Both
love and duty today fashion my homily for your charity.
It is not only that I wish, because of my love for you,
and because I am obliged by the sacred canons, to bring
to your God-loving ears a saving word and thus to
nourish your souls, but if there be any among those
things that bind by obligation and love and can be
narrated with praise for the Church, it is the great
deed of the Ever-Virgin Mother of God. The desire is
double, not single, since it induces me, entreats and
persuades me, whereas the inexorable duty constrains
me, though speech cannot attain to what surpasses it,
just as the eye is unable to look fixedly upon the sun.
One cannot utter things which surpass speech, yet it is
within our power by the love for mankind of those
hymned, to compose a song of praise and all at once
both to leave untouched intangible things, to satisfy
the debt with words and to offer up the first fruits of
our love for the Mother of God in hymns composed
according to our abilities.
If, then, "death of the righteous man is
honorable" (cf. Ps. 115:6) and the
"memory of the just man is celebrated with songs of
praise" (Prov. 10:7), how much more ought we
to honor with great praises the memory of the holiest of
the saints, she by whom all holiness is afforded to the
saints, I mean the Ever-Virgin. Mother of God! Even so we
celebrate today her holy dormition or translation to
another life, whereby, while being "a little lower
than angels" (Ps. 8:6), by her proximity to
the God of all, and in the wondrous deeds which from the
beginning of time were written down and accomplished with
respect to her, she has ascended incomparably higher than
the angels and the archangels and all the super-celestial
hosts that are found beyond them. For her sake the
God-possessed prophets pronounce prophecies, miracles are
wrought to foreshow that future Marvel of the whole world,
the Ever-Virgin Mother of God. The flow of generations and
circumstances journeys to the destination of that new
mystery wrought in her; the statutes of the Spirit provide
beforehand types of the future truth. The end, or rather
the beginning and root, of those divine wonders and deeds
is the annunciation to the supremely virtuous Joachim and
Anna of what was to be accomplished: namely, that they who
were barren from youth would beget in deep old age her
that would bring forth without seed Him that was
timelessly begotten of God the Father before the ages. A
vow was given by those who marvelously begot her to return
her that was given to the Giver; so accordingly the Mother
of God strangely changed her dwelling from the house of
her father to the house of God while still an infant . She
passed not a few years in the Holy of Holies itself,
wherein under the care of an angel she enjoyed ineffable
nourishment such as even Adam did not succeed in tasting;
for indeed if he had, like this immaculate one, he would
not have fallen away from life, even though it was because
of Adam and so that she might prove to be his daughter,
that she yielded a little to nature, as did her Son, Who
has now ascended from earth into heaven.
But after that unutterable nourishment, a most mystical
economy of courtship came to pass as regards the Virgin, a
strange greeting surpassing speech which the Archangel,
descended from above, addressed to her, and disclosures
and salutations from God which overturn the condemnation
of Eve and Adam and remedy the curse laid on them,
transforming it into a blessing. The King of all
"hath desired a mystic beauty" of the
Ever-Virgin, as David foretold (Ps. 44:11) and,
"He bowed the heavens and came down" (Ps.
17:9) and overshadowed her, or rather, the
enhypostatic Power of the Most High dwelt in her. Not
through darkness and fire, as with Moses the God-seer, nor
through tempest and cloud, as with Elias the prophet, did
He manifest His presence, but without mediation, without a
veil, the Power of the Most High overshadowed the
sublimely chaste and virginal womb, separated by nothing,
neither air nor aether nor anything sensible, nor anything
supra-sensible: this was not an overshadowing but a
complete union. Since what overshadows is always wont to
produce its own form and figure in whatever is
overshadowed, there came to pass in the womb not a union
only, but further, a formation, and that thing formed from
the Power of the Most High and the all-holy virginal womb
was the incarnate Word of God. Thus the Word of God took
up His dwelling in the Theotokos in an inexpressible
manner and proceeded from her, bearing flesh . He appeared
upon the earth and lived among men, deifying our nature
and granting us, after the words of the divine Apostle,
"things which angels desire to look into" (1
Pet. 1:12). This is the encomium which transcends
nature and the surpassingly glorious glory of the
Ever-Virgin, glory for which all mind and word suffice
not, though they be angelic. But who can relate those
things which came to pass after His ineffable birth? For,
as she co-operated and suffered with that exalting
condescension (kenosis) of the Word of God, she was
also rightly glorified and exalted together with Him, ever
adding thereto the supernatural increase of mighty deeds.
And after the ascent into the heavens of Him that was
incarnate of her, she rivaled, as it were, those great
works, surpassing mind and speech, which through Him were
her own, with a most valiant and diverse asceticism, and
with her prayers and care for the entire world, her
precepts and encouragements which she gave to God's
heralds sent throughout the whole world; thus she was
herself both a support and a comfort while she was both
heard and seen, and while she labored with the rest in
every way for the preaching of the Gospel. In such wise
she led a most strenuous manner of life proclaimed in mind
and speech.
Therefore, the death of the Theotokos was also
life-bearing, translating her into a celestial and
immortal life and its commemoration is a joyful event and
festivity for the entire world. It not merely renews the
memory of the wondrous deeds of the Mother of God, but
also adds thereto the strange gathering at her all-sacred
burial of all the sacred apostles conveyed from every
nation, the God-revealing hymns of these God-possessed
ones, and the solicitous presence of the angels, and their
choir, and liturgy round about her, going on before,
following after, assisting, opposing, defending, being
defended. They labored and chanted together to their
uttermost with those who venerated that life- originating
and God-receiving body, the saving balsam for our race and
the boast of all creation; but they strove against and
opposed with a secret hand the Jews who rose up against
and attacked that body with hand and will set upon
theomachy. All the while the Lord Sabaoth Himself, the Son
of the Ever-Virgin, was present, into Whose hands she
rendered her divinely-minded spirit, through which and
with which its companion, her body, was translated into
the domain of celestial and endless life, even as was and
is fitting. In truth, many have been allotted divine favor
and glory and power, as David says, "But to me
exceedingly honorable are Thy friends, O Lord, their
principalities are made exceeding strong. I will count
them and they shall be multiplied more than the sand"
(Ps. 138:17). And according to Solomon, "many
daughters have attained wealth, many have wrought
valiantly; but she doth exceed, she hath surpassed all,
both men and women" (cf. Prov. 31:29). For
while she alone stood between God and the whole human
race, God became the Son of Man and made men sons of God;
she made earth heavenly, she deified the human race, and
she alone of all women was shown forth to be a mother by
nature and the Mother of God transcending every law of
nature, and by her ineffable childbirth-the Queen of all
creation, both terrestial and celestial. Thus she exalted
those under her through herself, and, showing while on
earth an obedience to things heavenly rather than things
earthly, she partook of more excellent deserts and of
superior power, and from the ordination which she received
from heaven by the Divine Spirit, she became the most
sublime of the sublime and the supremely blest Queen of a
blessed race.
But now the Mother of God has her dwelling in Heaven
whither she was today translated, for this is meet, Heaven
being a suitable place for her. She "stands at the
right of the King of all clothed in a vesture wrought with
gold and arrayed with divers colors" (cf. Ps.
44:9), as the psalmic prophecy says con- cerning her.
By "vesture wrought with gold" understand her
divinely radiant body arrayed with divers colors of every
virtue. She alone in her body, glorified by God, now
enjoys the celestial realm together with her Son. For,
earth and grave and death did not hold forever her
life-originating and God-receiving body -the dwelling more
favored than Heaven and the Heaven of heavens. If,
therefore, her soul, which was an abode of God's grace,
ascended into Heaven when bereaved of things here below, a
thing which is abundantly evident, how could it be that
the body which not only received in itself the pre-eternal
and only-begotten Son of God, the ever-flowing Wellspring
of grace, but also manifested His Body by way of birth,
should not have also been taken up into Heaven? Or, if
while yet three years of age and not yet possessing that
super- celestial in-dwelling, she seemed not to bear our
flesh as she abode in the Holy of Holies, and after she
became supremely perfect even as regards her body by such
great marvels, how indeed could that body suffer
corruption and turn to earth? How could such a thing be
conceivable for anyone who thinks reasonably'? Hence, the
body which gave birth is glorified together with what was
born of it with God-befitting glory, and the "ark of
holiness" (Ps. 131:8) is resurrected, after
the prophetic ode, together with Christ Who formerly arose
from the dead on the third day. The strips of linen and
the burial clothes afford the apostles a demonstration of
the Theotokos' resurrection from the dead, since they
remained alone in the tomb and at the apostles' scrutiny
they were found there, even as it had been with the
Master. There was no necessity for her body to delay yet a
little while in the earth, as was the case with her Son
and God, and so it was taken up straightway from the tomb
to a super-celestial realm, from whence she flashes forth
most brilliant and divine illuminations and graces,
irradiating earth's region; thus she is worshipped and
marvelled at and hymned by all the faithful . Willing to
set up an image of all goodness and beauty and to make
clearly manifest His own therein to both angels and men,
God fashioned a being supremely good and beautiful,
uniting in her all good, seen and unseen, which when He
made the world He distributed to each thing and thereby
adorned all; or rather one might say, He showed her forth
as a universal mixing bowl of all divine, angelic and
human things good and beautiful and the supreme beauty
which embellished both worlds. By her ascension now from
the tomb, she is taken from the earth and attains to
Heaven and this also she surpasses, uniting those on high
with those below, and encompassing all with the wondrous
deed wrought in her. In this manner she was in the
beginning "a little lower than the angels"
(Ps. 8:6), as it is said, referring to her
mortality, yet this only served to magnify her
pre-eminence as regards all creatures. Thus all things
today fittingly gather and commune for the festival.
It was meet that she who contained Him that fills all
things and who surpasses all should outstrip all and
become by her virtue superior to them in the eminence of
her dignity. Those things which sufficed the most
excellent among men that have lived throughout the ages in
order to reach such excellency, and that which all those
graced of God have separately, both angels and men, she
combines, and these she alone brings to fulfillment and
surpasses. And this she now has beyond all: That she has
become immortal after death and alone dwells together with
her Son and God in her body. For this reason she pours
forth from thence abundant grace upon those who honor
her-for she is a receptacle of great graces-and she grants
us even our ability to look towards her. Because of her
goodness she lavishes sublime gifts upon us and never
ceases to provide a profitable and abundant tribute in our
behalf. If a man looks towards this concurrence and
dispensing of every good, he will say that the Virgin is
for virtue and those who live virtuously, what the sun is
for perceptible light and those who live in it. But if he
raises the eye of his mind to the Sun which rose for men
from this Virgin in a wondrous manner, the Sun which by
nature possesses all those (lualities which were added to
her nature by grace, he shall straightaway call the Virgin
a heaven. The excellent inheritance of every good which
she has been allotted so m uch exceeds in holiness the
portion of those who are divinely graced both under and
above heaven as the heaven is greater than the sun and the
sun is more radiant than heaven.
Who can describe in words thy divinely resplendent beauty,
O Virgin Mother of God? Thoughts and words are inadequate
to define thine attributes, since they surpass mind and
speech. Yet it is meet to chant hymns of praise to thee,
for thou art a vessel containing every grace, the fulness
of all things good and beautiful, the tablet and living
icon of every good and all uprightness, since thou alone
hast been deemed worthy to receive the fulness of every
gift of the Spirit. Thou alone didst bear in thy womb Him
in Whom are found the treasuries of all these gifts and
didst become a wondrous tabernacle for Him; hence thou
didst depart by way of death to immortality and art
translated from earth to Heaven, as is proper, so that
thou mightest dwell with Him eternally in a
super-celestial abode. From thence thou ever carest
diligently for thine inheritance and by thine unsleeping
intercessions with Him, thou showest mercy to all.
To the degree that she is closer to God than all those who
have drawn nigh unto Him, by so much has the Theotokos
been deemed worthy of greater audience. I do not speak of
rnen alone, but also of the angelic hierarchies
themselves. Isaiah writes with regard to the supreme
commanders of the heavenly hosts: "And the seraphim
stood round about Him" (Isaiah 6:2); but David
says concerning her, "at Thy right hand stood the
queen" (Ps. 44:8). Do you see the difference
in position? From this comprehend also the difference in
the dignity of their station. The seraphim are round about
God, but the only Queen of all is near beside Him. She is
both wondered at and praised by God Himself, proclaiming
her, as it were, by the mighty deeds enacted with respect
to Him, and saying, as it is recorded in the Song of
Songs, "How fair is my companion" (cf. Song
of Songs 6:4), she is more radiant than light, more
arrayed with flowers than the divine gardens, more adorned
than the whole world, visible and invisible. She is not
merely a companion but she also stands at Cod's right
hand, for where Christ sat in the heavens, that is, at the
"right hand of majesty" (Heb. 1:3), there
too she also takes her stand, having ascended now from
earth into the heavens. Not merely does she love and is
loved in return more than every other, according to the
very laws of nature, but she is truly His Throne, and
wherever the King sits, there His Throne is set also. And
Isaiah beheld this throne amidst the choir of cherubim and
called it "high" and "exalted"
(Isaiah 6:1), wishing to make explicit how the
station of the Mother of God far trancer Is that of the
celestial hosts.
For this reason the Prophet introduces the angels
themselves as glorifying the God come from her, saying,
"Blessed be the glory of the L,ord from His
Place" (Ezek. 3:12). Jacob the patriarch,
beholding this throne by way of types (enigmata),
said, "How dreadful is this Place! This is none other
than the House of God, and this is the Gate of
Heaven" (Gen. 28:17). But David, joining
himself to the multitude of the saved, who are like the
strings of a musical instrument or like differing voices
from different generations made harmonious in one faith
through the Ever-Virgin, sounds a most melodic strain in
praise of her, saying: "I shall commemorate thy name
in every generation and generation. Therefore shall
peoples give praise unto thee for ever, and unto the ages
of ages." Do you see how the entire creation praises
the Virgin Mother, and not only in times past, but
"for ever, and unto the ages of ages"? Thus it
is evident that throughout the whole course of the ages,
she shall never cease from benefacting all creation, and I
mean not only created nature seen round about us, but also
the very supreme commanders of the heavenly hosts, whose
nature is immaterial and transcendent. Isaiah shows us
clearly that it is only through her that they together
with us both partake of and touch God, that Nature which
defies touch, for he did not see the seraphim take the
coal from the altar without mediation, but with tongs, by
means of which the coal touched the prophetic lips and
purified them (cf. Isaiah 6:6-7). Moses beheld the
tongs of that great vision of Isaiah when he saw the bush
aflame with fire, yet unconsumed. And who does not know
that the Virgin Mother is that very bush and those very
tongs, she who herself (though an archangel also assisted
at the conception) conceived the Divine Fire without being
consumed, Him that taketh away the sins of the world, Who
through her touched mankind and by that ineffable touch
and union cleansed us entirely. Therefore, she only is the
frontier between created and uncreated nature, and there
is no man that shall come to God except he be truly
illumined through her, that Lamp truly radiant with
divinity, even as the Prophet says, "God is in the
midst of her, she shall not be shaken'(Ps. 45:5).
If recompense is bestowed according to the measure of love
for God, and if the man who loves the Son is loved of Him
and of His Father and becomes the dwelling place of Both,
and They mystically abide and walk in him, as it is
recorded in the Master's Gospel, who, then, will love Him
more than His Mother? For, He was her only-begotten Son,
and moreover she alone among women gave birth knowing no
spouse, so that the love of Him that had partaken of her
flesh might be shared with her twofold. And who will the
only-begotten Son love more than His Mother, He that came
forth from Her ineffably without a father in this last age
even as He came forth from the Father without a mother
before the ages'? How indeed could He that descended to
fulfill the Law not multiply that honor due to His Mother
over and above the ordinances of the Law?
Hence, as it was through the Theotokos alone that the Lord
came to us, appeared upon earth and lived among men, being
invisible to all before this time, so likewise in the
endless age to come, without her mediation, every
emanation of illuminating divine light, every revelation
of the mysteries of the Godhead, every form of spiritual
gift, will exceed the capacity of every created being. She
alone has received the all-pervading fulness of Him that
filleth all things, and through her all may now contain
it, for she dispenses it according to the power of each,
in proportion and to the degree of the purity of each.
Hence she is the treasury and overseer of the riches of
the Godhead. For it is an everlasting ordinance in the
heavens that the inferior partake of what lies beyond
being, by the mediation of the superior, and the Virgin
Mother is incomparably superior to all. It is through her
that as many as partake of God do partake, and as many as
know God understand her to be the enclosure of the
Uncontainable One, and as many as hymn God praise her
together with Him. She is the cause of what came before
her, the champion of what came after her and the agent of
things eternal. She is the substance of the prophets, the
principle of the apostles, the firm foundation of the
martyrs and the premise of the teachers of the Church .
She is the glory of those upon earth, the joy of celestial
beings, the adornment of all creation. She is the
beginning and the source and root of unutterable good
things; she is the summit and consummation of everything
holy.
O divine, and now heavenly, Virgin, how can I express all
things which pertain to thee? How can I glorify the
treasury of all glory? Merely thy memory sanctifies
whoever keeps it, and a mere movement towards thee makes
the mind more translucent, and thou dost exalt it
straightway to the Divine. The eye of the intelfect is
through thee made limpid, and through thee the spirit of a
man is illumined by the sojourning of the Spirit of God,
since thou hast become the steward of the treasury of
divine gifts and their vault, and this, not in order to
keep them for thyself, but so that thou mightest make
created nature replete with grace. Indeed, the steward of
those inexhaustible treasuries watches over them so that
the riches may be dispensed; and what could confine that
wealth which wanes not? Richly, therefore, bestow thy
mercy and thy graces upon all thy people, this thine
inheritance, O Lady! Dispel the perils which menace us.
See how greatly we are expended by our own and by aliens,
by those without and by those within. Uplift all by thy
might: mollify our fellow citizens one with another and
scatter those who assault us from without-like savage
beasts. Measure out thy succor and healing in proportion
to our passions, apportioning abundant grace to our souls
and bodies, s fficient for every necessity. And although
we may prove incapable of containing thy bounties, augment
our capacity and in this manner bestow them upon us, so
that being both saved and fortified by thy grace, we may
glorify the pre-eternal Word Who was incarnate of thee for
our sakes, together with His unoriginate Father and the
life-creating Spirit, now and ever and unto the endless
ages. Amen.
Copyright Holy Transfiguration Monastery
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