Let me begin the diary by sending feastday greetings to everyone. Today is the glorious feast day of the Annunciation which is an important feast day in the Orthodox Church. Often the feast day celebrations are overlooked because they fall on a week day when people are working. I try to remind people that even if a person works, they can always remember the feast day, for example when you get home from work, you can remember the feast at your joyous evening meal. It is also possible to read the feastday Gospel in your home, the troparion of the feast. Do remember, Orthodoxy is a home religion as well as a church religion and has been the centre of home life for many long years. As many people already know, every home is a miniature parish and that is why it is important to remember to have a respectable icon corner, to celebrate the feast days, even if we are unable to attend the service in church. Do think about this.
Any way, back to the celebration at the monastery. Archbishop Lazar and Fr Moses served the Obednitsa and it went very well. The changeable parts of the service, for the feast, were read and also the Apostle and Gospel for the feast. This was followed by a sermon on the feast, given by Archbishop Lazar and videotaped to be posted on, I believe, Youtube and Facebook. The icon of the feast was photographed and was posted on the diary for yesterday.
This evening I took a walk around the property and again took some new photographs. In the late evening, after darkness came, I took a photo of the side of the church, just under the bell tower. There is a nearly full moon so it is quite bright outside and it was possible to get a good shot of the large flowering bush which has thousands and thousands of tiny little bell shaped blossoms. This plant, whose name I do not know, is attracting scores of bees and bumblebees and soon should be also attracting hummingbirds because of the deep red colouring of the blossoms.3