204. Слово в день Благовещения Пресвятыя Богородицы

(Said in the Chudov Monastery, printed in the Works of the Holy Father and in the collection of 1848) And Mary said: Behold the handmaid of the Lord: be unto me according to thy word. (Luke 1:38). Apparently these words of the Blessed Virgin Mary are simple: but how much is contained in them! how much they reveal! what depth of humility is visible in them! what a height of faith! what sunny purity of inner feeling! how immense is their power! how immense is their action! The work that must be accomplished according to the evangelizing verb of the Archangel, and according to the corresponding verb of Mariam - the work of the saving incarnation of the Son of God for us - does not begin now. At least humanly, this matter of the Virgin’s consent awaited several thousand years before it could be accomplished. I said: at least human; because according to the great measure of God, this work comes from eternity itself. The Apostle testifies that “the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, having blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly things in Christ, chose us in Him before the foundation of the world” (Eph. 1:3–4). But it is not for us to ascend to this heavenly height of contemplation. It is enough for us to ascend to the beginning of the mystery of Christ, revealed in the earthly paradise. When the evil tempter managed to deceive the first people and destroy their heavenly bliss; when death, previously announced as a precaution, and then authorized by justice, came upon a person, in the wake of sin: then God, merciful in justice itself, having suspended it, deigned to sow a new seed of life and salvation in an already dying and perishing humanity. Miraculously, in the word of condemnation, He partly hid, and partly revealed, the secret of pardon, when He said to the condemned tempter: “I will put enmity between you, and between the woman, and between your seed, and between that Seed; He will erase your head” (Gen. 3:15). That is: you, the spirit of malice, dream that, having seduced your wife, as the weakest part of humanity, and through her, luring Adam into crime, you will have the entire human race as your constant slave. No! From the people you conquer, enmity, confrontation, and abuse will arise against you; it will continue in their offspring; finally, the One who for the time being hides under the mysterious name of “The Seed of the Woman” - “He will erase your head”, will decisively defeat you, destroy your power, which is the realm of sin and the power of death, and consequently will return to humanity the holiness and life that was stolen from him, safe from death. The very unusualness of this name paves the way to understanding the mysterious name “seed of the woman.” "Seed" no doubt means offspring, or a certain person in the offspring. But what does “seed of the woman” mean? In the custom of the entire human race, and especially in ancient genealogies, we see that “seed” or offspring is always referred to the husband, and not to the wife, and the generic name of children or descendants is borrowed from the father or forefather, and not from the mother or foremother. What does the unusual name “seed of the woman” indicate? - Or for nothing, in the order of nature, or for a sacrament that is higher than nature - for birth, about which nature asks: “how will this happen, even if I don’t know a husband?” and about which grace answers: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you” (Luke 1:34-35), - for the miraculous birth of the Son from a wife without a husband, for the birth of Christ, the God-man, from the Virgin. That Adam understood the mystery of the Lord’s saying about the Seed of the woman, this can be noted from the fact that after this he gave his wife a new name, which would have been completely untimely and inappropriate if it had not related to this very mystery. “And Adam called his wife’s name Life, for she is the mother of all who live” (Gen. 3:20). Life, the mother of the living - these names would be fitting for a foremother in a state of purity, since then she would definitely give birth to everyone living, and would not give birth to anyone dying: but then these names were not given to her, but she was simply called a wife. Why, after the Fall, when she gives birth to those who die, being, moreover, the cause that death will be the common inheritance of her offspring, why “Adam called his wife’s name life”? Is it a reproach? - No, of course not as a reproach, but more likely as a consolation for himself and her, looking at her through God’s definition of the “Seed of the woman” crushing the head of the serpent. I too will be a father, he thought; but I will not be the father of true Life; It is given to a wife without a husband to be her mother: therefore, let her name be called: “Life, as she is the mother of all living,” not in itself, but because one day there will be a Virgin from Eve, and from the Virgin will be born the One who is “Truth and Life” (John 14:6), and who has the power to regenerate all those who die into those who live. From what has been said, I hope you will see, brethren, that the annunciation of the saving incarnation of the Son of God for us was begun not by the Archangel in Nazareth, but by God himself in Paradise: for there God’s decree was proclaimed about the victorious “Seed of the woman,” that is, about the birth of Christ the Savior from the Virgin. But if God’s decree about the incarnation of the Son of God was already decreed and even proclaimed in the first days of the world; then why was it not fulfilled for so many centuries? Let us not dare to attribute to ourselves the ability to give a complete answer to this. “Who understands the mind of the Lord” (Rom. 11:34)? However, we can say without hesitation that the reason for the slowness is not in God. “His word flows swiftly” (Ps. 147:4). “He spoke, and it came to pass: He commanded, and it was created” (Ps. 32:9). The Eternal always has everything ready. For the Almighty, everything is always possible. The creature hesitates out of necessity, because it moves in certain circles of time, which it cannot speed up. A free creature lacks readiness to accept God's action when its will lacks correspondence to the will of God. It is especially difficult to establish this readiness in a fallen and destroyed creature, which needs to be restored and recreated. Thus, the word of God about the Savior of the world, like lightning, flashed over humanity in the first minutes of sinful darkness, and repeatedly shone in subsequent revelations: but the darkness of sin continued to weigh down, and centuries and millennia had to pass before “the Word became flesh” (John 1:14) and “God was revealed in the flesh” (1 Tim. 3:16) ). In this long time, the blessing with which God the Father blessed us in heavenly things in Christ before the foundation of the world, hovered like a lightning cloud over the earth, while the secret action of Providence sought in the human race, and prepared the blessed one in women, who could, with her purity, attract, receive, contain, hold the divine lightning, without being scorched by the fire of the Divine, and thus through herself essentially assimilate the blessing to all humanity Christ's. Don't you think that it is very simple to accept God's blessing, even if it is very high? - Not quite like that. Look at Sarah's experience. The Lord speaks about her to Abraham: “I will bless her, and I will give you a child from her” (Gen. 17:16). You see what precedes her in absentia and in advance, so that she prepares to actually receive the blessing. But what? And after this preliminary, when the promised blessing was decisively given in her presence, she, it seems, was not found sufficiently able to accept it. “But Sarah laughed within herself” (Gen. 18:12). No matter how innocent this laughter may be, it seems to have little place before the word of God, and before the face of God. And when the Lord convicted her of this, she fell into new confusion, and seemed to be thinking of hiding from the Omniscient. “But Sarah denied, saying, “We did not laugh, for we were afraid” (Gen. 18:15). However, let us not disparage Sarah, who, to the extent of her dignity, received her measure of blessing, and became a preliminary image of “blessed among women,” as having given birth to her only begotten son, as having given birth in mortification, although not without a husband, as having given birth to the image of Christ, Isaac, who showed Abraham in his sacrifice the day of the sacrifice of the cross. But let us bring a just tribute of reverent and joyful surprise to the Blessed Virgin Mary, blessed among women, who, for the highest of God’s blessings, which suddenly appeared upon her, found herself perfectly prepared, and thereby completely facilitated the long-prepared, called for and expected saving incarnation of the Son of God for us. If righteous Sarah accepted the foreshadowing of the birth of Isaac from her, unusual, but not supernatural, with confusion; if, with such a foreshadowing of the birth of the forerunner of the Lord, the righteous Zechariah did not believe and demanded a sign: then how much higher than the most righteous is the Most Holy Virgin Mary, when she accepts the annunciation of the supernatural, incomprehensible, divine birth of Christ the Savior from Her without confusion, without disbelief! Before the Annunciation, at the beginning of the heavenly phenomenon, She was “confused” for a few moments and stopped in thought, perhaps because she did not immediately recognize the heavenly messenger, because she gave way to the spiritual rule prescribed for us to “tempt the spirits that are of God” (1 John 4:1); because it was difficult to give an unusual greeting. However, embarrassment before strong praise is not a lack of dignity. But, what is very surprising, when She heard the incomparably stronger word of the annunciation: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you; - conceive in the womb and give birth to a Son; - what is to be born is holy, he will be called the Son of God; “There will be no end to His kingdom” (Luke 1:31–35): then there is no longer any confusion. The great mystery does not excite Her to the test, and the untested nature of the mystery does not stop Her from accepting the mysterious Annunciation. An unparalleled high purpose will not lift her from the depths of humility: called to be the Matter of the Lord, she sees herself, as before, only as a servant of the Lord. On the other hand, Her deeply humble opinion of herself does not prevent Her from believing in an unparalleled high purpose. There is not even any struggle between these cross directions, no fluctuation of thoughts and feelings. Just as pure and quiet water quietly and purely receives the light of the sun, and responds to it with a reflection: so the soul of the Blessed Virgin quietly and purely accepts the word of Divine revelation, and responds to it with a word of obedience: “Behold the handmaid of the Lord: wake me according to your word.” Enough for the attentive. Do not demand much, you inquisitive and curious ones. “The Vertograd is enclosed, my sister bride, the Vertograd is enclosed, the source is sealed” (Song 4:12), the Holy Spirit said about His bride, who takes precedence over virgin and pure souls, the God-blessed Virgin Mary. It is enough if with the gaze of our minds, as if through a fence, we peered into Her mysterious helix, saw some of the flowers of Her virtues, felt the fragrance of Her grace. We must take care that our thoughts are not like some ignoble insects that circle around flowers uselessly or insult their beauty with their touch; but so that we become like bees, who approach flowers with a humble song, and with a non-offending touch extract from them sweet and healthy food. Reverently entering into the mystery of the incarnation of God the Word, let every Christian soul sing with the Church of Christ: “Let us gloriously honor, O people, the pure Mother of God, who received the fire of the Divinity in her womb without burning.” Let us learn from Her how to properly greet God’s visits and accept divine mysteries. If you are greeted with greetings and praise, especially sublime and spiritual praise: beware of indiscriminately receiving and enjoying; for it is not always easy to find out whether the messenger of truth really brings it. It is permissible to be embarrassed by this: but hasten to restrain the embarrassment, and in silence call on God for help, so that you are not seduced by false praise, or so that even false praise is not turned into poison by pride and exaltation. When you hear the gospel of divine dogmas and gracious sacraments: beware not only of Fomin’s unbelief, but also of Zechariah’s lack of faith, and Sarah’s confusion. Remember the word of the Archangel, “for every word of God fails” (Luke 1:37); and do not allow your faith to fail. If the sign of Providence, sometimes sent in the garb of an unexpected event, announces to you a pleasant, sublime, glorious lot, it will not be difficult for you to say: “Wake me according to your word.” But do not forget later not to look at yourself dreamily, as the master of many things and many people, but to always look at yourself humbly, as a servant of the one universal Master: “Behold, the servant of the Lord.” Since a foreshadowing may befall you, not pleasant, but threatening sorrow, deprivation, humiliation: prepare yourself prudently so as to be able to accept this. Do not argue murmuringly, and do not cry impatiently. What virtue is there in willingly accepting what is pleasant? But to accept the sorrowful things graciously, out of reverence for the will of God - this is a feat, this is a virtue, this is a guarantee of reward! Train not your lips, but your heart, so that it can freely pronounce the words of the Savior preparing for the cross: “Father, not my will, but Yours be done” (Luke 22:42). See and understand that the joyful annunciation reveals the beginning of salvation; and the bitter cross brings us closer to its completion and to the eternal glory of the resurrection, with which may our Lord Jesus Christ vouchsafe us all, with the grace of God the Father and the Holy Spirit. Amen. You might be interested in: