Our Venerable Mother Xenia the Roman
Abstinence from meat and foods that contain meat.
Read
2 Peter 1:1-10; Mark 13:1-8
Christ is born! Glorify Him!
Jesus speaks here about the destruction of the temple. The temple of Jerusalem is the fixture of holy space for ancient Israel. In the Holy of Holies, God’s presence is said to dwell in the tabernacle, which contains Aaron’s rod, the manna from heaven, and the tablets of the law. What Jesus prophecies is startling to the Jewish hearers. In taking away this reference point of holiness, he later points to people who will come and speak in his name. With a temple disappeared and Christ’s passage from earth to heaven after the ascension, teaching the disciples to hold steadfast to the true teaching of the saviour is of paramount importance. To know who he is, what he stands for and how he asks us to live requires that we internalize Christ, and become living temples. Just like the Ukrainian Church during communism, whose temples were destroyed, and ideologues insisting on messianic pretensions about bettering humanity, the perseverance of the Church and its members demonstrates how we are to persevere through tribulation. Radical fidelity.