DEDICATION TO THE FESTIVAL OF THE SLEEPING OF THE MOTHER)
In the midst of the physical and spiritual laziness of summer, our Church projects, as a cool mental oasis and spiritual upliftment, the great feast of our Virgin Mary. The fifteenth of August, or as many call it "the Easter of summer", constitutes an important celebratory station of the ecclesiastical unity. This supreme holiday is for the whole of Orthodoxy and especially for us Greeks, who revere the Mother of God in a special way, an opportunity to wholeheartedly express our honor to Her holy person, and this because our personal and national life is intertwined with the high purpose and protection of the Great Mother, of the world. Large pilgrimage centers of Her grace (Tinos, Paros, Vermio, etc.) will become poles of attraction for thousands of believers this year. Still a multitude of other temples dedicated to the sept of Her Assumption will celebrate brilliantly and honor properly Her exit from the world and Her entrance into endless eternity and resplendent glory.
The holy books of the New Testament unfortunately do not mention anything about the life of Our Lady after the Resurrection of the Lord and Pentecost. This silence is replaced by the sacred Tradition of our Church, which, as is known, together with the Holy Bible, is the source of our faith. The piety, respect and love of the faithful of the Jerusalem church to the Virgin saved certain elements of Her life, which were later recorded in the works of the Fathers and in the hymnology of our Church.
According to them the Mother of our Lord after the Resurrection of the Lord remained a simple, but elite member of the church of Jerusalem. The apostles, pastors and believers of the Church had unlimited love and respect for Her. In the difficult times of the persecution of the Christians in Palestine (Acts 8,1), Our Lady obviously became their great comforter. We do not know how many years he lived. However, he must not have tasted the painful old age. The Lord Jesus Christ quickly took her to Him, probably around the age of fifty.
So when the time came for her exit, the archangel Gabriel was sent again to announce to her the will of God and her Son. While she was praying in Her house in Jerusalem the angel appeared and offered her a small palm branch and said to her:Hail, graceful Mary. I bring you a message from Your Son. The blessed time has come for you to go to Him and be glorified as you see fit. So get ready and in three days He will come to take Your honest and undefiled soul». After this and having recovered from the apparition, she rejoiced greatly and hastened to go up to Her beloved Mount of Olives to pray, where Her Son prayed for the last time before His passion. He used to go up often and pray there.
Going up the path, the unexpected happened: The trees and bushes of the road leaned and worshiped her! The soulless and horseless creation, as it had opposed at the time of the crucifixion of Her Lord and Son, now regains judgment and feeling and worships the Queen of the world! He headed to that part of the garden where the Lord had also prayed. She knelt humbly, raised her septate hands and gazed at the sky and after thanking God she begged him for the salvation of the world. Throughout
during Her prayer a heavenly light bathed Her. Her honest and holy face shone with divine energy.
Then she quickly returned to Her house and began to prepare the essentials for Her funeral. She also gathered Her relatives and faithful friends and announced to them the will of the Lord to call her to Him. When they heard this they were surprised and began to mourn the separation of the Mother of the Lord. She comforted them by telling them that this is God's will and that from Her position in heaven she will always advocate for the entire human race. To console them, she donated two of Her dresses, the skepe (the headscarf) and Her gown, which later became one of the most precious treasures of our Church!
On the third day after the visit of the archangel, the Lady Theotokos, after dressing herself in her funeral clothes, again called her friends and lay calmly on her bed. Then the following miraculous event happened: A loud shout was heard in Her house, a bright cloud covered it. Even so, the holy Apostles were transported in clouds from the ends of the earth in order to attend Her exit. The apostle Paul, Dionysios the Areopagite and Saint Ierotheos, first bishop of Athens, Saint Timothy and other important figures of the Church were also transported in the same way. The Lady Theotokos, after greeting and blessing everyone, delivered Her holy soul into the hands of Her Son, Who descended from heaven to receive it Himself.
The gathered apostles, the provosts of the church of Jerusalem and the faithful people began to sing exodus hymns to Theomitor. At the same time an army of angels was heard calling from heaven! The heavenly melody was heard throughout the city. Fear and ecstasy seized the inhabitants of the holy city. Only the hard-hearted and envious Jews were not moved by this wonderful event.
Then a funeral procession was formed which headed to the village of Gethsemane, where Her holy remains would be buried. The lamentations of the faithful people, who had lost their Mother, mingled with the psalms of the apostles. Tears of sorrow and joy flowed down their freckled faces.
Before reaching the place of burial, fanatical Jews arrived and wanted to desecrate the exit of the Mother of Jesus, whom they hated to death. With insults, threats and taunts they provoked the humble omigiri. One of them had the impudence to approach the sept coffin of the Virgin, with the intention of throwing the holy cloth on the ground. As soon as he dared to touch the deathbed adorned with fragrant flowers, immediately both his hands were cut off and stuck to it. At the same time he lost his light! Then he realized his disgraceful act and with charming voices declared his repentance and begged the Virgin Mary to take pity on him and heal him. And oh miraculously, that man was healed immediately! Then he confessed his iniquity and infidelity and became a Christian. With tears in his eyes, he also followed the holy procession. On the contrary, his other companions remained cold and unrepentant in front of the great miracle of Theomitoros!
There, in the quiet village of Gethsemani, the burial of the immaculate remains of Our Lady took place. Her divine body was placed in a well-kept monument, which
prepared by the Christians of the holy city. With sobs and tears the holy apostles and the other Christians sealed the monument and left.
The pious tradition of our Church states that after the burial and after three days had passed, the apostle Thomas arrived late at Gethsemane from the distant Indies, where he was on a mission. He persistently asked, with tears in his eyes and great sorrow, that the tomb be opened for him so that he could see and venerate for the last time the honest body of his Master's beloved Mother. At his insistence the other apostles opened the tomb and, oh wonder, the tomb was empty, the Lord transferred Her holy body to heaven, so that it would not taste natural decay. The delay in St. Thomas was characterized by the Church as an economy of God, to make known the transmigration of the Lady Theotokos! Her empty tomb in Gethsemane is to this day a source of sanctification for the myriads of believers who visit it every year and evidence of Her transition to heaven.
THE CONTRIBUTION OF THE VIRGIN TO THE WORK OF SAVING THE WORLD
The sacred memory of the Dormition of our Virgin Mary is, as we said, a good opportunity for the pious people of the faithful to manifest their love, respect, and gratitude to Her, Who, being human, deserved to become the most honorable divine vessel, the most sacred vessel, so that she may receive the infinite God in Her most pure flesh, to conceive the anarchic and unchanging God in Her honest stomach, to nourish the completely self-sufficient God from Her virginal blood, to hold in Her sept hands "inseparable everywhere».
The holy face of the Mother of God is, according to our Orthodox theology, part of the infinite mystery of the Divine Economy. After the Triune God, She became the main person, who essentially contributed to the realization of the plan of the salvation of the human race. She was chosen by God among millions of other girls, of countless generations, as the purest and holiest human existence, in order to become the Mother of God. The Fathers of the Church tell us that for the realization of the plan of salvation of the human race, God gave his only begotten Son and humanity gave the Virgin Mary. In her holy person the great meeting of God and man took place. In her all-holy body, the great transformation took place (Eph. 2,16:XNUMX) and from this began the salvation of the human race, the re-creation and the deification of the mortal man.
The great Father of the ancient Church Saint Irenaeus (+199) paralleled and compared the Mother of God with the progenitor of the human race, Eve, in order to show the difference between them. The virgin Eve did not make good use of the divine gifts and abilities she had received from God, but used them for evil and circumventing the divine will. The cause and root of this rebellion was selfishness and arrogance. If she was the bearer of arrogance, the Virgin Mary was the model of obedience and humility. The holy father emphasizes that "... Eve (had to) be restored in Mary, so that a virgin could become an advocate for another virgin and eliminate the disobedience of the first through virginal obedience" (Rev. Epid. Apost. Kerygma 32,33). Also Saint Cyril of Jerusalem (+ 386) wrote that "Death came through the virginity of Eve, he saw through the virginity, and rather life is seen through the virginity" (Kyril.
Ier. Catechism 12, e'). Her blessed saying to the angel of the evangelization "behold the handmaid of the Lord born unto me according to thy word» (Luke 1, 38) constitutes
clearly the quintessence of Her contribution to the work of saving the world in Christ.
The first human creature, in whom human nature was restored to its ancient propotatory form and beauty, was the Mother of God. With the advent of the Holy Spirit during the Annunciation (Luke 1, 35) she was cleansed from the pollution of original sin, which she also brought, as a sharer of human nature, making her now spotless so that she could receive into her pure bowels the "fire of divinity» and not to burn. Since then it has become the "Cute”, the holiest being after the Triune God. In Her person was the beginning of the redemption of the world and the deification of man.
The contribution of our Virgin Mary during Christ's redemptive work on earth was enormous. He was constantly at our Redeemer's side, from the Birth to the Passion, the Resurrection and the Ascension. She tasted, as a mother, the bitterness of the sufferings of her Divine Son, culminating in His death on the cross. He felt close to Him His anguish for the realization of the divine plan of the salvation of the world. Also according to the primordial tradition of our Church She was the one who animated the persecuted first Christians of the young Church of Jerusalem.
In short, our Virgin Mary's life on earth was a continuous struggle and offering for the salvation of the human race. The faithful people of God know this very well, which is why they give the Theotokos, from ancient times until today, the highest honor, the greatest, after the Triune God. It must be noted here that only our Orthodoxy gives due honor to the Mother of our Lord.
The first fortnight of August is dedicated to Our Lady. The Orthodox believers, we participate daily in the services of the wonderful Prayer Rules, we fast, we confess, we take communion. We run with tears in our eyes to entrust to her the difficulties and sufferings of our lives, we beg her with fervor of soul to lighten our heavy yoke, because we firmly believe that the sweet Mother of God continues to love and care for us the people. Inside Her big heart there is room for every person, not only for believers, but also for sinners and impious people, even for those who abuse Her! Her blessed position near Her Son and our God Jesus Christ, gives her the opportunity to pray for each one of us, for each of our problems. The results of Her help are tangible. That is why we sing in the famous Little Rule of Prayer to Her: "No one rushes to you, dismayed, comes from you, pure Virgin Theotokos, but asks for the grace and receives the gift, in the interest of the request".
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