Dear brothers and sisters, greetings for the feast of the Holy New-Hieromartyr, Philip, Metropolitan of Moscow and All Rus.
He remains a great and inspiring model of Christian life for all of us, reminding us that it is our Christian duty to put the Law of God above all things, and to not turn aside from the precepts of Christ’s Gospel and our Christian principles to please and conform to the expectations of “the world”.
Having exalted Truth and faithfulness to the Saviour and the Gospel above all earthly comforts, reputation, security and even life itself, St Philip reminds us that the Christian life is dangerous, if we live it properly.
His steadfast opposition to the tyranny and violence of Tsar Ivan, and his resulting martyrdom, showed that our discipleship has a cost, and we see this continuing in the world as employees, students and pupils, prospective adoptive parents, employment interviewees, Christian doctors, nurses and health care workers, and all manner of other people of Faith face persecution, exclusion and prejudice for their faithfulness to the Gospel and the Law of God.
Let us turn to St Philip, in prayer, for his help in our Christian witness, and for strength and faithfulness in times of uncertainty, injustice, inequality and tyranny, where the Herod’s and Caesars of government, globalism, world finance, international conglomerates, giant pharmaceutical companies and powerful NGO’s seek to mould humanity to their own image and conform it to their agendas.
Like St Philip, we are called to oppose falsehood with the Truth of Christ; darkness with the Light of Christ; the hate of the world with the Saviour’s love; and to oppose the fallen, perverted agendas of world powers with the Law of God – for like him, we belong to Christ, His Law is our law, and our Christian calling is to not be of this world, but as the Church to be the Saviour’s abiding Presence in the world.
The Church’s prophetic voice is needed, not simply through the giants like St Philip, but through each and everyone of us, however weak and seemingly insignificant we are. Together, we are the Church, and the gates of hell and death will not prevail against it!
May St Philip pray for us, and may his example give us the courage to live the Christian life with all of the risks and dangers that professing the Gospel and swimming against the political, sociological and ideological tide pose for us – and may we have the courage to do so heedless of the threats of governments, societies, and even those in the Church who oppose the Gospel with agendas that betray the Orthodox Faith of the Holy Fathers, of the Sacred Councils, and of the Saints, among whom St Philip is glorified.
Holy Hieromartyr and Wonderworker Philip, pray to God for us!
In the Name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Dear brothers and sisters: Christ is Born! Glorify Him!
How blessed we have been to have such wonderful Nativity services in the Oratory Church, blessed by the warmth and generosity of the Oratorian Fathers, knowing that St Alban’s is a place where we are welcome: a place of love, generosity and boundless good will – reflecting the love which is the very meaning of the Incarnation of the Saviour, and of His glorious Nativity.
We celebrate the Nativity as the feast of Love-Incarnate, born in Bethlehem and laid in a manger, where we see the realisation of God’s immeasurable and selfless Incarnate-Love in action: love, which is neither abstract, nor an emotion, feeling or sentiment, but Love Who is a Person – and not any person, but the Creator-Saviour of all things, coming and dwelling among us, through Whom the whole Holy Trinity loves us and embraces us from within humanity itself – as Emmanuel: “God with us”!
Though we shall never be able to fully comprehend the depth of that Incarnate-Love, born in the lowly Bethlehem stable and laid in the manger, we know that it was so strong that the Only-Begotten Son and Word of God came down to earth from heaven, and was ready to not only become man, but the Man of Sorrows, Who would be mocked and beaten, and go to the Life-Giving Cross like a lamb to the slaughter, with love so unshakeable and immovable that He would remain silent, enduring torture and the agony of the Cross for us: agony because He did not simply look human, but was truly human.
Love and mercy would render Almighty God mute and silent, as the works of His own hands beat Him, mocked Him, spat in His face, wounded and pierced Him: such was the power and enormity of His love!
In Him, born in the cave and laid in the manger, we see Love-Incarnate, Who accepted a human heart to overflow with love for His whole creation, and to be pierced on the Cross not only by salvific-love, but by the cold iron of the centurion’s lance;
Love-Incarnate Whose human hands reached out to heal and comfort;
Love-Incarnate Who accepted human feet, to journey the highways and bye-ways with His in His saving ministry of love and salvation, with human lips and tongue speaking the life-giving words of the Gospel;
Love-Incarnate Whose arms opened wide on the Cross to embrace the whole world;
Love-Incarnate Whose shoulders bore not only the Cross – the Tree of Life – but also the sin and weight of all humanity;
Love-Incarnate Whose body – victoriously lifted up on the Cross – flowed with the life-blood offered and shed in redemptive, sacrificial-love for us all.
In the Incarnation, we see the earthly manifestation of the love that is the very nature of God: eternally existing in the loving relationship of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, and the physical realisation of a love that is the bond of divine-unity, in the reciprocal, self-giving of each of the Divine persons of the Holy Trinity to one another.
From within this perfect but expansive Triune fellowship of love, it was in actively seeking to love something outside of His Triune self, that God created heaven and the earth, with creation as the physical manifestation and material realisation of His love: something external and other than Himself that He could love, care for and sustain.
Within this creation, humanity manifested God’s desire to not only have creation to love, but to have a reciprocal and personal loving relationship with His creation. God created man to love Him, to be loved by Him and to be in a relationship of loving communion!
When humanity rebelled and fell away from God, His wonderful, all-embracing love then became the very meaning of the economy of salvation and the wonder of the Incarnation.
In a divine reaching-down to redeem and restore, this love was the very reason that God entered into creation in humanity itself, clothing Himself in human nature to heal and restore mankind, not to an earthly paradise, but to something far greater: the eternal glory of the Kingdom of Heaven.
As we joyfully announce “Christ is Born!” we contemplate the beginning of this heavenly calling and heavenward journey, lying quietly in the manger, as a new-born babe but a few hours old, worshipped by shepherds and given precious gifts by the eastern magi.
But beyond this apparent newness of this life, we recognise the Pre-Eternal Son, the Word of God, Who created heaven and the earth, and know that the Christ-Child is the same Lord, Who is the maker of heaven and earth,
Yahweh-the-Lord walking and talking with Adam and Eve in the coolness of the day;
the same Lord Who visited Abraham and Sarah to promise them a son and Who stopped the sacrificial hand of Abraham to save Isaac;
the same Lord Who wrestled with Jacob at Bethel;
the same Lord Who spoke to Moses from the Burning Bush and gave Him the Law on Sinai;
the same Lord Whom Ezekiel saw upon the awesome chariot-throne in the heavens;
and the same Lord Who Daniel encountered in the Ancient of Days.
As St John Chrysostom preached in his His Homily on the Nativity:
“The Ancient of Days has become an infant. The One seated on a high and exulted throne is now lying in a manger. The One Who cannot be touched and is bodiless is now held in human hands. The One Who breaks the chains of sin is now wrapped in swaddling clothes, for this is what He willed. He desired to transform dishonour into glory, to clothe shame with splendour, and to show the power of virtue through the humble form of a servant.”
And the whole meaning of this divine condescension can be encapsulated and summarised in that one word, LOVE: love which seeks not justice for humanity, but to overflow with God’s mercy and compassion, and His desire to restore the loving communion which He established when He created man from the dust of the earth and breathed into His nostrils the breath of life.
As we celebrate the Nativity, we must remind ourselves that God created humanity to not simply be a passive and inert recipient of His love, but to grow in perfection and holiness within the relationship and the communion it had, and still continues to have with Him – for despite the fall, and consequential sin and death, our All-Loving God has not abandoned this intention.
In the Incarnation He has restated this calling, through
“The Word of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, who did, through His transcendent love, become what we are, that He might bring us to be even what He is Himself.”
(St Irenaeus of Lyons: Against Heresies, Book 5, Preface)
The Incarnation, the Nativity and the whole economy of salvation were acts of God’s new creation, to put right what had gone wrong – our calling to restoration through the Lord’s conjoining of our humanity with His divinity.
Through His love, we continue to be called to be children of God in eternal communion and blessedness with Him, and adopted children and heirs of the promise, called to grow in perfection, holiness, and perfect love.
But, unless we live to love not only God, but also one another, the Nativity and Incarnation become meaningless, as we fail to be icons of the Incarnate Word Who has ordered us,
“A new commandment “I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.”
(John 13:34-35, Matthew 22:34-40)
If we fail to love and thereby obey this divine command, we reject the Nativity, and as much as we celebrate the wonder of the birth of Christ, our hymns of praise will be hollow, our prayers meaningless, and our offerings an insult to our Saviour and Lord.
Whether the birth of the Saviour and the Incarnation have any real meaning in our lives will be reflected in whether we accept or reject God’s commandment to love not only Him, but also our neighbour.
By loving, or not loving, we choose whether we accept or reject the Prince of Peace, and whether His birth has any meaning and real significance in our lives.
We repeatedly greet one another and proclaim the feast with the joyful proclamation, “Christ is born!” and the joyful answer’ “Glorify Him!”, but we can only glorify Him if the love of His Incarnation is reflected and manifested in our lives, as the bond of communion, kinship, solidarity and unity with one another as well as with God.
If Christ truly dwells within us, each of our hearts must be a fitful and worthy manger, in which love abides as the condition for His Presence. His expansive and limitless love can only coexist with our reciprocal love, reflecting Him in our lives.
We must each proactively reflect the love-in-action of His Incarnation, and the world must encounter God’s love in us, not as something theoretical but real and tangible, through which the world knows that we are disciples of the Lord, Who was born in Bethlehem to call us to the glory of the Kingdom.
Not only our mouths, but also our deeds must gratefully and lovingly announce “Christ is Born!” and each day of our lives must proclaim “Glorify Him!” And, let them be lives of gratitude to the Lord, Who came from heaven to raise us to its glorious heights.
“Let us not be ungrateful to the Benefactor, but rather bring forth, as much as we are able, faith, hope, love, chastity, mercy, and kindness.”
(St John Chrysostom: Homily on the Day of the Nativity of Christ)
May our love proclaim the wonder of the Incarnation, and that “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us; full of grace and truth.”
Love was His meaning. Let it be our meaning, also – living and abiding in us, for His sake and to His glory.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Dear brothers and sisters, on this forefeast of Christmas, as the white vestments of the clergy proclaim the nearness of the Lord’s Nativity, the ancient pre-festal hymns of the Church urge us to make ready and hasten to the city of David, and for Bethlehem itself and the land of Judah to be ready for the coming of the promised Saviour,
“Make ready, O Bethlehem, Eden hath been opened unto all. Prepare, O Ephratha, for the Tree of life hath blossomed in the cave from the Virgin…”
“Гото́вися, Вифлее́ме, отве́рзися всем, Еде́ме, красу́йся, Евфра́фо, я́ко дре́во живота́ в верте́пе процвете́ от Де́вы…”
In the aposticha of vespers we hear,
“Behold, the hour of our salvation draweth nigh! Make ready, O cave, for the Virgin approacheth to give birth!
… and today’s pre-festal matins canon urges the created world and its people to celebrate because the Saviour is nearly here, even calling past generations to rejoice.
“Ye mountains and hills, fields and vales, people and generations, nations and every creature: exult, filled with divine gladness, for the deliverance of all, the Word of God, the Timeless One, Who in His loving-kindness hath come under time, doth come with haste.”
“Горы ́и хо́лми, поля́ и де́бри, лю ́дие и коле́на, язы ́цы и вся́кое дыха́ние, воскли́кните, весе́лия Боже́ственнаго исполня́еми: прии́де и приспе́ всех избавле́ние, Сло́во Бо́жие Безле́тное, под ле́том за милосе́рдие бы ́вшее.”
In today’s Gospel of Christ’s forebears, called to “exult, filled with divine gladness…”, we have heard great names from among these generations, from Abraham, called to be the the Father of the Promise, through the centuries Christ’s ancestors who were God’s human-preparation for the moment in which Godhood – divinity – would be joined with humanity, and born as a little Child, both divine and human and laid in a manger.
Once again, we have heard the familiar poetry of the genealogy of the generations of the ancestors of Christ: how “Abraham begat Isaac; and Isaac begat Jacob; and Jacob begat Judas and his brethren…”, and in the succeeding generations, we have heard familiar names – Jesse, David, Solomon – as well as unfamiliar names, encountering the Old Testament and the Old Covenant established through Abraham, as the unfolding history of our salvation, as humanity drew closer and closer to the birth of the Saviour.
The oikos of the canon, addressing the Mother of God goes even further than this, saying that “the God-loving Abraham, the ever-memorable Isaac, Jacob and all the divinely assembled choir of saints rejoice, and, with joyous utterances, they lead creation forth to meet thee.”
…a powerful image, teaching us that in God’s plan of salvation, not only humanity, but the whole of creation is led forward, towards the Mother of God and to Christ her newborn Son by the very generations of holy fathers that we commemorate in these Sundays before the Nativity.
These generations of the Messiah’s ancestors are God’s saving plan in action, and a reminder that though humanity was banished from paradise, that same humanity was NOT banished from taking a central place and an essential part in His plan of salvation.
Even though the fiery angel stood at the gates of Eden to stop exiled mankind returning to the Tree of Life, and even though humanity was banished from Paradise, at the same time, human nature was being used by God to bring His plan of salvation to fruition and realisation.
The All-Loving God, would not save humanity from the outside, through an external act of salvation. No! He would save humanity and the world from from the inside, having chosen that Abraham and his descendants would not only be included in His plan of salvation, but that they would be vital and absolutely necessary for this to be accomplished.
In an act of sacrificial-love, God Himself would not simply come and dwell within the human world, as a divine visitor, but would go so far as to to clothe Himself in humanity; the Creator putting on creation… and the Creator-Messiah-Saviour, would lift up His creation with Himself on the Cross; would restore that creation through His life-giving death; would raise that creation with Himself in His third-day Resurrection; and would translate that creation, in His humanity to the heights of heaven.
Abraham led his family and tribe from Ur, in Chaldea, to new life in Israel; Moses led the children of Israel from captivity to the freedom of new life in the Promised Land; but Christ, the God-Man, born in the cave and laid in the manger, came to ultimately lead His people not to an earthly promised land, but to everlasting glory and eternal life of the Kingdom of Heaven.
In history, time and space, the Creator-Saviour a set this heavenward journey of humanity into motion in the calling of Abraham to leave his homeland, to journey to a new land, with the divine promise, that in him, all the people of the world would be blessed.
Thus, we could say that the human-journey to Bethlehem began when Abraham was obedient to God.
The humanity that the Pre-Eternal Son put on in the womb of the Mother of God, through her obedience to God’s calling, is the fruit of Abraham’s obedience and faith, and the obedience and faith of all of those generations that link Abraham to Christ.
Starting with Abraham, today’s reading from St Paul’s Epistle to the Hebrews says that,
By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country…
By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac…
By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come.
By faith Jacob, when he was a dying, blessed both the sons of Joseph…
By faith Joseph, when he died, made mention of the departing of the children of Israel…
By faith Moses, when he was born, was hid three months of his parents
And what shall I more say? for the time would fail me to tell of Gideon, and of Barak, and of Samson, and of Jephthah; of David also, and Samuel, and of the prophets: Who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions. Quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens.
Faith is the constant thread that runs through these successive generations, and the relationship of the righteous ancestors of Christ with God was built on the rock of this faith, but despite this, we hear, “And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise…”
Although they were essential to the promise, and though it came through them, they could not see that promise in their earthly lives, as Christ deigned that He would come after them in their flesh, but we rejoice that the day of their rejoicing did come when the Lord’s Body was placed not in the manger, but in the Life-Giving Tomb, in soul He descended into the depths of Hades, and stripped it bare of all of His righteous ancestors, who had played their part in the Divine plan to redeem mankind, and though they await the resurrection of the body, they dwell in heaven with Him Who their Lord and God, and yet also their own child, their own flesh and kin through the wonder of the Incarnation and the Nativity
When the Word became flesh in the wonder of the Incarnation, He was flesh of their flesh and bone of their bone, put on, in humility for their sake, and for their salvation.
When the Saviour spoke the saving words of the Gospel, it was with the tongue and lips that He – in divine humility – received from His forefathers.
When the Saviour walked through the towns and villages of Palestine, and even when He walked upon the waves of the see, it was on the feet that He – in divine humility – had received from His forefathers.
When the Saviour, touched the sick and healed them, when He took morsels of food and fed thousands, when He broke the bread and blessed the wine of the Last Supper, it was with the hands that He – in divine humility – received from His forefathers.
When the crown of thorns was thrust down upon His head, it was the head that He – in divine humility – received from His forefathers.
When He opened His arms wide on the Cross for the sake of the whole word, they were arms that He – in divine humility – received from His forefathers.
When saving and life-giving blood and water flowed from His pierced side, it was blood and water, which – in divine humility – He received from His forefathers.
When the Lord rose from the dead, and Thomas felt the wounds in His limbs, and placed his hand on the wound in the Saviour’s side, it was the risen, triumphant and risen body, that the Giver of Life – in divine humility – had received from His forefathers.
And when the Lord ascends in glory, surrounded by the holy angels, and takes human nature into heaven, to be glorified by all of the angelic ranks, it is the humanity that He, not only in divine-humility, but also in His sacrificial love received from His forefathers.
This is His sign of the final fulfilment of His promise to Abraham, which is ultimately not earthbound, terrestrial and material, but heavenly and spiritual.
In embracing humanity, and making that humanity part of His divine plan and economy of salvation, God calls the forefathers, the righteous of both the Old Covenant and circumcision, and the New Covenant through Holy Baptism, to be with Him in the everlasting glory of the age to come.
It is through the faith, obedience, and sacrifices of the forefathers, that we now approach the Nativity to worship and adore the new born Saviour together with the shepherds and the magi, celebrating all who were not simply human details in God’s divine plan, but the very rungs on which God came down from earth to heaven, to be Emmanuel: God With Us.
And it is through the willing and devoted part of the holy fathers in the divine plan, that we are called with them, not to an earthly paradise, but to the eternal glory of heaven to be with God, Who calls us to be children and heirs of the promise.
Dear fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters, Съ праздникомъ!
Greetings for this radiant feast of St Spyridon, especially to Father Spyridon. Many, blessed years, dear Father!
It is always a joy to arrive at the feast of St Spyridon, and to see how God can take the lowly and seemingly ordinary, and make it into something not only glorious, but in the case of our beloved saint and heavenly-intercessor, into a radiant beacon of the Faith celebrated throughout the whole Christian world.When we regard many hierarch-saints of the Church, we are talking of men of learning, trained in universities and the great theological schools; men of letters and spiritual literati who left writings and books of spiritual counsel, scriptural exegesis, or dogmatic theology; bishops, archbishops and patriarchs who counselled emperors, kings and princes…
Then we encounter our beloved St Spyridon: a simple Cypriot shepherd; a widowed husband and father; a family man with a sense of communitas, who used what God had given him and what he earned from his own labours for the relief of the poor, to feed the hungry, to help his neighbours, to assist the homeless, to reach out to those in need.
He had not studied in the ancient universities; Plato and Aristotle, Homer and the wealth of classical Greek learning were not the foundation of his “education”; rhetoric, logic and mathematics were far from his formation and world; he had not spent his years learning oratory and philosophy among the bright young minds of the Hellenic world.
No! As a family man and as a shepherd protecting and caring for his beloved sheep, learning from the Gospel, and taught by the Saviour in the power of the Holy Spirit, the great wonderworker and shepherd of souls was a “home grown” spiritual force and bearer of the Light of Christ.
In English, we have a proverb that you cannot make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear… but time and again we see that in spiritual terms, this proverb is earthbound, wrong and mistaken, in as much as God constantly affects this transformation.
Our All-Powerful and All-Merciful God took the dust of the ground, and fashioned man, the very apex of creation, and his created humanity became the chosen robe of the Saviour in which He ascended the Cross, conquered hell and death, rose again and ascended into heaven, where that glorified humanity (once nothing but dust) is worshipped by the angelic hosts.
Having received the joyful proclamation of the archangel, and having conceived Christ within her womb, the All-Holy Mother of God proclaimed the upside-down-ness of the Gospel, as God exults the humble and meek, as He most certainly did with St Spyridon, whose lack of learning and cultural sophistication was no obstacle to God.
After the death of his wife, during the reign of the Saint Constantine, the Equal-to the-Apostles (306-337), St Spyridon was elected and consecrated as bishop of Tremithus, where combined his hierarchical duties and pastoral service to the local Church with still going to care for his beloved sheep – wearing his famous plaited- straw shepherd’s hat.
What valuable spiritual lessons he must have learned from his shepherding labours: the need for nourishment, the vital necessity of assuaging the hunger and thirst of his sheep, the threat of wolves and predators, how to defend and protect his flock – all vital lessons for him as a bishop and shepherd of souls with his human flock.
His hierarchical service was one of great simplicity, in which God’s power and confirmation of his great holiness was constantly seen, as was evident at the First Ecumenical Council, where St Spyridon confuted the heresy of Arius not with eloquent words, but with a simple miracle. Taking a brick from which water trickled and fire shot out, leaving nothing but the dust in his hand, St Spyridon said simply and boldly, “There was only one brick, but it was composed of three elements. In the Holy Trinity there are three Persons, but only one God.”
Imploring and receiving God’s help in times of both drought and crop-destroying rains, healing the sick, casting out demons and even raising the dead, St Spyridon lived for his flock, among his flock, and with his flock – not as a great prelate and prince of the Church, but as a humble spiritual-shepherd.
His earthly falling asleep did not bring his miraculous care to an end, but rather, freed St Spyridon to work greater wonders for those who have and still turn to him in faith and in need, and with his relics having been taken to Corfu (though his right hand in is Rome), he wondrously and lovingly embraced the island and its people, saving them for the Ottomans and caring for them for centuries, as a father caring for his children.
It is the joy of so many Christians, to be able to make their pilgrimage to Corfu to venerate his darkened but incorrupt relics, knowing that St Spyridon is not only constantly praying for us, but constantly helping us, wherever we are.
God truly shows the wonder of Faith and the power of Christian holiness in St Spyridon, and he is a reminder that true theology comes from our intimate, loving relationship with the Living-God; not learned from books and lectures; not as the fruit of study; that it does not depend on intelligence or intellectual prowess; that it is not a system of sacred, dogmatic theory – but is rather the realisation of a life dedicated wholly and solely to God, in which the Divine will and human will have been joined in a sacred union, and in which God indwells in His beloved children, revealing profound truth and manifesting His Grace.
In St Spyridon we see that love, charity, compassion and mercy are not theories, but actions, and that the Sermon on the Mount is not a series of lofty ideals, but a command to go out and do all of the things with the Saviour will bring blessedness.
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Like St Nicholas, celebrated less than a week ago, St Spyridon is not only the concrete demonstration of Faith-in-action, but a sign of how ordinary people like us can be raised up to the glory of God, becoming living manifestation of His love, vessels of His Grace and beacons of Truth.
It was not the simple, unsophisticated “Spyridons” of the ancient world who proposed heretical teachings, and attacked the Church, but the learned intellectuals of the academies, with their knowledge of the classics, their skills in logic, rhetoric, oration, philosophy and academic theology. The arch-schismatics and arch-heresiarchs were men of learning and intellect – as are those attacking the Church in Ukraine, today, and betraying Orthodoxy in the ecumenical melting-pot of compromise.
Thus, though the Church will always need it’s “Chrysostoms”, “Gregories” and “Basils”, it increasingly needs its “Spyridons”: home-grown people who aspire to serve the Church in holiness, selfless giving, defence of Truth and the fullness of Orthodoxy.
The Church needs “Spyridons” to say NO to compromise, to renovationism, to betrayal of Orthodoxy in the name of modernism, reform, or false-science.
Whether our lowly “Spyridons” are lay people or clergy, men, women or children – the Church needs us to selflessly dedicate ourselves to the Lord with fervent Faith, built on the Gospel, on the fulness of Orthodox Tradition, and always in pursuit of love, truth and peace – and always defending our Faith!
Let us be inspired – to prayer, to selfless love, to charity and works of mercy, to serving the Church and defending it by that wonderful name and glorious example of our Orthodox Christian Faith: ST SPYRIDON!
In Christ – Hieromonk Mark
Troparion, Tone IV: The truth of things revealed thee to thy flock as a rule of faith, * icon of meekness, and teacher of temperance; * wherefore, thou hast attained the heights through humility and riches through poverty; * O hierarch Spyridon our father, ** entreat Christ God, that our souls be saved.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit.
Troparion, Tone I: Thou wast shown forth as a champion of the first Council * and a wonderworker, O Spiridon, our God-bearing father. *Wherefore, thou didst speak to one dead in the grave, * and didst change a serpent into gold. * And, whilst chanting thy holy prayers, thou didst have angels serving with thee, O most sacred one. * Glory to Him that hath given thee strength! * Glory to Him that hath crowned thee! **Glory to Him that worketh healings for all through thee!
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Dear brothers and sisters, Greetings for the Great-Feast of the Nativity of the Mother of God.
Though we celebrate this feast when the green of summer is fading, the natural world beginning to look tired, with the days becoming cooler and the nights darker, the Nativity of the Mother of God is the springtime of our salvation – a spiritual turning point in the existence and history of the human race.
The Holy Church celebrates this feast with great joy and solemnity – a joy which those outside the Church, and those lacking the Orthodox mind of the Church may fail to understand.
We have every reason to be joyful and see in the Nativity of the Mother of God a wondrous event that touches and embraces all of creation.
Our holy father, St John the Wonderworker of Kronstadt wrote that,
“The event that we celebrate – the birth of the God-Chosen maiden – brought joy to all the world, for the God-Man, Jesus Christ, Who shone forth from Her, destroyed God’s curse which weighed heavily upon the transgressing and accursed human race, and brought God’s blessing upon it; having trampled down inherent death, He gave people eternal life. Thus the Holy Church explains the cause of the present joy.”
This feast marks the advent of the Mother of God as the means of the Incarnation of the God-Man, and she would come in her own right to be part of the undoing of the curse that entered the world through the tempting of the serpent and the disobedience of Adam and Eve.
At the very time of the disobedience of the First-Father and the First-Mother, God looked forward to the Incarnation, through the Most-Holy Virgin, and spoke of this day to the tempter and deceiver.
To quote our newly-glorified Father, Saint Cleopa of Sihăstria–
“Understand, dear brothers, that God opened His Divine plan for the salvation of the world through the Theotokos already at the beginning of the world, when He told Eve that her seed would crush the serpent’s head (Gen. 3:15). For about Christ it was said “Seed of the Woman” as having been born not from the seed of a man. At the very beginning of the world the All-Good God already through the old Eve in this mysterious way pointed to the new, spiritual Eve, that is to the Mother of God, able to bear in the fullness of time the New Adam, Christ, Who by His Incarnation crushed the head of the serpent, and death, and sin, for as in Adam all die, so in Christ all are quickened (cf. 1 Cor. 15:22).”
In His Divine Humility and sacrificial, self-effacing love, God’s salvific plan – of which the serpent was warned – required both sonship and motherhood: a Divine-Human birth in the fulness (not simply the appearance) of human nature and existence; a Saviour born in the flesh as the New Adam, and from the womb of the New Eve.
We should be in awe of the fact that God – limitless, almighty, immortal, beyond comprehension – decided that the Fall, sin and death, should be healed, restored and undone through the cooperation and inclusion of the very humanity that had destroyed and lost the life of Paradise – through the Son of God putting on our human flesh.., the flesh that He created from the dust of the ground.
In the same homily quoted, St John of Kronstadt, reminds us that all of mankind is honoured and magnified through the Mother of God, “for it has been made worthy of renewal and sonship by God…” You and I, all of us assembled here are honoured and magnified, because through the Mother of God we become not only children of God, but are made new. Our human nature is honoured and magnified in her, who becamse the Mother of the God-Man who was made flesh and human through her birthgiving.
In that enfleshment, in His wisdom, God foreordained that the Mother of God would take not only a central, but an essential part in the realisation of His plan, the Economy of Salvation, and in her our humanity, opur human nature our own flesh – become an instrument of our own salvation, as God takes humanity and uses it as the remedy for its own fallen condition. God does not condemn this humanity simply because it has rebelled – simply because it is fallen, simply because it is diseased through sin.
After all, God is the Creator who made that humanity, and made it to be good, made it to be pure, made it to grow in holiness – not as something finished, even what we might describe as perfect. This humanity was open ended and intended to grow in holiness, developing from its infancy in Adam and Eve: a humanity filled with the potential to grow and be infused with God’s grace and holiness.
The fall of Adam and Eve, and even their banishment from Paradise did not suddenly mean that God wished to throw humanity away. Rather, as the loving father, as the creator and source of life – only bringing this humanity back, healing it and restoring it could be a reflection of God, Who is perfect and absolute love.
The limitlessness and even scandal of this love would be seen in God becoming incarnate, sharing in nature, so that humans might be restored and become gods by adoption – not by nature – of course – by their inclusion in His life, in their reflection of His glory, by their partaking of His Grace, by their presence in His holiness.
Without the inclusion of the Mother of God, this could not, and would not be possible, for to become human, the Only-Begotten Son and Word of God needed to be born of a human, and putting-on Adam’s flesh required the human-bridge linking earth to heaven: a living-door though which the Incarnate-God would enter the world to redeem it and to save.
Following God’s warning to the tempter-of-souls, God’s plan and economy of salvation unfolded century by century in the generations of the sons of Adam who were the ancestors of the Mother of God, and therefore ancestors of Christ, but this wonderful feast marks the manifest physical foundation of God’s plan for our salvation – for the restoration of fallen humanity, heralding the reversal of the Fall, the conquering of death, and the cleansing of sin, as the Mother of the Saviour – the New Adam – is born as the New Eve.
Born to childless Joachim and Anna, not simply as reward for their faith and as an answer to their prayers, but to be the Mother of the Saviour Himself, the Theotokos enters the world as a prologue of the Gospel, as God’s preparation for the incarnation and birth of the Christ-child in the cave of Bethlehem, where “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth.”
In the birth of the Mother of God the “bridge leading from earth to heaven”, the “opening of the doors of paradise”, and the “door of salvation”, entered the world, and salvation drew nearer to the human race.
As such, this glorious feast is a herald not only of the Nativity of the Saviour, but also of the Life-Giving Cross and Resurrection, which proceed by God’s economy from this glorious feast, as the beginning of the last leg of the journey of Adam’s seed to Bethlehem, and thence to Jerusalem, for the Saviour’s Passion and third-day rising from the Tomb.
This gives us every reason to celebrate and every reason to be joyful.
St John of Kronstadt asks,
What joy does the Nativity of the Mother of God bring us?
Through the birth of the Ever-Virgin, through Her only-begotten Son and God, cursed and outcast mankind makes peace with God Who is immeasurably offended by man’s sins, for Christ became the mediator of this peace (cf. Rom. 5:10-11).
Man is freed from the curse and eternal death, made worthy of the blessing of the Heavenly Father; he is united and co-mingled with the Divine nature; he is raised to his first inheritance by this co-mingling, according to the Church hymn.
Mankind, once an outcast, has been made worthy of sonship to the Heavenly Father, received the promise of the glorious resurrection and eternal life in the heavens together with the angels.
But we should not only be asking what the feast brings to us.
We should also be asking ourselves, what we bring to the feast, and what we offer to the Mother of Gpd as we celebrate her Nativity.
The Venerable Elder Iachint of Putna (+1998) instructs us that as we rejoice in her birth, for joy would to be full,
“…we must follow her angelic life; that is, to become God-bearers by knowledge and the preserving of His commandments. After all, that is why God created us.”
The Mother of God laboured for holiness, rejected temptation and sin, and was not miraculously free of temptation through some sort of divine force-field, as proposed through those who propose the immaculate conception. Rather, the Mother of God was tempted as we are, and it was through spiritual heroism in a life of holiness and ascetic struggle that she remained free of sin. Her life calls us to emulate her in these thing, and if we ish to truly honour her on this joyful feast, we must not insult her by drawing close with lives that go against her example, and all that she offered to God.
With forceful and challenging words, the Elder continues,
“Every Christian who listens to Christ, who loves the way of the Church, who lives with everyone in love, who renders mercy to the poor and hates nothing but sin is a true Christian – a Christ-bearer. But he who does not love the Church, who hates everyone and does not forgive, who does not confess, and does not unite himself with the Most Pure Mysteries is deprived of the grace of the Holy Spirit and left as prey for the devil, and rebels against Christ by his sins.
Thus, if we want to bear Jesus Christ in our hearts, let us follow the example of the Mother of God, whose nativity we now celebrate. Let us bear the fear of God in our hearts. Let us bear in our souls Divine love. Ever bear in mind the thought of death, on our lips the words of holy prayer. Let us have tears of repentance in our eyes and on our face the joy of reconciliation and union with Christ.
By mercy and prayer let us make our home a church, and not an infernal cave by drunkenness and lust. Let us make our arms a cradle for a child, and not an instrument of sin. Let us make our children into children of the Church and society, and not agents of destruction.
If we thus live, we will become true God-bearers, and the Mother of God will be the most fervent intercessor for us, who by her prayers pours out the joy of Nazareth and prosperity in life upon us, and the bliss of Paradise will also be with us.”
Greetings for the feast of the Holy Martyr Mamas: a shining beacon of holiness and complete abandonment to God, despite his young years.
As the offspring of a family anchored in pure faith in the age of the martyrs, the youth, St Mamas, put nothing before his loyalty to Christ.
In today’s Gospel reading, we hear of the rich young man, who struggled with the thought of letting go of his wealth to follow the Lord: material wealth and security that came between him and life in Christ.
But… as we have reflected – year by year – for each of us who are far from rich, there may be an equivalent obstacle to abandoning ourselves to life in Christ and following Him freely with focus on Him alone.
Attachment to earthly comforts – our homes and possessions, our holidays and trips, our clothes and accessories, our social engagements and calendars, our careers and professional or social reputation – may all come between us and Christ, and be chains to the world that prevent us from true discipleship and honest service to the Lord.
Even the most basic things – too much food, too much sleep, too much television, social media or computer consumption can come between us and Christ – who might say of each of us, that it would be easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for us – with our individual attachments, comforts and perhaps even passions – to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
We have to be clinically honest with ourselves and ask – have we put our hobbies and interests, social engagements or diary commitments before being present at the Divine Liturgy – whose celebration is the greatest thing that humans can do on earth?
Have we neglected the Great Feasts of the Church, perhaps because social commitments have taken precedence over the celebrations of the great events in the life of the Lord or the Mother of God, or great saints?
Have we justified missing the Liturgy or other services because we are tired, even though we know full well that the Saviour was so exhausted when He fell beneath the Cross and the weight of the whole of humanity, when He carried each and every one of us to Golgotha, dragging Himself in the broken, tortured weakness of His flesh to the Place of the Skull? Even when He was tired to the point of dereliction, the Saviour did not give up on us, so when we are tired, should we give up on Him?
Have we been weak and indulgent, failing to even fast for one day out of obedience to Christ through the tradition of His Church – convincing ourselves that we can’t go a single day without milk in our tea or butter on our toast – using health, tiredness, inconvenience or worldly excuses to justify needless leniency?
Have we neglected our prayers because social media, television, the theatre or a trip to the pub with our friends has been higher on our priority list? Have we found more time for our friends than we have for God?
Are we more motivated to meet our peers, than to meet God in the Holy Mysteries, in prayer, in pilgrimage, or in the silence of our hearts?
When we fail in such things, our fall is very often not a one-off-event, but a manifestation of a serial behaviour, of a fault-line in our spiritual lives, and an attachment, that comes between us and Christ – our equivalents to the young man’s wealth, and reminders of camels and needles, and the threatening and frighteningly low probability of us entering God’s Kingdom.
Do our attachments form an obstacle, or even a barricade between us and God, and block any progress even towards His Kingdom, let alone getting anywhere near its entrance?
But… to return to St Mamas…
His parents, Theodotus and Rufina, were dead, having perished in imprisonment for the Faith in the Roman persecution of the Christians. Any wealth or possessions of the once illustrious family had been confiscated and lost when they were arrested.
His mother Rufina had begged the Lord to find someone to care for her prematurely -born child, who entered the world in a prison cell, and the Lord called a rich Christian widow to adopt the child.
As an open and faithful Christian, the faith of young Mamas became an increasing danger as he entered early adulthood, and it made him a target as his parents had been, in ongoing persecution.
Like his parents, Mamas was arrested, but his noble, patrician family background and his confident and capable character led the governor Democritus, in Cappadocian Caesarea to refer his case to the Emperor Aurelian, hoping that this promising young man could be saved from Christianity and lured away from Christ.
The emperor sought to buy Mamas and steal him from Christ by offers of a comfortable life, with wealth and influence – the prospect of him becoming a rich young man.
In the lives of the martyrs – time after time – we hear the judge seeking to entice the one being accused and tortured for Christ: the enticement of a warm bath house to the forty martyr’s of Sebaste; the offer of a military career and imperial commission to the great warrior saints; the offers of rich marriages and socially-eminent husbands to the aristocratic women great-martyrs, renounced and betrayed by their noble pagan families.
Life’s comforts and security were the lure used to draw Christians away from their confession of Christ again and again.
In the passions of the martyrs, we hear their rejection of the offers what amounted to a living death in miserable earthly existence after having denied and blasphemed God.
Occasionally we glimpse those who gave in.
We know of the single apostate of Sebaste who preferred the warmth of a bath house to suffering with his fellow soldiers perishing in a freezing Armenian lake.
We know of the weakness and apostasy of St James the Persian, under the persecution of the Sassanian King, Yazdegerd I, and of his repentant confession and death by gradual mutilation.
We know of the apostate monks of the Holy Mountain, who betrayed Orthodoxy and accepted the unia, only for their dead bodies to be cursed with hair and fingernails growing century after century, making them a terrifying spectacle for those who saw the physical sign of betrayal.
Mamas, too, was offered enticements and incentives, but refused and remained anchored in Christ.
In contrast to both emperor’s offer of wealth and influence, and the portrait of the rich youth of the Gospel, we encounter the fifteen year old Mamas divinely delivered from imprisonment, and living in the wilderness, in fasting, prayer and constant communion with God – surrounded by wild animals with which he had the relationship of Adam and Eve in paradise:
With his life with his foster-mother Ammia a thing of the past before his arrest, we see a young man with no earthly possessions, wealth or material chains to the world – despite the traps and offers that had been set before him, and despite the former wealth and social position of his family.
Unlike the rich young man of the Gospel, this spiritually-rich youth had nothing material to chain him to earthly existence or to come between him and the Lord, yet even in his poverty and abandonment in Christ, there was still one last danger that could imperil his soul and make him a slave to the world. Undue attachment to worldly life itself – life according to the ways and influences not only of the world, but its fallen ways of thinking and existing.
Even though he was so young, St Mamas gave no thought to self-preservation when he had been discovered by the pagan authorities.
When the governor sent a detachment of soldiers to search the mountain and arrest Mamas, they mistook him for a simple shepherd, though he invited them to his dwelling, and gave them milk to drink, revealing his name.
Whether they failed to understand, or were avoiding detaining him we shall never know, but His life tells is that he told the soldiers to go ahead of him into Caesaria, as he followed them to the gates of the city, and Saint Mamas, accompanied by a mountain-lion, whom he rides to his martyrdom in many of his icons.
He was unbreakable in this second trial by the deputy-governor Alexander, not even weakening as he was tortured.
He was thrown to wild animals in the arena, but they would not touch this teenage boy who had lived in peace and harmony with the animals of the wilderness, and so, one of the pagan priests mortally wounded him with a trident.
The passion and witness of this young, but fearless martyr need to make us take a long hard look at ourselves, asking uncomfortable questions about who resolute we are in confessing Christ, whether we are willing to sacrifice the attachments, comforts and security of our lives to follow him, and to even ask whether we are so attached to life itself, that this holds us back from being free and liberated followers of Christ.
It is not only riches that can come between us and the Kingdom, and to see today’s Gospel as only being about wealth is dangerous and a deception.
How far we would go to both pursue and preserve our Faith, and what are we willing to sacrifice and leave behind to follow Christ.
There was no chance of a camel passing through the eye of a needle, as St Mamas rode into the glory of the Kingdom of Heaven mounted on the lion of courage, journeying to martyrdom and willing to surrender and give up everything – including his temporary and fleeting earthly life to follow Christ – the Way, the Truth and the Life.
The Holy Gospel according to Mark (6: 14-30): At that time, king Herod heard of Jesus (for his name was spread abroad) and he said, that John the Baptist was risen from the dead, and therefore mighty works do shew forth themselves in him. Others said, that it is Elijah. And others said, that it is a prophet, or as one of the prophets. But when Herod heard thereof, he said: “It is John, whom I beheaded: he is risen from the dead.” For Herod himself had sent forth and laid hold upon John, and bound him in prison for Herodias’ sake, his brother Philip’s wife: for he had married her. For John had said unto Herod: “It is not lawful for thee to have thy brother’s wife.” Therefore Herodias had a quarrel against him, and would have killed him; but she could not: For Herod feared John, knowing that he was a just man and an holy, and observed him; and when he heard him, he did many things, and heard him gladly. And when a convenient day was come, that Herod on his birthday made a supper to his lords, high captains, and chief estates of Galilee; and when the daughter of the said Herodias came in, and danced, and pleased Herod and those who sat with him, the king said unto the damsel: “Ask of me whatsoever thou wilt, and I will give it thee.” And he swore unto her: “Whatsoever thou shalt ask of me, I will give it thee, unto the half of my kingdom.” And she went forth, and said unto her mother: “What shall I ask?” And she said: “The head of John the Baptist.” And she came in straightway with haste unto the king, and asked, saying: “I will that thou give me by and by in a charger the head of John the Baptist.” And the king was exceeding sorry; yet for his oath’s sake, and for the sake of those who sat with him, he would not reject her. And immediately the king sent an executioner, and commanded his head to be brought: and he went and beheaded him in the prison, And brought his head in a charger, and gave it to the damsel: and the damsel gave it to her mother. And when his disciples heard of it, they came and took up his corpse, and laid it in a tomb. And the apostles gathered themselves together unto Jesus, and told Him all things, both what they had done, and what they had taught.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Dear brothers and sisters, greetings as we celebrate the feast of the Holy Prophet, Forerunner and Baptist, John. S prazdnikom!
This feast of the beheading of the Forerunner is a reminder that truth and righteousness have a cost, and that we – as those who know and worship Truth as a Person, in our Lord and Saviour – must have the courage of the Forerunner, without worrying and stopping to calculate the cost of being true to our Faith and opposing the falsehood of rulers and powers.
We must live truth, speak truth, act in truth, and – as the people of God – preach truth, and oppose falsehood as a poison which is soul-destroying, deadly and the way to perdition.
Just as St John opposed the tyrannical Herod – a false king, unworthy of the throne of Israel – so, across the world, people of Faith face tyranny from above, with laws that trample on rights of religious expression; with liberal weaponised accusations of extremism used to quash and attack freedom to protest and for basic association; with constant surveillance following us and tracking the movements our everyday lives; in a world in which saying there are only two genders in heresy, in which using the wrong pronoun can threaten jobs and careers, and where language-police constantly survey our vocabulary for offences against the decency of the new dystopia; a world in which parental rights over children are denied by governments, who destroy the lives of the young as woke agendas not only allow, but even encourage confused minors to surgically, physically and mentally destroy themselves when identity is a source of confusion and doubt; a world in which political candidates feel fine in advocating abortion up to birth, and in which living and viable aborted children are left to die on surgical trollies.
The most chilling things is that we are surrounded by people who willingly and energetically dance to the crazed and frantic tune of this Herodian dystopia, in which governments compete not only for the crown, but to show their “worthiness” and conviction in advancing the brave new world.
A great curse was that Covid saw the leaven of Herod infect not only government and society, but sadly even the Church, as individuals danced so frantically to the frenzied rhythm of Herod’s tune, that they trampled the Holy Things of God in doing so.
In Greece, people happily reported priests who continued to commune the faithful, and bishops disciplined and suspended them for their Faith and Orthodoxy.
Closer to home, science-worshipping, but Christ-denying theoretically Orthodox totally abandoned the Holy Mysteries, and across Britain clergy who feared germs and Herod more than God and who showed more “faith” in science than in the Body and Blood of the Conqueror of Death, and who later appeared with the chalice like angels-of-death in black masks, ironically to impart the Bread of Life to the faithful.
The faithful were not permitted to venerate icons, which could so easily have been wiped, and a new iconoclasm was wedded to the eucharistic heresy of those who preached the Body and Blood of the Saviour as a source of infection and death, and not the Bread of Life.
After this, as though it was not bad enough, clergy beating the tambour and piping the melody for Salome’s dance, refused the unvaccinated entrance to Liturgy and access to the Holy Mysteries.
How the tyrannical spirit of Herod fills the world and even infects the Church, yet as children of the Resurrection, we face all of this darkness with courage, fulfilling the witness of the Holy Forerunner.
Like the Baptist, each of us must be willing to individually raise the prophetic voice, to oppose the madness and iniquity of the world; each of us needs to live the apostolic life, in witnessing for the Truth and spreading the good news of the freedom the Gospel brings, in contrast to the slavery to Herod; each of us needs to struggle to be earthly angels and heavenly people, seeking to build the Kingdom of God, not of Herod.
And, when we do this TOGETHER, no longer as limited, weak and feeble individuals, but AS THE CHURCH, we will do so not with the voice of the Forerunner, but with the voice of the Saviour Himself, Who has made us partakers of His Resurrection.
As the Church, like the Forerunner, we must speak for the Saviour, uniting in denouncing the iniquities and falsehood of the world, and decrying the tyranny of the latter-day Herods.
But for this we require unity: unity in seeking righteousness and holiness, unity in prayer, unity in the Holy Mysteries, unity in upholding and defending Sacred Tradition, unity in resisting assaults against the Faith and the Church, unity in preserving the purity of Orthodox teaching: united to proclaim the Way, the Truth and the life.
So, let us fast together, pray together, keep the feasts together, celebrate and share the Holy Mysteries together, rejoice in pilgrimage together, cooking, eating and having fellowship together, so that TOGETHER, we may traverse the spiritual wastes of the world and be like John, as angels-of-the-desert making straight the way of the Lord, proclaiming the Lamb of God, and knowing that He will come again in glory to lead the faithful into the Kingdom of Heaven, when the kingdoms of the countless modern Herods shall perish and cease.
In unity of Faith, united in Christ, united in His theandric Body – the Church – let us pray for and seek John’s boldness, neither compromising nor even counting the cost of TRUTH.
Thanks to Father Mark “the Younger” for Sunday’s Homily.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
In today’s Gospel we are told of encounters Christ has with those in need, and through this reading we are taught again about the power of true faith.
Firstly – Christ continuing his journey, after healing the woman with an issue of blood and raising Jairus’s daughter from the dead encounters blind men on the road.
The blind men had followed Jesus and were crying out, “Have mercy on us, Son of David!”
Here we can see that their faith was already active and alive. We naturally understand this to be the case because they have heard or witnessed the previous miracles that Christ had performed. So, whilst they could not see physically, they possessed something greater, a spiritual sight – and it was this that would ultimately bring about the healing they fervently petitioned for.
However, unlike some of the other miracles we are told that Christ did not immediately heal the men and continued the short remainder of his journey to the house he was visiting …. with the spiritually emboldened blind men following Him, continuing their petitions to be healed.
They recognised Jesus as the Son of David – the promised and prophesised Messiah. What is important for us to understand is how they persisted in their plea.
This persistence in prayer is something we must learn and adopt in our spiritual lives. Often we pray but we do not receive what we ask for immediately, and we are tempted to give up. We need to be mindful that the Lord may delay his answer not out of spite or egotistic control – but out of love – to allow us to reveal the sincerity and depth of our faith, not only to Him but also to ourselves. He desires that we approach Him not just with our lips, but with a heart full of faith of trust and persistence.
When Jesus finally turns to the blind men, He asks them, “Do you believe that I am able to do this?” And they responded, “Yes, Lord.”
Their answer was simple, but it carried the fullness of their faith in Him as the Messiah. Jesus then touched their eyes, saying, “According to your faith be it unto you” and immediately their eyes were opened.
These blind men submitted themselves to God with their unwavering faith, and it was according to their faith that they received their sight.
The Gospel then continues with a Second healing: the healing of a man possessed by a demon that had made him mute.
We know little of this man, but the power of evil is clearly evident in his long and continual suffering – but once the demon was cast out, with light replacing the darkness the man spoke, and we are told the crowd “marvelled”. Everyone that is except the Pharisees.
It was in this healing that the Pharisees accused Jesus of casting out demons by the prince of demons. That only evil commands evil. They could not see the truth that He (Christ) is the Messiah – our God and Saviour. They could not see the truth or the light because their hearts were blinded by pride, by envy, by spite and by jealousy
“Divine grace is resisted by those who are puffed up with pride, but is eagerly received by those who know their weakness and seek God’s help”. (St. Cyril of Alexandria)
The blind men and the man possessed, in their humility and torment received healing, while the Pharisees in their arrogance, rejected the very source of life – the God they purported to worship so grandly and publicly.
It’s a significant reminder to us of the importance of humility and the dangers of pride. We may be different colours, may have different opinions, different lives but are all made in Christs Image and should all profess the same faith and submit ourselves fully to His love and mercy.
Therefore in order to receive the fullness of both physical/spiritual healing and Grace that Christ offers freely, we must come before Him in humility with an open and contrite heart, acknowledging our need for His mercy.
Finally… after the miracles of healing
It’s easy to overlook to huge but simple statement in the final phrase in what appears to be what we call a “filler or throw away statement”
We hear that Christ “went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction”.
It is in this last phrase that we are again reminded that the mission of Christ is not just about healing (be it physical blindness or casting out demons and breathtaking miracles), but it is to bring the light of truth to all humanity, to heal the sickness of sin, and to restore us to the fullness of life in Him which was taken from us by the falling of Adam.
We see a convergence with John’s Gospel where he writes about Christ. “I am the way, the truth and the life; no man cometh unto the Father but through Me.” (John 14:6)
Christ Himself is the Truth: truth in action! Christ healing the sick; Christ casting out demons; and Christ teaching humanity the way of salvation.
Therefore, let us, follow the example of the blind men in today’s Gospel. Let us approach Christ with firm unwavering faith, dogged persistence and absolute humility, trusting that He is the truth and that He can heal us, not just physically but spiritually.
Then as we receive His Grace, let us give glory to God, recognising that all good things come from Him and through Him.
While Angels gazed with wonder upon Thy dread Ascension, and while the disciples were awestruck as Thou from earth wast taken, O Saviour, as God Thou didst ascend in glory while the gates were raised for Thee. For this cause then did the Hosts of the heavens cry, while marvelling in amazement: Glory to Thy descent, O Saviour Christ. Glory to Thy Kingdom’s sovereignty. Glory be to Thine Ascension, O Thou only Friend of man.”
Kathisma hymn from festal matins
In the Name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Dear brothers and sisters, Съ праздникомъ!
Greetings on this feast of the Ascension: a feast of double-wonder – the wonder of the apostles as they saw their Lord and Master translated in His risen humanity into the glory of the Kingdom of Heaven, and the wonder of the heavenly hosts, as they beheld their Lord and Creator entering heaven in the very humanity He had created, and in which they had beheld Him laid in the Cave of Bethlehem, when Divine Love reached down from heaven to earth.
The Saviour’s Ascension is the consummation of this salvific journey of love, in which He not only descended to His creation, but even clothed Himself in that creation in His flesh, uniting Himself to humanity that had fallen in Adam and Eve, and was banished from Paradise.
But, the Saviour not only descended to earth in His earthly life, but by His sacrificial death descended even to the depths of Hades. Through His self-emptying and self-denying love, the Life-Giver descended into the realms of the dead to seek the lost, to rescue them and lead them to the bosom of the Father on high.
Mar Jacob of Serugh writes of the Creator-Saviour seeking out those whom He had made in His own image and likeness, rescuing His Image-bearing children from the chains and shackles by which death that held them captive in Hades.
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“By death, He descended to the abyss of the dead, which swallowed Adam,
And like a brave swimmer He brought up the precious pearl.
He descended, explored the depths, visited the ones who were buried and sought for the lost ones,
He slept with the dead and laid His bed among those who have fallen asleep. He made there a speech of judgment with the Prince of Destruction,
and He asked from him the image of Adam, which was corrupted.
He descended to the depth of the abyss and sought there
the great likeness of the creative (power), which was perishing in hell.
He had done judgment to death in the land of death and asked for the image, and taking His own to come with pomp from perdition.
He conquered the Tyrant in his place and inspected his chamber,
and He took out the booty, which was gathered by him in his palace.
He unbound mercifully the bound ones and bound powerfully the Captor,
He returned mightily to the land of his Father.”
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Having suffered in fleshly-unity with mankind, enduring His life-giving passion and death for the sake of humanity, and having descended to the nethermost regions in search of His children, His glorious translation from earth to heaven shows us that the annulment of the fall and the restoration of Adam is not simply by the conquering of death and His third-day Resurrection, but in the ascended glorification of thathumanity and its enthronement at the right hand of the Father.
This is the ultimate sign of God’s love, which calls mankind not to the earthly paradise from which fallen Adam and Eve were banished, but to the glory of heaven, where the Ascension exalts and enthrones humanity above all of the angelic ranks.
As children of God, we are called to holiness by our baptism into the Saviour’s death and Resurrection, and called to the heavenly kingdom by His glorious Ascension.
If we truly believe that “as many that have been baptised in Christ have put on Christ”, in faithfully living the Paschal mystery, the Ascension will call us to spiritual-labour, in a struggle for the Kingdom of Heaven, gained not by half-hearted Christian-nominalism, but only by dedication and spiritual force: the force of Faith, the force of prayer, the force of repentance – following in the foot-steps of the Saviour as the Way, Who guides us to the Kingdom of Heaven by His glorious Ascension.
Our life must be a constant and forceful struggle for the kingdom of heaven, and whatever earthly worries or burdens we may have to endure or bear, the Ascension challenges us not be be earthbound and have our eyes fixed upon the clay from which we were formed, but to look heavenwards with hope and joy, as did the disciples, for…
“when the Lord entered the heights of heaven, not only were they affected with no sadness, but were even filled with great joy. And truly great and unspeakable was their cause for joy, when in the sight of the holy multitude, above the dignity of all heavenly creatures, the Nature of mankind went up, to pass above the angels’ ranks and to rise beyond the archangels’ heights, and to have Its uplifting limited by no elevation until, received to sit with the Eternal Father, It should be associated on the throne with His glory, to Whose Nature It was united in the Son. Since then Christ’s Ascension is our uplifting, and the hope of the Body is raised, whither the glory of the Head has gone before, let us exult, dearly-beloved, with worthy joy and delight in the loyal paying of thanks. For today not only are we confirmed as possessors of paradise, but have also in Christ penetrated the heights of heaven, and have gained still greater things through Christ’s unspeakable grace than we had lost through the devil’s malice. For us, whom our virulent enemy had driven out from the bliss of our first abode, the Son of God has made members of Himself and placed at the right hand of the Father…” (St Leo the Great: Sermon 73, “On the Lord’s Ascension”)
The right hand of the Father in the Kingdom of Heaven is our inheritance, for which we must struggle with force, in hope, and with Faith, called and guided by the Saviour going before us, from whence He will return in glory to judge the living and the dead, and to where He will welcome His good faithful servants into the glory of the age to come, saying,
“Well done, good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.”
The Ascension is our promise and calling, so let us hear and act!
“It is the day of Resurrection, let us be radiant, O ye peoples; Pascha the Pascha of the Lord; for Christ God hath brought us from death to life, and from earth to heaven, as we sing the triumphal hymn.”
Dear brothers and sisters, Christ is Risen! Христосъ воскресе! Hristos a înviat! Χριστός ἀνέστη!
Having celebrated the radiant night of Pascha, our labour is now to preserve the grace and joy of the feast, with the Resurrection as the centre of our lives, and our inheritance through Holy Baptism.
As Christians, we are children of the Light and of the Resurrection, no matter how dark and threatening the world is.
In fact, the darker the world and life, the brighter the Light of Christ may shine in the darkness of suffering, pain, confusion and every trial that humanity faces, but for that to happen, our focus must be on Christ, the Light of the World, not on the deepening darkness.
How perverse it is that we are often so focussed on the darkness that we turn our faces away from the Risen Lord, our Light and Life.
The Saviour was arrested in the darkness of the garden of Gethsemane and was brought to Pilate by night. The world was plunged into darkness in the moment of His death on Golgotha, and His body rested in darkness of the tomb… yet all of this was but a brief moment before the radiant glory of the Resurrection, and even as the world was in darkness the Saviour, “the Light that knows no evening”, descended into the realm of death and harrowed Hades, bringing light and life to the righteous of the Old Covenant, raising them in His own Rising.
We must not fear darkness: the darkness of illness, of death, of wars and revolutions, of insecurity, of anxiety, of the degenerate darkening “progress” of the world… for Christ has overcome darkness, even entered the depths of sheol, trampling down death by death, bringing light, life and hope, and above all the promise given to the repentant thief upon the cross, “Truly, I say to you. Today, you will be with me in paradise.”
The world is the world – fallen and still falling in its rebellion and lawlessness – yet, within it the faithful walk in the Light of Christ, sharing it with those in darkness and offering hope, but ultimately that hope is not in an earthly utopia, but in the fullness of the resurrectional life the Kingdom of God in the age to come.
This joyful celebration of the Lord’s Pascha is the sign and foretaste of this future life of the Eighth Day in the midst of our fragile and temporary earthly sojourn, whose meaning is to be found in the journey of St Dismas from the cross on the Saviour’s right hand to His right side in the Heavenly Kingdom.
This journey is one of repentance, (and enduring pain and darkness) and faith, with Christ as it’s meaning and His Resurrection as it’s calling and promise.
Let us now keep the feast with gladness, guarding its holiness and joy like a candle lit from the Holy Fire at the Lord’s Sepulchre, sharing the Eternal Joy and hope in the words of the angel at the sepulchre – “He is not here. He is risen!” – and no matter how frightening and dark the world and life becomes, remember the Saviour’s first words to the disciples, “Peace be with you all!”
This peace is not the world’s peace, but the peace from above, which may abide in our lives, no matter how troubled or painful they are, precisely because Christ has already gained the victory, despoiling hell and death and is truly risen!
“O great and most sacred Pascha, Christ! O Wisdom and Word of God and Power! Grant us more perfectly to partake of Thee, in the unwaning day of Thy kingdom.”