333. Беседа в день Благовещения Пресвятой Богородицы

(Said on March 25th; printed in the Works of the Holy Father, 1857 and in the collection of 1861) Now the subject of our thought and speech, our reflection and contemplation, our reverence and joy should be the incarnation of the Son of God. What is incarnation? – By the will and predestination of God the Father, the Son of God, consubstantial with the Father, descends to earth, without leaving heaven; under the shadow of the Holy Spirit, the Father and the Son are of one essence, enters the womb of the Virgin, purified by the Holy Spirit (verse on the Annunciation); accepts the human soul and body, and unites with Himself the God-man Jesus Christ into a single person, preserving the properties and actions of Divinity and humanity unchanged in this union: in order to be thus born into our human life, to pass through its degrees and states and through death itself, and all humanity, fallen by sin and gravitating towards hell, but clinging to the incarnate with co-naturalness and faith, on the shoulders of Divine power to lift it up and lift it higher than from where it fell - into the heavenly eternal kingdom of God. What a lofty and wondrous economy of God! What a deep and unsearchable mystery! Truly worthy of saying with the Apostle: “This is the great mystery of godliness, God was revealed in the flesh” (1 Tim. 3:16). Thought, before the immeasurable height and depth of the mystery, loses its wings. Contemplation faints before the power of the invisible light, like the bodily eye before the visible sun. The word becomes numb before the immensity of contemplation. What mind will penetrate into the “eternal council”, in the sanctuary of the Trinitarian Deity, inaccessible to creatures? What kind of hearing will accommodate, in response to the will of God the Father, the willing word of God the Word, which, however, once touched the hearing of one of the Prophets: “Behold, I come to do Your will, O God” (Ps. 39:9; Heb. 10:9)? How were the heavens not shaken and crushed by the descent to earth of the One who lives above the heavens and cannot be contained by the heavens? How did the earth, “cursed in deeds” (Gen. 3:17) of the first man, and for many centuries desecrated by the sins of the human race, not be consumed by fire when God descended on it, Who “is fire that consumes” unclean things (Heb. 12:29)? How is the womb of the Virgin, “receiving the fire of the Divine”, not scorched? When and how did the Holy Spirit “pre-purify” her for this, and raised her to purity worthy of direct contact with the purity of the Divine? How, above the laws of nature, a new Adam was born in her, who is “the Lord from heaven” (1 Cor. 15:45), and the Lord from heaven did not disdain to put on the form of a servant, in the natural image of the old Adam, who is “the dust of the earth; going into the earth" (Gen. 2:7, 3:19)? Let us restrain the movement of testing thoughts with the word of the Wise One: “Do not seek those who are higher for yourself, and do not test those who are stronger for yourself; understand what you are commanded” (Sir.3:21-22). Is it possible to exhaust the sea with a handful? - And even if this were possible; because the sea has limits and a measure of depth: then everything would be impossible - with a small vessel of the human mind to exhaust the abyss of the wisdom of God, the breadth of which is limitless and the depth is immeasurable. Therefore, the boldness to test the mysteries of God is wisely and righteously forbidden to us; and it is commanded to honor them and cleave to them by faith; and in faith the hope of bliss is laid down for us: “those who have not seen blessings have believed” (John 20:29). So, let us embrace with simple-hearted faith the sacrament of the incarnation of the Son of God that saves us. Let us humbly revere the incomprehensibility of the wisdom of God and the unsearchableness of its ways. With grateful joy let us marvel at God’s love for mankind, which, when the means and strength of nature become scarce, with a generous hand sows miracles in order to grow the fruit of salvation for a sinner, condemned and perishing man. “O Lord our Lord, how wonderful is Your name,” and Your work! “What is man, that you remember him, or the son of man, that you visit him” (Ps. 8:2, 5)? Grant us also to constantly remember Your immeasurable mercy towards us, and, to the extent of our ability, to correspond to it with our love for You, mercy for our neighbors, active fulfillment of Your holy will, so that we may finally be honored to be eternal partakers of Your eternal goodness in Your kingdom of heaven. Amen. You might be interested in: