Orthodox believers celebrate today, 21 November 2013, the Entry of the Mother of God into the temple. On this day, His Beatitude Daniel, Patriarch of Romania consecrated anew the church” St. Elijah” – Rahova, surrounded by a group of priests and deacons, in the presence of many believers.
After the service of the consecration anew, His Beatitude officiated the Divine Liturgy. The sermon delivered after reading the Gospel text, His Beatitude spoke about the spiritual significance of the feast: “The Virgin Mary shows us the preparation for the encounter with God. The whole humanity has been prepared in stages by the righteous and the prophets of the Old Testament that God the Son, the Eternal Word of God, be freely received and desired. The Advent or the Nativity Lent brings to memory the preparation of humanity and especially the of the chosen people for the Nativity of the Lord, the Virgin Mary being the human being that God the Word, through the Holy Spirit, is incarnate and becomes man; the Mother of God go to the Temple where she lived for 12 years for she is to become Temple of the presence and work of God’s Word. The Jerusalem Temple foreshadowed both the Mother of God and Christ the Lord”.
The Romanian Patriarch emphasized that the feast of the Entry of the Mother of God into the temple calls us to a period of preparation through prayer and fasting: “The Entry into the Church of Our Lady reminds us that we must prepare ourselves to receive Christ into our hearts and homes. We need to prepare through fasting, with prayer, a more frequent reading of the Scriptures and of the writings of the Fathers, a more frequent confession of our sins because the Mother of God is the Icon of the Church and the life of every Christian who wishes that Christ the Lord by Holy Spirit dwells in his life, his home and all his works. We need a spiritual preparation in order to receive in our soul Christ the Lord, in the Bethlehem of our heart, in the cave of our body and in the manger of our soul – a preparation similar to the one of the Virgin. Since the very coming of Christ, the Son of God on earth, is a work of God, is God’s gift to humans, in this period we should be more charitable, more compassionate. If we do not have material gifts, we can offer a kind word, a prayer, a good advice, a helping hand to those who need our help. Thus, we understand that through the gift of God to us, Who is Jesus Christ, we respond at Christmas with gifts offered to our fellow human beings”.
The only thing required is the essential bond between God and human being. This should be the basis of Christian life, said His Beatitude, showing further that: “In this relationship of man with God all other things are blessed: food, clothing, caring for the family and care for household in general. But without that relationship all these activities are not blessed. Thus, today’s Gospel text tells us that Mary has made the good choice namely listening to the word of God, which means internalizing the presence of God in our soul, our life. This internalization of the loving and sanctifying presence of God in human life, is the beginning of salvation, of eternal life in the human being starting even from this transient life. Thus, the biggest human wealth in this world and the eternal, heavenly one, is the presence of God in man – the greatest wealth, the greatest joy and happiness of the greatest is the indwelling of God in man by His word and by the work of the Holy Spirit”.
“The Mother of God has so much listened to the word of God so that she internalized Him and gave birth to Him as a Human in this world. She has not only listened to the word of God, but in her God the Eternal Word was made Man” His Beatitude Patriarch Daniel also underlined.
St. Elijah – Rahova church is one of the eight churches moved over by the communist regime in 1984. The place of worship has been restored in recent years. St. Elijah – Rahova church celebrates her patronal feast also at the Feast of the Holy Trinity.
