Nikolai Gogol: On the Proskomedia

On leaving the side table (prothesis), the priest bows as if to the incarnate Christ Himself and salutes in the form of the bread lying on the diskos the appearing of the heavenly Bread on earth. And he salutes it by censing it with holy incense, after blessing the incense and saying the prayer:

To Thee, O Christ our God, we offer incense as an odour of spiritual fragrance; accept it at Thy heavenly altar and send down upon us the grace of Thy Holy Spirit.

Transporting himself in thought to the time of Christ's birth and turning the past into the present, the priest regards the side table or prothesis as the secret cave in which heaven was then transferred to earth. Heaven became a case, and a cave became heaven. Having censed the the asterisk or star-cover and placed it over the diskos, he regards it as the star which shone above the Child, for which reason he says:

And the star came and stood over the place where the Child was.(Matt 2:9)¹

+Nikolai Gogol, from Meditations on the Divine Liturgy, The Office of Preparation

¹ Here Gogol is describing events toward the end of the preparation service, as the gifts to be offered are about to be covered by veils.