His divine appearance."

This point of eternity does not immediately leave us. During the seven days of the feast, we continue to live by its reflected light. Moreover, if the light of eternity manifested in our soul is really reflected in it, then it becomes for us a step in our ascent to eternal life, to which the Lord Jesus Christ calls us.

St. Through the temporal, the Church unites us with eternity. It leads each of us along his life's path, at the end of which he must receive "eternal rest in the blessed dormition" and enter the eternal memory of God.

Let us approach the divine service with great attention and reverence, and enter it not as spectators or witnesses, but as its participants. Then our whole life will receive a new meaning and a new illumination. Truly living in divine services, we can already have "eternal rest" here on earth, we can be worthy that the Lord will have us in His eternal memory even in the days of our earthly life.

It is our great happiness that we are once again entering the annual cycle of divine services and have the opportunity to go through it once again with the whole world. And our task is to make each year of life sent to us by the Lord truly a time of communion with eternity, an entry into that which, through God's infinite love, was accomplished "for our sake and for our salvation."

2. The Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit!

A few days ago, by the mercy of God, we entered the New Church Year, and now we celebrate the first great feast of the annual liturgical cycle, the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos.

In order to understand the meaning of this feast, and with it the other feasts of the Church, we must first of all remember that Church life is a mystery incomprehensible to those who are outside the Church.