In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit!
By God’s abundant mercy, we stand together today at the threshold of a new church year. Each year, as we move from one great feast to the next, the Holy Church — and indeed all creation with her — travels the full circle of worship, from its beginning right through to its end. For those who live according to the world, the coming of a new year often brings a heavy sense of regret — thinking of what could have been done and what remains unfinished. They look back and see what has slipped away, what cannot be reclaimed or changed. But those of us who live by the Spirit know nothing of this ache for lost time. We dwell where clocks hold no power, where the lines dividing yesterday, today and tomorrow simply melt away.
Only recently, we laid the Mother of God to rest — not simply "remembering" but truly burying Her. And in a few days, we will celebrate Her Nativity. How can this be? When we stand in Divine worship, we step into a realm where time's boundaries fall away. In worship, we breathe the air of eternity. Through this encounter with the eternal, we, the people of the twentieth century, become genuinely present at events distant from us by many centuries. As we cross these thresholds of time in our worship, stepping into God's eternity, we discover we are not alone. All of creation comes with us. Our hymns continually proclaim this truth: every creature shares in the joy that fills the hearts of those who taste eternity and joins their song, magnifying the Creator.
The Paschal Canon puts it so beautifully: “Let the Heavens rejoice, let the earth be glad; and let the whole world celebrate, both visible and invisible.” Not only Heaven and earth, but every single one of God’s creatures joins in this great song of praise to our Maker. In the Psalms of Praise (Psalms 148 to 150) — read each morning at Matins — we summon the sun and moon, stars and the light, mountains and hills, trees, wild animals, and birds, along with all the angelic hosts above, to lift their voices in glorifying the Lord.
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So, each year, with all creation — both heavenly and earthly — with the Church above and the whole natural world, we become witnesses and participants in the events wrought “for us men and for our salvation.” These happenings — all forming the divine mystery of our redemption — occurred only once in time, yet they are not simply locked away in history; they are not gone for good. They were fulfilled, as the Apostle says, “when the fullness of the time had come” (Galatians 4:4). And so, right here in our world of time, these moments became fixed points of eternity. All creation passes through them, and through our worship, we connect with these. In worship, everything is present, because worship itself dwells in eternity. We need not mourn what has gone by. Every one of these eternal moments, set within our fleeting world, is not just something that touches us at a specific time. It casts its light far ahead of its arrival and continues to illuminate our path long after we have passed through its brilliance.
In two weeks, we shall celebrate the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. The day itself is not here yet, but even now, in our services, we can feel that bright moment drawing near. From the first of August, our ears have caught the strains of the Exaltation katavasia — “Moses, having inscribed the Cross.” And it is much the same, perhaps even more so, as the Nativity of Christ approaches. A full month before that glorious day, our church services start to guide us, getting us ready to step into that brilliant flash of eternity.
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Nor does this shining moment vanish once the day is done. For a whole week after the feast, we carry on, living in its afterglow. More than this — if that heavenly light truly shines in our soul, it becomes a stepping stone in our climb towards the everlasting life to which our Lord Jesus Christ beckons us. The Holy Church, through temporal things, binds us to the eternal. She guides every one of us along our life’s path, towards that final destination where, we pray, we will find “eternal rest in blessed repose” and enter into God's unending remembrance.
My dear friends, let us therefore draw near to Divine worship with even greater attentiveness and awe. Let us step into it, not as mere onlookers or observers, but as full participants. In this way, our whole life will find fresh meaning and new light.
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What rich joy is ours! Once more we move into the Church's yearly rhythm of prayer, and are privileged to travel its sacred path alongside the faithful throughout the world. Our calling, then, is to make each year the Lord gives us truly a time of drawing near to eternity, a time of entering into all that, through God’s boundless love, was brought to pass “for us men and for our salvation.”
Source: Bear One Another's Burdens. The Life and Pastoral Ministry of Hieromartyr Sergey Mechev. — Moscow: Orthodox Saint Tikhon's Humanitarian University, 2017.
