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Christ is Born! We greet you with a heart full of gratitude, first toward God and second toward each one of you, for the bountiful gifts that we have received during this past year. Glory to God for all things! We wish that you may celebrate this holiday season in peace, with reconciliation and love. During these days, may each of you find the path that leads to the healing of your hearts from whatever wound may have afflicted them this year. And thus healed, may we all step together into the New Year with our Lord’s blessing and with boundless trust in His omnipotence.

It happened that this year, the Gospel reading on Tuesday, which marked the Forefeast of the Nativity of our Lord, was as follows: “Then He went into the temple and began to drive out those who bought and sold in it, saying to them, ‘It is written, “My house is a house of prayer,” but you have made it a den of thieves…’” (Luke 19:45-46). Maybe this is not by chance. In these days, during which each of us is trying to make our heart into a manger that can receive Christ, it is good to recall that our heart is a temple of the Holy Spirit (cf. 1 Corinthians 6:19), a house of prayer. So, if we discover something within it other than a house of prayer, then may we imitate our Lord by driving out all the “money changers”, all the intruders. How? With the “whip” which is the Jesus Prayer: Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, the sinner. By doing this every day, we will fulfill the word of the Psalmist: “In the morning I slew all the sinners of the land, to consume from the city of the Lord (from my heart) all the workers of lawlessness” (Psalm 100:10).

We entreat our merciful Savior that during these days, He may grant us to taste of the joy of His Incarnation, of His dwelling among us, and no one take this joy away from us (cf. John 16:22).

Icons. With the blessing of His Eminence Nicolae, printed icons are mounted to wood in our monastery.

Pure beeswax candles. Pure beeswax candles are also made in our monastery to adorn the prayer of every Christian. A pure wax candle burning during private or church prayer is a sacrifice pleasing to God.