The Conception of the Honourable and Glorious Prophet, Forerunner and Baptist John.
Galatians 4:22-31; Luke 1:5-25.
Read Luke 1:5-25
Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!
There is a parable of two friends, one of which was an agnostic and another one a practicing Christian. Trying to provoke his Christian friend, an agnostic posed a tricky question: “Why do you go to pray at the church every Sunday? Don’t you know that God is present everywhere, and He is always the same?”
“I know that God is the same everywhere,” replied a Christian, “but I am not the same everywhere.”
When we enter a sacred place, we notice right away the difference in comparison with the external world. As one of the Matins hymns says: “Standing in the Temple of Your Glory, we think ourselves to stand in Heaven.” All contribute to that feeling: the smell of the incense, the beauty of the icons, stained glass windows, architecture, silence, candles, play of colours, and, above all, a very special atmosphere that helps us to enter into God’s presence in a very special way.
No wonder that Zechariah was able to see and hear the voice of God, transmitted through the Archangel Gabriel, only when he was given a long-awaited opportunity to incense the sanctuary of the most sacred place on earth. God may have spoken to him many times throughout his childless life, but he could open his spiritual ears and eyes only in the Holy of Holies of the Temple.
In one of Bernard Shaw’s plays, the Dauphin is perplexed by the fact that Joan of Arc hears “the voices,” and he does not: “Why don’t the voices come to me? I am king not you.”
“They do come to you,” replied Joan, “but you do not hear them. You have not sat in the field in the evening listening for them. When the Angelus rings you cross yourself and have done with it; but if you prayed from your heart, and listened to the thrilling of the bells in the air after they stop ringing, you would hear the voices as well as I do.”
Many times, when I accompany our faithful to various pilgrimages, I witness miracles happening to those who open their hearts: childless couples receive a gift of conceiving their children, people with cancer get cured, marriages on the edge of divorce receive new chance of staying together, people who have lost their faith find it anew. Some of the pilgrims relate their healings to touching certain relics, drinking of water from some holy springs, or praying in front of the miracle working icons. Yet, I do not cease to repeat that our aim is not to touch holy items, but to allow God to touch us through them. Despite Zechariah’s apparent doubts and limitations, God spoke to him, and he was able to see and hear, because he was in the Temple. Let us never underestimate the importance of praying in the church.
Bible References