Поучение на празднество явления Пречестной иконы Пречистой Владычицы нашей Богородицы и Приснодевы Марии во граде Казани, месяца июля, в 8 день, 1706 г.

Contemplating with joyful eyes the most venerable icon of our Most Pure Lady Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary, which came from the depths of the earth as a richest treasure, and was given to this reigning God-saved city of Kazan, and kissing it with zealous love, we believe to behold the most true one, living in heaven both to His Son and to our God co-reigning Mother of God and worship Her, falling with heartfelt faith and spiritual love. Worshiping Her piously and reverently and the angelic greeting: “Rejoice, O Gracious One!” - repeating often, we try to please Her according to our strength with all kinds of praise, calling Her by various names, both ancient and new. We call her by ancient names from the Old Testament: we call her a ladder, and a burning bush, and a tablet, and a sprouted rod, and an ark, and a table, and a golden stupa bearing manna, and a watered fleece, and an uncut mountain, and an impenetrable door, and other glorious things that typified Her. We also call it by new names from new grace: heaven, like the Sun of Christ’s righteousness that shone to us; paradise, like an unfading flower that has grown for us - Jesus; Virgin, as one who remained before the Nativity, at the Nativity, and after the Nativity, incorruptible; Pure Mother, as if she carried in her arms the Son, all of God. And one more thing: with the sown earth and the vine, the ripe grape that has sprouted, and the fruitful tree, and the ever-flowing spring, and the sea of ​​God’s grace, and other many and worthy names, we worthily honor and praise Her with our zeal. Among all these names with which we call the Lady, there is one new name that is incomprehensible to our minds - “Hodegetria.” In the canon we often hear it in the words: “Rejoice, Hodegetria!”; and in the legend about the appearance of Her most venerable icon it is said: “The miraculous icon of Her venerable Most Holy Theotokos, Hodegetria, appeared.” Hardly anyone can know and understand what this word means: “Hodegetria,” and therefore let’s look at how its meaning is interpreted. The Slavic lexicon indicates that “digitria” means a joyful mentor and strong helper, while the Greek lexicon says that “digitria” means a guide or guide. In order for all these meanings and interpretations to become intelligible to us, a detailed explanation and interpretation is required. This new name for the Most Pure Mother of God, “Hodegetria,” will be the subject of our conversation on Her present feast day. And in order for us to understand it more clearly, let us arrange the interpretation itself and the word into two parts. In the first, we will talk about the fact that the Most Pure Mother of God is our joyful Teacher, guiding us on the path of salvation leading to eternal joy. In the second, the Most Pure Mother of God, a strong Helper to us weak, helps us in our needs. Let all this be said in praise of our Most Holy Lady Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary, and for our spiritual benefit. The first meaning of the most blessed new name of the Mother of God “Hodegetria” is the joyful Mentor or Guide, guiding us on the path of salvation leading to eternal joy. “Hodegetria” is joyful, for it transforms our sadness into joy, comforts those who cry, and cheers those who mourn. But first of all, consider our tearful sadness in real life. In this world, filled with all evil, about which Scripture says: “The whole world lies in evil” (1 John 5:19), we have nothing to rejoice about and can only cry. For wherever we turn our eyes, we will see evil and not good. And we will see serious evil: either obvious evil, or evil hidden under the guise of good, just as poison is hidden in sweetness. Obvious evil is persecution, troubles, wars, ruins, punishments of God for sins, such as hunger, fire, sword, and the like. Evil, hidden under hypocritical good, lives in the vain joys and sweets of this world, in unstable happiness, prosperity, in human coexistence and community. It is hard and bitter to endure obvious evil that occurs by God’s permission, but it is harder and worse to endure hidden evil. For just as a dog that silently and suddenly grabs and bites a person with its teeth is worse and more cruel than a dog that barks and rushes from afar, so evil covered by good is worse and more severe than obvious evil. Let's look at the glory and riches of this world, and here who will not say: how good it is to be famous, rich, to prosper in happiness, to have idle fun! But we will see the poison hidden under this sweetness - evil covered by external goodness. Glory and joy will end in hell, as the holy prophet Isaiah says: “Your glory and your great joy will descend into hell; pus will spread under you, and worms will cover you” (Isa. 14:11). Wealth ends in weeping, according to the words of the apostle: “Listen, you rich: weep and howl for your troubles that are coming upon you” (James 5:1). Let's look at the feasts that take place in the houses of eminent gentlemen, and here who from the lower ranks would not want to be a participant in their rejoicing, as a pleasant thing! Here is love, here is friendship, here many cups are drained for each other’s health! But we will also see in this good a hidden evil, according to the words of the Psalmist: “Their table before them is a snare and a temptation” (Ps. 69:23) - for here they catch each other as if with a net, with treacherous words and hypocritical friendship, or condemn each other to the temptation of many, slander each other, regardless of their sins, destroy the glory of their neighbor, bite and torment him with their tongues and shameful words, like sharp teeth. It is precisely these banquet meals that the Lord complains about, saying: “Will not all those who do iniquity, who eat My people instead of bread, come to their senses?” (Ps. 13:4). Let us turn our eyes to friendly human coexistence, and there we will see hidden evil in abundance: they talk to each other sweetly, but think bitterly. There is honey in the mouth, and gall in the heart: “Their words are softer than oil, but they are arrows” (Ps. 54:22). There is absolutely nothing to rejoice in this many-evil, many-troubled world, for troubles surround us from everywhere, according to the apostle: “Dangers on the rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from fellow tribesmen, dangers from the pagans, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers at sea, dangers among false brethren” (2 Cor. 11:26). And therefore, not one in this world, sighing, says with David: “My soul cannot be comforted” (see Ps. 77:3). For all the joy of this world is sadness, and there is no joy here that is not dissolved by sadness. There is no consolation that is not combined with sorrow. There is no joy that is not followed by lamentation. There is no laughter that does not accompany crying with sighing. There is no good that does not end in evil. For how can the world, being evil by nature, do good to anyone? Love him, but he hates you; look for him, but he runs away from you; serve him, and he beats you; please him with praise, but he insults you; rely on him, but he deceives you in everything. He promises you honor, but gives you dishonor. He promises gold, but delivers dirt! He promises wealth, but deprives you of the latter! He promises honey, but delivers bile! It promises sweetness, but delivers bitterness! He promises bread, but delivers a stone! He promises good, but delivers evil! There is not a single true consolation and joy in this world! Everything is filled with lamentation and crying! Having examined our many-poor life, filled with sadness and tears, let us turn our mental eyes to the joyful Hodegetria, the Most Pure Virgin Theotokos. It is not for nothing that the Church in her hymns often calls our Lady “verbal paradise.” For just as the one who is worthy of entering the material paradise will not see any trouble there and neither illness, nor sorrow, nor sighing, so the one who adheres to this mental paradise will avoid all troubles and evils and through this paradise will inherit the expected paradise. For She is the door of heaven, opening entry to everyone: “Rejoice,” the Holy Church says to her, “the doors of heaven are opening!” (Akathist, ikos 4). Listen to what Blessed Gregory of Nicomedia says about Her: “Through you we have truly received paradise, through you the exiled human race returned to its Fatherland, through you the flaming weapon guarding the gates of Eden was taken away, through you the closed gates of joy and joy were opened, through you we hope to enter the kingdom of heaven, we have you as the Intercessor of our salvation.” Having this Hodegetria, the joy of our Intercessor, we will cling to Her relentlessly, like the very gates of heaven, and through Her we will enter paradise, full of joy, having escaped all the evils and troubles of this world. This same joyful Hodegetria is our Teacher, for she instructs sinners on the path of repentance, guiding us to salvation and accompanying us with Her mercy while we walk the path of this life. Extracting his ancient people, Israel, from the slavery of Egypt and from the torment of Pharaoh through the Red Sea and leading them into the Promised Land, the Lord gave them a guide on the way with a pillar of fire and cloud, as David says about this: “He taught them with a cloud during the day and all night with the illumination of fire” (Ps. 77:14), and as it is sung in Irmology: “Instruct Israel with a pillar of fire and cloud, like God.” In the same way, in the new grace, our Lord, leading His new Israel, Christ-named people, to the blessings promised in heaven, which are prepared for those who love Him, gave His Most Pure Mother as a Teacher, in order through Her to lead them into His mountain shrine. For the ancient pillar of fire was a prototype of our Teacher, the Most Holy Theotokos, just as the suffering of the people of Israel in Egypt prefigured our current suffering in the world of life. This cursed world is like a kind of Egypt, for it does not want to take up arms against anyone but the people of God. How many people there were in Egypt who lived in lawlessness, who served their lusts and uncleanness, and did unspeakable evil, and they all lived in silence and peace, and no one did them any harm! Only the Israelites, the people of God, the holy tribe, the chosen people, the innocent people, were hated, persecuted, tortured and insulted. And it was not the one who did evil who was considered in Egypt a villain, worthy of wounds, but the one who did good; and there the slave of demons was a good man, and the true worshiper of God was considered a villain. Such were the customs in Egypt. Truly, this world is of the same Egyptian character: it beats those who have not sinned, torments those who have done no evil, insults the innocent, and persecutes those who lead a pious life. And the apostolic word is now justified: “All who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. But evil people and deceivers will prosper in evil” (2 Tim. 3:12–13). And truly the situation is now such that the pious, virtuous, and innocent are persecuted, while wicked people “prosper in evil.” For who is prospering now? Is it not those who, having despised the fear of God and neglected the Lord’s commandments, counting a pious Christian life for nothing, consider sinful voluptuousness as a kind of heavenly pleasure, and lawless and nasty deeds as if they were sinlessness and righteousness, and consider temporary life endless? Such people, day after day, hour after hour, “succeed in evil,” multiplying eternal torment for themselves, not caring for the long-suffering of God, not listening to the words of the Apostle Paul, who shouts louder than a trumpet and says to each of them: “Do you really think, O man, that you will escape the judgment of God by condemning those who do such things and doing the same yourself? Or do you neglect the riches of God’s goodness, meekness and long-suffering, not realizing that God’s goodness leads you to repentance? But because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath and revelation of righteous judgment from God, who will reward everyone according to his deeds” (Rom. 2:3-6). So this world is similar in character to Egypt, the chief of whose malice is Pharaoh, the devil of hell, who “walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Pet. 5:8), and is angry with no one more than with the servants of God, trying to destroy them from among the living. The life of the poor and wretched people, which they go through in this world, is like the Red (Red) Sea: it is a sea, because it is filled with the sorrow of troubles; it is red, because it is watered with bloody tears and blood itself. And just as splashing waves in the sea crash against a rocky shore, so in this life, wretched people vacillate from side to side, moving from place to place and getting no good anywhere. They just seem to be smashed against the rocks by misadventures and misfortunes and eventually go bankrupt. What else can we say about sinful anxiety? Is it that we are drowning in storms of passions, in the words of Saint Damascus: “I reached the depths of the sea, and the storm of my many sins drowned me.” Sinful passion is also Egyptian slavery, if anyone gets used to it. Such a person, according to the apostolic saying, “whatever he wants, he does not do, and what he does not want, he does” (Rom. 7:19), forced to do so by the habit of sin to which he has enslaved. For if someone is defeated, he works for him, and Pharaoh, the devil of hell, tries to captivate us in that sinful work and drown us in the abyss of hell, as he has already done with very many, since there are few who have escaped and are being saved, but very many who have perished and are perishing. But let us not despair of God’s mercy and deliverance of us both from sinful worries and from real troubles, for we have on the path of our life the Most Merciful Hodegetria, the Merciful Mentor, the Most Pure Virgin Theotokos, Who was given to us as to the Israelites a pillar of fire-cloud, since She is our pillar of fire-cloud, as the Church calls Her in the akathist: “Rejoice, fiery pillar, instruct those who are in darkness! Rejoice, cover of the world, broadening the clouds!” (Ikos 6). She is fire, but the fire is not material, but Divine, as one that enlightens those in darkness and guides everyone to the Divine mind. She is a cloud, like one who carries God and pours down on us the rain of God's mercy and grace. She is a pillar, as one who establishes the militant Church on earth and protects from enemies visible and invisible, in the words of David: “A strong defense from the enemy” (Ps. 60:4). She is the Guide and Mentor, as she guides and instructs us to salvation, just as she once instructed Mary of Egypt, who cried out to Her: “Now, wherever you want, direct me, now be for me a Teacher of salvation, guiding me on the path of repentance.” And She guided, with Her grace invisibly accompanied her in the desert and directed her to perfect salvation, until She brought her into the chamber of Her Son, as His beloved bride. In the same way, She instructs and guides everyone who flows to Her to receive eternal benefits, leading into endless joy. Let us not, O faithful people! to be lazy in following Her, serving in honor and righteousness Her Son and our God, to Whom be glory! In the first part, we indicated the meaning of the most blessed name of our Most Pure Lady “Hodegetria” in that She is our joyful Teacher, leading us to the path of salvation. In this second part we must explain that the same Most Blessed Hodegetria is a strong Helper who helps us, the weak, in our needs. But first we will consider our very weakness in this present life and our imaginary strength. Here it is not inappropriate to recall the story about the fortress of the three wise youths, which is found in the Divine Scripture, in the books of Ezra. The three bed-maids of the Persian king Darius entered into a discussion about what is the most powerful thing in heaven, surpassing everything else in strength? One wrote: wine is strongest; another wrote: the king is strongest; the third wrote: there is nothing stronger than a woman, but truth is highest. Each of them proved his opinion with lengthy arguments: one about the strength of wine, the other about royal power, and the third about the power of women and truth (see 2 Ezra 3:4 et seq.). However, all these three wise men did not quite guess what is stronger than anything else - except the truth - for it is not that strong that is strong in itself, but that which can help others is strong. Wine is strong, but what is its strength? The fact is that it can harm a person rather than help him. Everyone knows this. What benefit can a person have from the strength of wine when he gets drunk with it? He becomes weak and decrepit, and the strong faint, and the mighty fall, and the righteous sin. How did the strength of the wine help the righteous Noah when he got drunk with it? Has he not become an object of reproach and a temptation for his son Ham? What benefit did the strength of the wine bring to God-pleasing Lot? Didn't he fall in a terrible way? The populous city of Sodom, full of all kinds of vile lawlessness, could not tempt this man to sin, but wine did it quickly even in a deserted place. Did not Holofernes, the commander of the Assyrian regiments, destroy all his strength along with his head through drunkenness? Likewise, Belshazzar, king of the Chaldeans, did not lose his kingdom and his life through drinking wine? Truly, wine is strong, but to harm a person, and not to help. The king is also strong, as the Scripture says: “The king conquers all things and rules over all and rules over them, and whatever he commands them they do” (2 Ezra 4:3). Truly, the king is strong, but not completely, for he has power only over human bodies, but not over souls. He can destroy whomever he wants, but he cannot save anyone’s soul, and he does not know about the salvation of his own soul. Haven’t we heard from books that many kings are in hell, for the king, just like other people, is subject to human weaknesses and is overcome by lustful passions? Strong in his strength was King David, who killed the terrible giant Goliath, and played with lions as with goats, with bears as with lambs, but he too was defeated by one glance at Bathsheba and destroyed his courageous fortress. Such a glorious fighter fell under the feet of carnal passion. Sampson was also strong - a warrior, a strong judge and ruler of Israel, so brave that he killed a thousand Philistines with one donkey's jaw, he himself crushed the gates of the city of Gaza and carried them to the mountain on his shoulders, and tore apart strong bonds like a cobweb. But he, too, was shamefully defeated by the vicious love of the woman Delilah, fell, like a bird into a net, into the hands of his enemies, this brave warrior became a captive of the Philistines and was desecrated by them. King Darius was strong in his power and strength, and his concubine, beloved Apamin, daughter of Vartakov, sitting to his right, takes the royal diadem from his head and puts it on herself, and hits the king on the cheeks. He looks at her with open lips, and if she laughs, he laughs, and if she gets angry, he consoles her until she speaks to him. We see that royal power, authority, and strength are overcome by human weakness, by fornication. Someone wrote well to the great king Alexander the Great: “What good is it for you to be the master of the entire universe when you are a slave to a small and shameful thing - carnal lust?” Women are also strong, but what are they strong at? They are powerful in seducing into sin, in order to make them mad, in order to bring them down into the abyss of hell, to destroy them, and to perish together. Such is feminine power. However, this is not true of everyone. God created a wife for the first man to be his helper, and how did she help him? Led to expulsion from paradise and brought death to the entire human race. Such was the help from this assistant. But let's not talk about women and return to the previous one. The three wise young men did not quite correctly judge with their minds that in heaven everything is strongest, for what they indicated only seems strong, but in reality brings us little help, with the exception of only one truth, which the third young man mentioned: the strongest is woman, and above all is truth. Maybe she is helping us? But first of all, let us think about why that young man mentioned the truth together with women? Wouldn't it be better to attach it to the tsar, so that the tsars would love the truth and do the truth, and so that the tsar's assistants - dignitaries, princes and boyars, governors and judges - would carry out judgments according to the truth, and not for bribes, not to rob, not to offend? Wouldn't it be better to unite her with the royal throne, and not with women? Isn’t it better to say: “The king and truth surpass everything,” rather than: “Woman and truth?” For what truth can there be in women? Isn't it more common to lie? Who is as skilled at lying as women? However, I don’t think that this young man without reason said: “Woman and truth are stronger than anything else.” He was the royal bed-keeper and examined everything that was going on in the royal house and courtyard. He saw how princes and boyars commit untruths, offend the innocent, rob without fearing God, judge for bribes, and do everything they do with untruth. And therefore the reasonable young man thought to himself: now you will sooner find the truth from women than from the royal nobles, and he wrote: “Woman and truth are stronger than anything else.” We have already said about the power of women that they are strong not to help us, but to seduce us. What can we say about the truth? Indeed, the truth is strong and strong, but its strength and strength will be revealed only in the next century. Now, in this life, the truth has weakened, both because it can rarely be found in anyone, for everyone worships lies, in the words of David: “The sons of men are deceitful” (Ps. 61:10), and because no one loves the truth. Don't tell the truth to anyone. “Do not rebuke the wicked,” Scripture advises, “so that they will not hate you” (Prov. 9:8). Let only those who want troubles and persecution speak the truth. The holy Forerunner proclaimed the truth to Herod when he said that it was unworthy to have his brother’s wife, and everyone knows how he suffered for this. Christ our Savior spoke the truth to the scribes and Pharisees, and we know from the Gospel how they hated Him and put Him to death on the cross. And the holy First Martyr Stephen, who spoke the truth to the Jews, accepted death from them by stoning. It’s the same thing now: just start speaking the righteous truth and the true truth, and you will suffer no less. Consequently, the holy truth, although it is strong before God, has become very weak and impoverished among people. So, having examined everything - except the truth - that seems strong and strong, but does little to help our salvation, and having recognized our weakness from here, let us turn our mental eyes to our Most Pure Lady Theotokos, to the explanation of Her most blessed new name “Hodegetria,” that is, strong Helper. Our Lady is strong, for She is the Queen of all visible and invisible creatures, possessing the creatures above and below. All the elements obey Her: heaven and earth, air and sea listen to Her, and all hostile spirits tremble with fear at Her holy name, knowing that She is the Mother of God. And if someone asked me: what is most powerful in heaven? - I would answer: there is nothing stronger and stronger on earth and in heaven than our Most Pure Lady Theotokos, Ever-Virgin Mary in Christ Jesus, our Lord and God. She is strong on earth, for She crushed the head of the invisible serpent, trampled the power of hell, and by Her victories are achieved, enemies are defeated by Her, even in the Old Testament Her prototypes alone showed great power in people. The Israelis solemnly sing songs of victory over the Red Sea, over the corpses of their enemies. But who made them winners? Prototype of the Virgin Mary. In the Damascene Dogmatics, the Church sings: “In the Black Sea of ​​the Unartificed Bride, the image was sometimes painted; there is Moses, here is Gabriel; there is Israel, here is Christ; There the sea, after the passing of Israel, remained impassable, but the Immaculate Sea remained imperishable after the birth of Immanuel.” Gideon defeats Midian, but where does he get his power? Is it not from the watered fleece, which symbolized the Most Pure Mother of God? David kills Goliath by throwing a stone at him from a sling. And this was a prototype of the Mother of God, from Whom came the Stone-Christ, who killed the hellish Goliath. And if the Old Testament prototypes of the Most Holy Hodegetria were so strong that they strengthened believers in battles with adversaries, then even more so in the new grace Hodegetria Herself, our Lady, has the power to strengthen our weakness against enemies visible and invisible. She is also strong in heaven, for she binds with Her prayers the mighty and strong God, Whom she once bound on earth with swaddling clothes. She binds, I say, God with prayers, for when He, angered by our sins, wants to punish us with sudden troubles, She stretches out Her prayerful hands to Him and restrains His punishing right hand from destroying sinners with their iniquities. So strong is the Most Pure Hodegetria, our strong Helper, helping us on earth and in heaven. Helps on earth against visible and invisible enemies: against visible ones, as she once helped the Greeks against Chozroes of Persia and the Scythian Kagan, and as she helped the Russian princes many times against the Hagarians and, having wrested this royal city of Kazan from the hands of the Hagarians, handed it over to the Christian kingdom, for which let there be endless thanks to the Lord God, begged by the Most Pure Mother of God, and who begged Him To the Most Pure Mother of God from all Christianity. Against invisible enemies he helps true Christians with His invincible power always, night and day, driving them away from every faithful person who truly serves Christ God. He also helps us in heaven, begging for us, as it is said, His Son and our God, protecting us from His righteous anger, to which we force Him with our sins that reach His face. If even what is happening in the deepest chasms of the earth is as known to God as it would be done in heaven before His face, which is why it is said that our evil deeds ascend to heaven before the face of God, then what do these human good and evil deeds do when they ascend to heaven? Good deeds intercede with the Lord all kinds of good to the one who did them, but evil deeds prompt God to anger and revenge. Good deeds protect the one who did them, as if saying: “Lord, have mercy on him!” Evil deeds complain about their doer, saying: “Lord, take revenge on him!” Some cry out: “Save!”, others cry out: “Punish!” Some appease, others incite anger. At this time, the Most Holy Hodegetria, the Helper, helps us in heaven: standing between God and our sins, as a Mediatrix, She does not allow our sins to pass near God, and with the voice of Her prayers for us, we drown out the voice of our mortal sins crying out to God against us. King Artaxerxes once wanted, at the instigation of Haman, to exterminate the entire Jewish people, but Queen Esther, standing in front of him, appeased him, and he gave life to the Jewish people. When our sins cry out to us, the repeatedly angry God wants to destroy us from the face of the earth, but our Helper, appearing before Him, appeases Him, which is why the Church sings to Her: “If You had not stood before us, praying, who would have delivered us from so many troubles?” Hodegetria, our strong Helper, helps, but do we know who She helps? Let us listen to the end of the current kontakion, which reads like this: “The Most Pure Mother of God comes to the aid and delivers Her well-behaved and God-fearing servants from great troubles and evils.” Let us remember these last words and understand whom She “precedes to help” and whom She “delivers from great troubles and evils”: “Her well-behaved and God-fearing servants.” But whether She delivers those who are ill-behaved and do not fear God, we have no information about this in the Scriptures. Be horrified here, every unbecoming person who does not fear God, having heard that the Mother of God helps only the well-behaved and God-fearing, delivering them from great troubles and evils, and refuses help to all those who have corrupt morals and have rejected the fear of God from their hearts. And what’s surprising: will the Mother do good to those who are the enemies of Her Son? Is she not more angry with them, seeing that they crucify Her Son with their sins a second time and violate Him with their iniquities? For just as in ancient times the Jews crucified and violated Christ, so now every person, a Christian, leading an unclean life, wallowing in a bad life, like a pig in a swamp, and not thinking about repentance, crucifies the Son of God a second time, violates Him in his members, redeemed by the blood of Christ, making “the members of Christ the members of a harlot” (1 Cor. 6:15 ). Can the Most Pure Mother of Christ be so kind? For what mother ever loved the one who killed her son? How can you, a sinful and hardened man in your unrepentant heart, how can you place your hope in the Mother of God, whose Son every day and every night you sadden with your shameful deeds, dishonor Him in your members and only bear the name of Christian, but in deeds worse than filthy ones? The Mother of God has mercy on sinners. But what sinners? About those who, even if they fall due to human weakness, soon rise up and flow with repentance to God and with tears and warm prayers to Her, the Mother of God. The Mother of God helps sinners. But what sinners? Those who try to correct their lives and, avoiding evil, begin to do good deeds. The Mother of God delivers from great troubles and evils not only the righteous, but also sinners. But what sinners? Those who return to the Heavenly Father like the prodigal son, sigh, beating themselves like a publican, cry at the feet of Christ like sinners who wet His feet with tears, bring Him confession like the thief on the cross. The Most Pure Mother of God looks down on such sinners from above, rushes to their aid and delivers them from great troubles and evils, but does not care about unrepentant sinners. Therefore, O people named after Christ! If we know that we are in sins that anger God, we will correct our lives, let go of our sins and, with true repentance, resort to God and the Mother of God. Let us renounce from ourselves our evil morals, drunkenness, uncleanness, envy, malice, covetousness and all untruth, and let us root the fear of the Lord and unfeigned love for our neighbors in our hearts. The most blessed Hodegetria, the Most Pure Mother of God, our strong Helper, will help us in our salvation and in all our needs and will deliver us from great troubles and evils by Her mercy and by the grace of His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ; to Him and to her who gave birth to Him be honor, glory, thanksgiving and worship now and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.