Thunder over the sleeping heart, hopelessly sorrowless!

Maybe it will wake up

And shake off oblivion,

And perhaps he will shudder

For a moment, for a moment...

And when we consecrate a bell, we have this in mind. We ask to give this bell not only a musical sound (it can be created from anything if you know how to do it), but we ask you to let God's blessing fall on this bell so that its sound – simple, like all sounds, it will not sound differently from another bell created without prayer, without the purpose of renewing and reviving souls – so that its sound will reach the human soul and that this soul will wake up. So, you see, it is not only a question of sanctifying matter, waters, oil, bread, wine, and so on, but that everything can be offered to God as a gift from us, accepted by God, and that God pour, include in this substance the Divine transforming power. It seems to me that this is central to our understanding of both Christ and the Incarnation, and the cosmic, that is, universal, all-encompassing meaning of the Incarnation of Christ.

This also applies to the word, for not only does the bell ring and renew souls, but the human word resounds and renews souls or kills souls. If the word is dead, it kills; if it is alive, it can reach the depths of man and there awaken the possibility of eternal life. You probably remember that place in the Gospel of John, when what Christ said confused the people around Him, and people departed from Him. The Savior turns to His disciples and says: "Will ye also depart from me? And Peter answers for others: Where shall we go? With Thee are the words of eternal life (John 6:26-29). The point is not that He knows eternal life in such a way that He describes it in such a way that the disciples are eager to enter it. If we read the Gospel, we will see that Christ nowhere specifically speaks about eternal life, in the sense that He does not describe it, does not present before us a picture of eternity or hell or heaven. No, but the very words of Christ were such that when He spoke to people, His words reached the depths of man, where the possibility of eternal life rests, and, like a spark falling on a dry tree, eternal life lit up in man. I think it is very important to imagine this.

This applies not only to Christ, whose word certainly came more powerfully than any other, but also to those great teachers and preachers who transformed the lives of others by their words. Both sound is substantial, and light is substantial. Everything material and material (so great that we cannot even imagine its dimensions, and so small that we cannot even grasp it with an instrument) precisely because man was created from the earth, that is, belongs to matter in his flesh - everything is embraced by Christ, included in Christ. And therefore, when we are told that the calling of man is to go into the depths of God, to become related to Him in such a way as to be one with God and through this to transform his corporeality, and in the process to transform the whole world around him, these are not words, but reality, this is our specific calling, what is given to us as a task.

But why are we so unsuccessful? It seems to me that it is worth looking into the Holy Scriptures and asking yourself: what happened? (Of course, I will speak fragmentarily, because I cannot develop the topic now simply because of lack of time.)