Поучение второе на праздник Успения Пресвятой Богородицы, месяца августа, в 15 день

“Oh, wonderful miracle! The source of life is placed in the grave, and the ladder to heaven is the grave.” The wondrous Mother of the wondrous God is wondrous from Her beginning to her end, beloved listeners! She is marvelous in her life, and marvelous in her repose. All of Her is one wondrous miracle! Wonderful in life, for She is the virgin Mother and the mothering Virgin, who gave birth to God and did not violate Her virginity. She is also wondrous in her repose, for with her grave she ascends not into the earth, but into heaven, and “there is a ladder to heaven for the grave.” Oh wonderful miracle! And the dead man is marvelous, and the coffin is marvelous! The dead man is alive even after death: “At the Nativity the Virgin is alive even after death,” and the coffin reaches the sky, like that Jacob’s ladder established on the earth, the top of which reached the heavens. The coffin is a ladder to heaven. Let us stand firmly with our minds at this wondrous, immortal tomb of the immortal Mother of God, as if at a staircase leading to heaven, and let us take a closer look with our inner eyes: what are the steps of this staircase, for there is no staircase without steps? What are the steps by which the Mother of God ascended to heaven at the time of Her repose? “Oh, wonderful miracle! The source of life is placed in the grave, and the ladder in heaven is a grave!” It would not be a great miracle to block the source with a coffin so that it does not emit its stream. The marvelous thing is that the coffin turns into a ladder, and a ladder reaching to heaven. But can a three-armed human coffin, placed directly on the ground, at the same time reach the heights of heaven? Let it be known that here the word “coffin” is used instead of the word “death”: death is called a coffin, and also a ladder. For just as the tomb is measured by three cubits, so is death. “The death of saints, honorable before the Lord” (cf. Ps. 116:6), like a ladder leading the souls of saints to heaven, is measured by three theological virtues: faith, hope and love. Great and lofty is this measure, reaching to heaven like a ladder! For faith reaches the sight of God, hope reaches the receipt of those blessings “which no eye has seen” (1 Cor. 2:9), but love reaches the very heart of God, which is the source and beginning of all love. Death is a ladder. For just as a ladder has two strings, two sides, so death, which ends temporary life and begins eternal life, has, as it were, two strings, two sides, mediating between temporary and eternal life: on the one hand, life ending, and on the other, life beginning. And just as between two bowstrings steps for ascension are arranged and strengthened, so at the time of death, between a life ending and a life beginning, as if between two bowstrings, all the good deeds of a righteous man, done in temporary life, are gathered together, by which the soul, as if by steps, ascends to him. So, death or the coffin serves as a ladder for ascent: “The coffin is a ladder to heaven.” The Mother of God ends with a most blessed death, dies an immortal death. On the one hand, there is the end of temporary life, on the other, the beginning of eternal life. In the middle they gathered and, as if on the steps for the ascent of Her most holy soul, all Her virtues were lined up. Who can count them? Who can count and indicate how, with what and how many good deeds the Most Holy Virgin pleased God, Her Creator, from Her youth until Her most blessed death? It’s easier to count flowers in spring, ears of corn in summer, fruits in autumn, snow in winter! You would rather count the hairs on your head, the drops in the sea, the stars in the sky, than you would count the good deeds of pleasing God and the virtues of the Mother of God! I, having kept silent about everything else that is inconvenient to count, will consider only the three most remarkable things in it, which I consider to be like steps of a ladder, and so that they can be seen more clearly, I will ask a question. I ask you: who died? I know that each, according to his zeal, will respond to the Departed One with all sorts of praiseworthy words. One will say: “The Mother of God reposed before Her Son and God”; another will say: “The animate sky ascends to heaven”; third: “The impassable gates are carried into the doors of heaven”; another will say: “The Sun rose from earth to heaven, in which the Most High dwelt”; another: “The most pure and most honorable House of God is included in churches not made by hands.” Everyone will say something praiseworthy according to their zeal. I, turning to the most wondrous, immortal This Dead Man, ask: Who are you, lying here? And I hear a humble voice in response: “Behold, I am the Servant of the Lord!” (Luke 1:38) Now let everyone know who died here: The Handmaid of the Lord died, The Handmaid of the Lord was laid in the tomb: “Behold, I am the Handmaid of the Lord!” Here I will remember one ancient saying: “To serve God and to reign are one and the same,” that is, to serve God means to reign together. The true servant of God is at the same time the heir of the heavenly kingdom and co-reigns with Christ. And if the Most Pure Virgin is the Servant of the Lord, then She must truly be called the Queen of all visible and invisible creation. But I, diligently looking with my mind at the Lord and at His Servant, I see both my Lord, in the Three Persons of One, Father and Son, and the Holy Spirit, and His Servant, and our Queen, who in one person expressed three special aspects of serving God, for She served God the Father in a special way, God the Son in a special way, and God the Holy Spirit in a special way. She was a Daughter to God the Father, to whom He says: “Listen, O Daughter, and see” (Ps. 44:11). God the Son - Mother; To God the Holy Spirit - the Blessed Virgin, the Unbrided Bride. She served God the Father as a Daughter, God the Son as a Mother, God the Holy Spirit as an unfathomable Virgin. She worked for the Holy Trinity in special ways, faithfully and truly. Here I ask again: by what steps did this Servant of the Lord, who earned the royal honor for herself, achieve such great dignity, such a high honor - to be the Daughter of God the Father, the Mother of God the Son and the unfathomable Virgin of God the Holy Spirit? Truly, She “set ascensions in Her heart” (Ps. 83:3): she laid down the steps of ascent to God in Her life, namely, she ascended to the humiliation of God by the Holy Spirit with virginal purity, to motherhood in relation to God the Son - with humility: “He looked upon,” She says, “the humility of His servant” (Luke 1:48); Daughter of God She became love to the Father. And by the same steps with which She approached God, the One in the Trinity, in Her temporary life, She ascended in Her immortal Assumption into heaven to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, that is, with virgin purity, humility and love. First of all, from Her youth she ascended to God the Holy Spirit with virginal purity, becoming His living church and an animated church. For nowhere does the Holy Spirit dwell as in those who are virgins, because virginity, according to the testimony of the Holy Fathers, is akin to the Angels and friendly to God. And the Most Pure Mother of God, according to Saint Ambrose, was a Virgin not only in body, but also in spirit. Let us listen with our minds to the words of this teacher, who says about the Most Pure Virgin: “She was a Virgin not only in body, but also in spirit,” and let us think: what does it mean to be virgin in body and spirit? What does it mean to be pure in body and spirit? And since we remembered purity, let these words be heard not only by those who are virgins, or widowed, or who protect their purity by repentance, but also by those who are married, for the apostle says to everyone in general: “Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who lives in you; you are the church of God, and the Spirit of God lives in you" ; and also: “If anyone destroys the church of God, God will punish him” (1 Cor. 6:19, 3:16–17). So, everyone must take care of their purity, virgins - virgins and widows - widows. In the same way, those who are married must immaculately preserve marital purity in order to be pure temples of the Holy Spirit. For before God, just as the purity of the unmarried is commendable, so the purity of the married is honorable ("let marriage be honorable for all" - Heb. 13:4), and of those is acceptable, and of these is not rejected, as undefiled; and that one is glorious, and this one has its own, albeit different, glory, as the apostle says: “There is another glory of the sun, another glory of the moon, another of the stars” (1 Cor. 15:41). Although it is different, it is still glory, and to each his own: special glory to the sun, special glory to the moon, and special glory to the stars. Saint Isidore Pilusiot gives these apostolic words the following interpretation: “Paul likens those who have loved to keep virginity to the sun,” he says; to the moon - those who are purely in widowhood; He likens to the stars those who, in an honest marriage, keep their bed undefiled. For just as it is fitting for the sun to be bright and for the moon to be bright and for the stars not to be dark, so it is fitting for those who are virgins and widows and those in marriage to be pure, so that all may be worthy temples of the Holy Spirit.” Learn here everything that it means for a person to be pure in spirit and body. Each person is essentially dual: external and internal, that is, material and spiritual; the external one is visible, because it is material, and the internal one is invisible, because it is spiritual. Therefore, his purity must be immaculate before God in two ways: physical and spiritual purity, that is, purity of spirit. It is in vain that one who does not carefully preserve the purity of spirit is proud of the purity of his body in his mind. It is in vain that he who nourishes sinful filth in his mind curbs his carnal lusts through abstinence. It is in vain that the outer man considers himself pure if his inner man is polluted with countless impurities. The body is pure, but from the heart come evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications that defile a person. Such a person is like the apple of Sodom. It is written in the books that in the country where Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities were destroyed by the righteous wrath of God, apples will be born that are very beautiful in appearance, large and have a wondrous color. And if someone saw them for the first time, he would be greatly amazed by their beauty and would expect to find in them an indescribable taste. But when someone takes an apple, cuts it or eats it, he finds nothing in it except only rotten, stinking and harmful dust. O man, pure in body and defiled in soul! Aren't you like that apple? Is not the purity of your body like this beautiful-looking apple, and the uncleanness of your spirit and mind is not putrid, stinking and soul-harming dust? It is precisely these people that Christ the Lord Himself likens in the Gospel to painted tombs filled with stinking bones (see Matt. 23:27), and says to them: “You show yourselves to be righteous before men, but God knows your hearts” (Luke 16:15). Oh, if it were possible to look inside the heart, which seems holy, more than one would be found there, a rotten and stinking corpse - a vicious thought! So, it is necessary to know that the purity of the outer man, that is, the purity of the body, without the purity of the inner man, that is, the spirit, is not purity, as St. Euthymius the Great explains it, who says this: “Let everyone know that even if someone does not touch another’s body, does not commit a nasty sin with the body, but commits fornication with the mind, having nasty thoughts, holding them, submitting to them and enjoying them, he is a fornicator and cannot be the temple of the Holy Spirit." For the Holy Spirit, in the words of Saint Chrysostom, is like a bee: “Just as a bee does not fly into a stinking vessel, so the Holy Spirit does not enter an unclean soul” (Conversation 15 on Ephesians 4:35). But let us turn again to the words of Saint Ambrose, which he said about the Most Pure Virgin. She, he says, was a Virgin not only in body, but also in spirit. She was a Virgin in body, keeping the color of Her purity incorruptible, and she was a Virgin in spirit, never thinking about marriage. For when, living in the Holy of Holies, She came of marriageable age, and when the bishops and priests, according to legal custom, commanded Her to leave her residence in the church and, following the example of other maidens, Her peers, to get married, She answered: “I was given by my parents from childhood to God alone and made a vow to preserve My virginity forever; and therefore I cannot unite in marriage with a mortal man, and nothing can force Me, Me, the Virgin of the Immortal God, into marriage.” Hearing this, the bishops were amazed at such an unusual thing, for there had never been a single girl like that who promised her virginity to God forever; She was the first. Who would not be surprised that during the entire time from Adam’s crime to the incarnation of the Word of God, who came to earth to save the human race in half the sixth thousand years, not a single virgin was found on earth who was pure not only in body, but also in spirit? She alone turned out to be the first and last such Virgin, Who, by the purity of Her body and soul, became worthy of being the church and temple of the Holy Spirit. And just as then, through Her virgin purity, She ascended and approached God the Holy Spirit and united into one spirit with God, as the Scripture says: “He who is united with the Lord is one spirit with the Lord” (1 Cor. 6:17), so in Her most honorable Assumption she ascended by the same step to heaven, to heaven and above heaven. She ascended to God the Son by the level of humility, for through humility she became worthy to be His Mother. By the same step She ascended to heaven and surpassed in honor and dignity all the faces of the saints. Humility is the best step to both high earthly, worldly honors and heavenly ones. Once the forefather of the Mother of God and Christ, Saint David, being pursued by his father-in-law Saul and seeing him from afar in one place, shouted to him: “Who are you following or who are you chasing? Is it for a dead dog or just a flea? Saul, convinced of his innocence and meekness, answered him: “Now I know that you will reign, and the kingdom of Israel will be firmly in your hand” (1 Samuel 24:15, 21). Look: when David humbled himself so much that he likened himself to a dead dog and a small flea, he immediately heard the royal title prepared for him by God: “You will reign.” Through humility he achieved royal honor and earthly honors. Saint John the Baptist humbled himself to the feet and shoes of Christ, saying: “I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of His sandals” (Mark 1:7). And what did he hear from Christ: “Among those born of women there has not arisen a greater one than John the Baptist” (Matthew 11:11). By the step of humility, Saint John ascended to such high dignity that he was worthy to lay his hand on the most honorable head of the Son of God. But to the highest heavenly honors there is no better ascent and step than humility, according to the words of the Lord: “Whoever humbles himself will be exalted” (Matthew 23:12). Once upon a time a dispute arose between the apostles about which of them was the highest in the apostolic ranks and who would be the ruler in heaven? They came to the Lord Himself for a solution to this issue and said to Him: “Who is greatest in the kingdom of heaven? The Lord, having called the child, placed him in the midst of them and said: “Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:1-3). But, oh Lord! What does this teaching of Yours mean? Do Your disciples really need to turn from mature men into little children? Peter is already old, and Andrew too, and the other apostles are no longer young. Is it possible for them to return to their former, long-gone age and become small youths? And the Lord says: “Be children if you want to enter the kingdom of heaven and be great in it.” But, oh Lord! Show us a way to address adolescence. The Lord says: “Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:4). This is the way to grow up: even when you are old, be humble, meek, and gentle, like children. The apostle speaks well about this: “Be not children in your mind: be infants to evil” (1 Cor. 14:20). Whoever is a child through gentleness and humility, the door of heaven is opened for him to enter, he will enter the kingdom of heaven and will be great in it. Such an appeal to adolescence was necessary for the disciples of Christ, for in pride they began to little by little become exalted in their minds: now they ask to sit on the right and left hand of Christ in His kingdom, now they argue about who is greatest among them, looking for leadership. But such an appeal was not required for the Blessed Virgin, for from Her infancy She was unchangeable in Her humility, and, growing in body, She descended in the spirit of humility and was always infancy, like a child, in kindness and humility. She grew in years, grew in intelligence, and with Her God-thought mind reached the sky. She also grew in height of dignity, for she already knew that She, and not any other virgin, should give birth to the Son of God, which was revealed to Her by God the Father Himself during midnight prayer in the Holy of Holies. For the Divine light illuminated Her, and She heard the voice of God the Father saying: “You will give birth to My Son.” What a great honor, what a great dignity! And at this age, does She think about any kind of leadership, about sitting on the throne, and about power? No! She becomes an infant in adolescent humility, saying: “Behold, the Servant of the Lord!” That is, as if he says: “I am not worthy not only to be, but also to be called the Mother of the Lord, My Creator, not only worthy to co-reign, but also to stand before Him, not worthy not only to carry Him in My womb or in My arms, but even to look at His most holy face, which even the Seraphim do not dare to look at. Let me be one of the servants serving Him: “Behold, the Servant of the Lord.” O depth of humility! Depth, “inconceivable and angelic eyes!” With this same high level of deepest humility, She achieved the highest honor of the Birth of God, incorruptible motherhood, for during Her humble words: “Behold, the Handmaid of the Lord,” - in Her most pure virgin womb, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). Humility is the foundation of everything, and all other virtues serve as a building on this foundation. And in Her life, the Most Pure Virgin approached God most of all with humility, Who says: “On whom I will look, only the meek and humble” (Is. 66:2). With the same humility and in Her Assumption she ascended to heaven and was elevated with glory to the throne of the heavenly kingdom, for humility reigns with the Most Pure Virgin where pride has been cast down. To the Third, Primary Person of the Holy Trinity, God the Father, She ascended by the third highest step - love, for according to the Apostle, “love is greater than all” (1 Cor. 13:13). Through her She became the Daughter of the Heavenly Father. How the Most Pure Virgin loved God, no language can explain this, no mind can comprehend, for love is one of the unknown secrets of the heart, known only to God, “who searches the heart and womb” (see Ps. 7:10). In part, we can understand love from certain external actions, occasions and times, such as the following. When the Child Jesus remained in Jerusalem, the Most Pure Virgin, having found Him, said: “They sought You with great sorrow” (Luke 2:48), that is, they searched with pain in their hearts. Here we can say that the Most Pure Virgin loved God with all her heart. She stands at the Cross, looks at the free suffering of Her Son, and on Her the words of Simeon come true: “And a weapon will pierce your own soul” (Luke 2:35). Here we can say that the Most Pure Virgin loved God with all her soul. After the Lord’s Ascension into heaven, the Most Pure Virgin remained on earth in the primacy of the Church, constantly having in Her thoughts Her Son and God, and constantly wanting to go to Him from earth. Here we could say that She loved God with all her thoughts. However, we will not comprehend at all, we will not sufficiently explain how She loved Him with all her heart, with all her soul and with all her mind. We would say, reasoning humanly, that the Most Pure Virgin loved God as one of us loves his parents or his friend who became one flesh (see Eph. 5:31) in marriage, or his only sons. But among people, heartfelt love differs in its types: they love a parent in a special way, or a friend, or a son. The love of the Most Pure Virgin had no differences, for the One Whom She loved was for Her both the Father, and the only Son, and the Imperishable Bridegroom. All of Her all-encompassing love was directed towards the One God, and for her sake She was called the Bride of the Holy Spirit, and the Mother of God the Son, and the Daughter of God the Father. And the Daughter is not by such communion as all are made faithful children of God, according to the words of Scripture: “To those who believe in His name he gave power to become children of God” (John 1:12), and in another place: “I will receive you. “And I will be a Father to you, and you will be My sons and daughters,” says the Lord Almighty” (2 Cor. 6:17–18), “but the Most Pure Virgin became the Daughter of God the Father by another, incomparably higher, most honest and closest assimilation. Let's imagine that a certain man took in two little orphaned girls, raised them as daughters and called them both his daughters, and then made one of them the bride of his half-blooded son. This young woman, who was married to his son, becomes, according to the law of nature, his closest daughter, related to him to a greater extent than the young woman who was not married to his son. For this one is his daughter only by external appropriation, only by name, but the first one, by the law of nature, becomes his daughter, since she touches his nature, joining his natural son, becomes one flesh with him, and, like a son, by the law of nature, becomes a daughter of the same father. The same should be understood about the Most Pure Mother of God. God the Father took to Himself our human nature and especially the Most Pure Virgin, as if two orphaned young women, like daughters. Our nature was orphaned, for it had lost paradise and the original grace of God. The Most Pure Virgin was also orphaned, having lost Her parents. The Lord called our nature His daughter: “You will be,” He said, “My sons and daughters.” He also named the Most Pure Virgin His Daughter, saying: “Hear, O Daughter, and look, and incline Your ear, and forget Your people and the house of Your father” (Ps. 44:11). When the predetermined time came, God the Father united the Virgin with His Son, the Word, as a Bride, and so the Most Pure Virgin became a closer Daughter to God the Father, much closer to Him than ours, for She touched the nature of God, uniting with God the Word with Her flesh, with which She embodied Him in Herself. And therefore the Virgin Mary is the Daughter of God the Father, Who is closer to Him than all human and angelic nature. Her motherhood, since she gave birth to God the Son, clearly shows Her great closeness to God the Father. That is why God the Father says to Her in the Song of Songs: “I have likened You close to Me” (Song 1:8), for just as He gave birth to His natural God the Son without a mother, so She gave birth to the same, and not another God, Son without a father and became, as it were, the closest Sister in relation to God the Father. The Most Pure Virgin achieved this great dignity both through the above-mentioned virtues - virginity and humility, and through love. For the Lord says: “I love those who love Me” (Prov. 8:17). And just as the Most Pure Virgin loved God more than the past, present and future saints with the warmest love, so God loved Her more than all, appropriated, united closer than all, entrusting Her to bear in the virgin womb and give birth to a perfect God in perfect humanity. And just as then the Most Pure Virgin ascended the step of love to such a high closeness to God the Father, so now in Her most honorable Assumption she ascended to heaven by the same step. So by these three steps (I do not mention countless others) the Mother of God now ascends into heaven: to God the Holy Spirit - with virginal purity, to God the Son - with humility, and to God the Father - with love. I will say more: by all these steps together She ascended to the One God in the Trinity. For by what she pleased God the Holy Spirit, she pleased both God the Son and God the Father. By what she pleased God the Son, she pleased both God the Father and God the Holy Spirit. By what she pleased God the Father, she pleased God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. We, marveling at Her ascent, at these steps, exclaim with trepidation: “Oh, a wondrous miracle! There is a coffin to the ladder to heaven.” Amen.