LITURGY at the PEAK of MOUNT SINAI (2023)
From Fr. Justin's Sinai Blog:
Every year, we celebrate Pentecost all together at the monastery. The following day, Monday of the Holy Spirit, we celebrate the Divine Liturgy at the peak of Mount Sinai. This year we left at four o’clock in the morning. There were thirteen of us — members of the community, and pilgrims from Greece, Russia, Canada, and Austria.
From the Great Synaxarion of the Orthodox Church:
"We celebrate this feast of Holy Pentecost today in commemoration of the coming into the world of the All-holy Spirit, which happened fifty days after the Resurrection from the dead of our Lord Jesus Christ, which fulfilled His promise to His disciples and obtained the completion of their hope and sanctification.
We celebrate Holy Pentecost furthermore in honour of the weekly number, that is, as the Jews counting seven weeks from Passover celebrated their own Pentecost, since fifty days were fulfilled from Passover to the receiving of the Law, in this manner we celebrate the Fiftieth from Pascha as instead of the Law we have received the All-holy Spirit on this day of Pentecost, legislating and guiding us into all truth and the commandments appointed by God."
From Fr. Justin's Sinai Blog: https://www.fatherjustinsblog.info/archives/8039
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From the Article "From Ascension to Pentecost" by Sr. Joanna:
... It is at the Ascension, at His last appearance as God on Earth, that the Lord reminds His Apostles for the last time, indeed with His parting words, to expect the gift of the Holy Spirit. With this grace, they will receive power to act as His witnesses “to the very ends of the earth” – the same grace of the Holy Spirit that was lost from Adam at the fall of mankind, and reclaimed by Christ on our behalf in the Jordan.
The same grace, bequeathed to all generations, of the Mysteries of the Holy Orthodox faith, instituted by Christ in fulfillment of the promise of His Ascension: Baptism and Holy Chrism, Confession and Holy Communion, Marriage, Ordination, and Holy Unction – in short, the restoration to health not only of human free will, but of every blessing bestowed on humankind for its perfection in that most evasive of all successes - incorruptible happiness, whether in this life, or the next ...
Monasteries are cauldrons of humanity, like any other institution, and have their ups and downs. But there is a beauty to the life not met with on the outside, against which the greatest civilization pales. The elegance of holiness cannot be described, except perhaps through its effect on those nearby. One is bemused to see people normally alienated by their passions gather around a holy elder, drawn like bees to honey, antipathies brushed away like so many unwanted flies. Or moved beyond words, on another occasion, to see the tear-filled eyes of a lost soul suddenly opened wide to the Truth at the mere sight of a God-bearing father, freed of the mockeries succumbed to in the name of ‘religion’. The presence of the Holy Spirit in the sanctified is palpable, even tactile to the soul – αἰσθητή!
Christos, of course, means “anointed.” Therefore, upon ascent from the waters of Orthodox baptism the newly illumined is sealed with the gift of the Holy Spirit. It is through the mystical chrism of anointment that “you are properly called christs,” and therefore Christians, says Saint Cyril of Jerusalem, for “through this Holy Chrism and by means of it, God Himself is present and energizes within us.”
A single message is central not only to the Ascension, not only to the great mystery of Christ’s ministry on earth, but to the entire biblical tradition founded in the revelation to Moses on Sinai: the soul’s union with God through the divine energies of the Holy Spirit – for the Son of God becomes man for no other reason.
From the Article "From Ascension to Pentecost" by Sr. Joanna in the FMSM News Blog: https://www.mountsinaimonastery.org/news-blog/2017/5/25/from-ascension-to-pentecost8
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