“Today the chosen Mother goes from Bethlehem to Jerusalem, and the divine Child Jesus is carried in her arms like a light cloud. And we, the unworthy, welcoming the King of Glory and the Blessed Virgin Mary, together with elder Simeon sing to the blessed one: Come, O Most Holy One, the Lord is with you and through you with us!”
On the Feast of the Meeting of the Lord, with the blessing of Metropolitan Vladimir, the First Hierarch of the Orthodox Church of Moldova, His Grace Siluan, Bishop of Orhei, Metropolitan Vicar, celebrated the Holy and Divine Liturgy at the Metropolitan Cathedral of the Nativity of the Lord in Chisinau.
During the service, prayers were offered in memory of the soldiers who died in the war in Afghanistan.
Forty days after the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Orthodox Church honors the bringing of the divine Infant to the temple in Jerusalem by His Most Holy Mother and Righteous Joseph. The righteous Simeon, moved by the Holy Spirit, came to the temple, where his desire to see the Messiah with his own eyes was fulfilled before his death. Filled with gratitude, he prayed, “Lord, now You are letting Your servant depart in peace, according to Your word; for my eyes have seen Your salvation which You have prepared before the face of all peoples, a light to bring revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of Your people Israel.” (Luke 2:29-32).
The Church has established that this great feast of Christ and Our Lady is celebrated on 2 February (15 February in Old Calendar), because it is the fortieth day after the Nativity of Christ in the flesh. The episode of the bringing of Christ to the temple is described only by St. Luke the Evangelist (Luke 2:22-39).
The Feast of the Meeting of the Lord is not only a feast that refers to the King of Christ, by depicting one of the stages of the divine providence, but it is also a feast of man living in Christ.
Saint Athanasius the Great exhorts us that this feast may become an occasion for us to resemble Righteous Simeon and the Prophetess Anna. We too must welcome Christ, clothed in innocence, repentance, goodness, purity and, in general, in love of God and man. No one can meet Christ, who is true life, in any other way.
At the end, a Te-deum was celebrated, after which the Hierarch of Orhei gave a word of teaching, after reading the Gospel, he pointed out that the central moment of the Feast of the Meeting of the Lord is the encounter of the Old Testament with the New Testament. On this day, the Old Law of the Sabbath meets the New Law of the Holy Spirit in the Temple. The Saviour Christ fulfils the commandment of the Old Law to free us from it, but at the same time calls us to fulfil the New Law of grace.
Today’s celebration is to understand and experience the joy of Saints Simeon and Anna when they met Christ the Lord in the temple and to see the love of God for us by sending His Son into the world to save us.
Source: https://manastireacurchi.md/