On September 21 (8 O.S.), the first of the twelve great feast days of the Orthodox Church year was celebrated in the Holy Trinity Monastery, the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos, the church new year being September 1/14. The usual All-Night Vigil and Divine Liturgy were celebrated with the usual monastery solemnity.

On September 21 (8 O.S.), the first of the twelve great feast days of the Orthodox Church year was celebrated in the Holy Trinity Monastery, the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos, the church new year being September 1/14. The usual All-Night Vigil and Divine Liturgy were celebrated with the usual monastery solemnity.

One of the fathers preached the sermon in which he pointed out the silence kept by the Holy Virgin Mary in her lifetime. Even though She was and is the most venerated of all people who have ever lived, She preferred to live in the shadows of Her Son and kept silence in contemplation of the mysteries of His conception, birth and all the other events of His life on earth. She knew that it would be easy to lose the extreme amount of grace She held in Her soul by speech.

In our days of boundless media control and influence in our lives and culture, let us emulate the holy silence of the Mother of God and keep within our souls whatever grace we might obtain so as not to waste it in prideful and wasteful conversation. Above all, let us hold Her example of complete dedication to Her Son, She Whose birth was the beginning of our salvation as is chanted in the Church services on this day.