Noon is a place of fierce struggle between light and dark. That is why this time is sanctified by prayer, recalls Archpriest Andrei Tkachev in his article.
There are several very important stress points in the diurnal, time circle. This is the dawn point when the sun rises over the horizon. It is a clear noon when the shadows disappear. This is the sunset point when the sun is hiding. And - midnight. This is that middle of the night when time is refracted into the soon approaching morning.
At all these times, the Church prays. At dawn, at sunset, at noon. Today I want to tell you about noon.
It was at noon that the Lord Jesus Christ hung on the cross. According to the Byzantine account, in terms of the Jewish one, Christ was crucified at six o'clock, this is just the noon of our time. "Even on the sixth day and the hour on the cross of the nails, in paradise Adam's bold sin." Christ hung on the cross, stretched out his hands, instead of the sin of Adam, when he stretched out his hand to the forbidden fruit in paradise. It was at noon.
There were several other major events in Bible history at noon. At noon, the Lord converted Paul. In general, all Christian teaching, preaching, evangelism - it spread in the world mainly through his labors. Christ appeared to him on his way to Damascus, where he went to torment Christians. Around noon, a strong light appeared, and Christ spoke to him. "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me." Saul became blind, came to Damascus, was baptized by Ananias, received his sight and went out to preach. It was at noon. That is, at the hour when Christ hung on the cross, atoning for the sins of mankind.
At noon, Tsar Constantine, before the battle with Maxentius, saw a cross on a solar disk. The holy martyrs speak about this - Artemy of Antioch, for example. The disciple Eusignius under Julian the Apostate said that on a clear white day, in the full radiance of the sun, they saw a cross, which covered the radiance of the solar disk with radiance, and in Latin letters it was written: "By this you will conquer" - Hoc vince. The sign of the cross appeared on the clothes of the soldiers of Constantine - and with this sign they beat the enemy, Christianity entered the imperial consciousness. The fetters of the Roman state on the Christian faith have loosened.
Noon is commemorated in Psalm 90, where the praying person asks for deliverance from the midday demon. A midday demon is a tormenting person's desire to sleep, a burden of eyes, despondency, immobility, laziness, a burden of the soul, relaxation of the body. This is what everyone knows: at noon, they say, a soldier fights - before dinner with hunger, after dinner with sleep.
And in the south, where the sun, the desert, the heat, there the midday demon especially torments a person. And especially an ascetic. Demon ghosts frighten, then something else.
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Noon is a place of fierce struggle between light and dark. That is why this time is sanctified by prayer. Therefore, it would be good for us to get used to praying, for example, when the sun rises over the horizon, in clear daylight at noon, at sunset. And “in the midnight of rebellion, confess your name,” says King David in the psalm.
We need to sanctify the circle of our life with prayer. There is a whole book for this - "The Book of Hours". I recommend it to you for your acquaintance, it is constantly read in churches.
Archpriest Andrei Tkachev