More on the second. With hands raised in prayer the Mother of God reminds us to Whom worship is due. It is the symbol of each Christian and also of the Church. It is the many forms of liturgy – the Divine Liturgy, Akathysts, Matins and Vespers –the prayers of a community of believers as well as personal prayers. It is the whole fabric of human existence at rest and at play, in daily tasks, in suffering and in celebration. All of these can become part of our prayer life if we so choose. As the Mother of God stands there in eternal prayer, she gives us Christians confidence of the closeness to Our Father, Who hears us and is merciful.
I have purposely spent more time on the meaning of the Annunciation in our Kyivan tradition, because it will help us make the necessary connections between liturgy and faith that was very obvious to the countless saints of the Kyivan Church, Orthodox and Catholic alike. Mary of the Sign focuses on Christ, the Messiah and Savior, and the Oranta reminds us of the centrality of worship to our Christian living.
From Images to Experience
The implications of the way Eastern theology sees the Annunciation are many. First of all it is liberating, because it recognizes all faculties of the human being — physical, psychological, intellectual, and spiritual. And secondly, it places the invitation to holiness directly at the doorstep of personal discernment every time we confront life’s varied paths. Because thinking is a creative process, it is the real means to internalize Christ and His teachings in which liturgy through its prayer form is a soft spoken teacher. The saints show us how it is done.
The historical development of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church from the Kyivan Church and before that from Byzantium can offer invaluable insight. Although it is a subject too large to be discussed here, suffice it to say, that the Kyivan aspect of our spirituality is a gold mine of spiritual wealth.
In the summer of 1999, the Sheptytsky Institute at the Mt. Tabor monastery in California concentrated on the homilies of the Kyivan Church. The participants were moved by the extent of the loving and merciful God permeating the homilies. At the same time they noted the absence of the fire-and-brimstone approach. And yet, the Church of Kyiv shows the tremendous commitment of her believers guided by their thought processes and discernment. It should be thought provoking for us today that so many of the ruling elite elected monastic life. Many women founded scriptoria for copying and disseminating books, herbaria for the healing arts, schools and so on. Besides St. Olha of the women saints of Ukraine, what do we know of Saints Irena, the wife of the Grand Prince Yaroslav the Wise, or Evfrozynia, the Princess of Polotsk, or of Paraskeviya, the sister of Prince Volodymyr Monomakh, or Anna also affectionately known as Yanka, daughter of the Kyivan Prince Vsevolod?
Truly, our Kyivan spirituality is a blend of Byzantine Spirituality with a touch of the Slavic experience.