РУНА ОРОШЕННОГО ПРЕЧИСТОЙ ДЕВЫ МАРИИ чудодейственная роса благодати, от чудотворного Ее образа истекающая ОТ ТЕБЯ РОСА УПАЛА РОСА ЛЮБВИ

The Most Pure Virgin miraculously revealed her with supernatural tears from Her icon. “Did I not weep for one who was in grief? Didn’t my soul grieve for the poor?” (Job 30, 25) In the Kingdom of the Most Holy Sovereign Tsar and Grand Duke Alexy Mikhailovich, Autocrat of All Great and Lesser and White Russia, holding the throne of the bishopric in Chernigov, His Eminence Father Lazar Baranovich, Orthodox Archbishop of Chernigov, Novgorod and the whole North, in 1662 from the Nativity Christ, in the month of April, in the Ilyinsky Monastery, under Abbot Zosima, from the 16th day to the 24th, the image of the Most Pure and Most Blessed Virgin Mary wept in the church. All the people of the city of Chernigov looked at this miracle with great horror. When the fleece of Gideon was watered, this foreshadowed God’s love for people, for the sake of which the Father’s Word became incarnate from the Virgin: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son” (John 3:16). And when the icon of the Blessed Virgin watered itself with tears, what sign was seen in that? Nothing more than a sign of Her love for us. And that those tears serve as a clear manifestation of love - behold, I will immediately reveal the truth to you. Jesus wept over Lazarus, the Jews see His tears and what do they say? They tell about His love for Lazarus: “Jesus shed tears, then the Jews said: Look how He loved him” (John 11:35, 36). Also, Job’s friends, seeing their beloved friend covered in scabs from head to toe, “lifted up their voices and wept”: (Job 2:12). From here, know the reason for the tears of the Most Pure Virgin: she cries over us, for she loves us and, seeing us rotten with the scabs of iniquity and lying in the tomb of an evil custom and completely dead in soul, she sympathizes with us and sympathizes, shedding tears, like Jesus over Lazarus and like the three friends over Job. For truly, by our evil deeds we are likened to the rotting Job and the dead Lazarus: Job is in rot, Lazarus is lying in the tomb, but we are in sins! The need cries out to each of us: “I am completely possessed by immeasurable passions and will be cast down on a bed of evil!” We lie down and don’t get up, as St. said about us. David: “All the workers of iniquity have fallen, they have been torn to pieces and cannot rise” (Ps. 35:13). And we don’t even care about our rise, according to what is written: “When the wicked falls into the depths of evil, he is careless” (Proverbs 18:3). Job was barely alive, and Lazarus was already dead. And we, when through our weakness we sin, but want to repent, then we are still barely alive, we barely feel ourselves. When we fall into a sinful habit, then we are already dead in soul, because we cannot be alive without the grace of God, taken away from the soul because of sin. Just as the life of the body is the soul, so the life of the soul is God, and just as the body without the soul is dead, so the soul is without God. That is why St. Augustine said: “Many have dead souls in a living body.” And Saint Theophylact, with His Holiness Chrysostom, speaks of the rich man like this: “His soul is buried in him while still alive, and his flesh carries him like a coffin.” And it is not surprising that the Virgin cries over us, as if we were barely alive or already dead. The Mother of Life does not want to see us dead, but alive. “I,” he says, “do not want the death of the sinner, but that the sinner should turn from his way and live” (Ezek. 33:11). And a widow in a city called Nain mourned her dead son, and her tears were not in vain: when the Lord saw her, he took pity on her. Mary’s warm tears are not shed in vain, for the sake of Her tears the Lord has mercy on the Christian people, forsakes the iniquities of His people, covers all their sins, tames all His anger, returns from the wrath of His wrath, resurrects us, already dead, with the alms of His grace and gives us to His Mother for protection. The image of the Most Pure Virgin is crying - why? So that you, man, the image of God, get used to not laughing. Woe to those who laugh! This world is a vale of tears, how can you laugh in it? “Let your laughter turn to weeping, and your joy to sorrow” (James 4:9). Weep here, but there you will rejoice, and no one will take your joy away from you. Cry over your sins, and you will be cleansed, because, according to the testimony of the martyr. Peter of Damascus, there is no cleansing without crying. You cannot whiten a black rag without water. So sins cannot be washed away without warm tears. Tears will make an Ethiopian white too. The wife of a sinner had an Ethiopian face, for the prophet Jeremiah writes about sinners: “Their face is darker than all black” (Lamentations 4:8). But look how her tears made her whiter than snow, she cried at the feet of Christ and heard: “Her many sins are forgiven” (Luke 7:47). Nothing is more pleasing to God than the tears of a penitent. Fasting is good, but sometimes... “Is this the fast that I have chosen?” - says the Lord (Is. 58:5). Prayer is good, but sometimes it is not without its flaws: “Let his prayer become sin” (Ps. 108:7). Almsgiving is also good, but there is no firm hope in it either: “And if I give away all my possessions, ... it does not profit me at all” (1 Cor. 13:3). Only one tear of contrition is blameless before God: “God will not despise a contrite and humble heart” (Ps. 50:19). Who does not know Josiah, the king of Jerusalem? His memory is truly worthy of praise: he crushed idols, destroyed their altars, overthrew altars on high places, slaughtered priests, and scattered their bones in the air - he showed such zeal for God. And then he cried about the people who had angered God through idolatry. Then only a word came to him: “You tore your clothes and wept before Me, and I heard you” (2 Kings 22:19)... Look, having dropped, and as if forgetting all his good deeds, only his tears are remembered and for their sake I heard him, so pleasing to Him! Reasoning about this, Saint Theodoret said: “So useful are contrition and tears for those who have acquired them!” The Mother of Christ in the Song of Songs, depicting all the ouds of her Beloved, and likening His head to gold, his cheeks to bowls of aromas, his lips to lilies dripping myrrh, says about his eyes: “His eyes are like doves by streams of water” (Song. 5, 12). It is not without mystery that He likens His eyes to the eyes of a dove, for they say about Palestinian pigeons that they love to live above the waters and delight their eyes with the streams of water. And if the eyes of Christ are like the eyes of a dove, know that He also loves to delight His eyes with streams of water - those streams that David mentions: “My eyes have failed from the springs of water, for I have not kept Your law” (Ps. 119:136). Christ always wants to look at the tears of those who truly repent; it is not in vain that the prophet said: You “have laid my tears before You” (Ps. 55:9). Some are glad to look at gold, some at the beauty of a face, some at sweet food and drink, and Christ at the tears of people crying over sins. “There is joy among the angels of God over one sinner who repents” (Luke 15:10). Moreover, there is joy in the Creator, who bowed the heavens for sinners, came down to earth and suffered: “Christ, while we were still weak, at a certain time died for the ungodly” (Rom. 5:6). Therefore, we will cry over the evil we have done, and we will rejoice the Lord who is looking at us, and we will wash away the filth of sins, and we will be granted eternal joy after weeping. This is the transformation of tears: “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted” (Matthew 5:4). From the rain, seeds grow, from the dew, the color of Margarita, from crying - joy: here for those who cry, it is hidden in the sky. Near the Lavra of St. Sava, the great elder Anthimus, originally from Bethany, had his cell on the other side of the stream running under the Lavra to the east. He stayed there for thirty years without leaving, in prayers and many tears. Before his death, the monk fell into illness and lay on his sick bed. Father Savva saw him, so old and lying in weakness, and wanted to take him to the monastery so that the brethren could serve him. But he prayed to die where he first settled. And the sick man was left in his cell. One night, Father Savva got up to pray before the morning singing, hearing some voices of wondrous singing. I thought that they were already singing Matins in the church, and I was surprised at myself: how did the sexton not come to be blessed as usual, and without his blessing they sing Matins? He immediately went to church, found the doors closed and returned, wondering: what did the voices he heard mean? And again I heard the same voices that sang with all sweetness. The following was sung: “For I will go to the place of the wondrous settlement, even to the house of God, in the voice of joy and confession of the noise of those celebrating” (Ps. 41:5). When he realized where the wondrous voices were coming from - from the side where the cell of blessed Anthimus was - then he guessed about his death. He immediately woke up the brethren and, taking some, went with a censer and candles to the elder’s cell, from where the singing of Angels could still be heard ascending to heaven with the soul of the saint, and heavenly light spilled out with an indescribable fragrance. Entering inside, they found the dead body of the saint, still warm. His soul departed with angelic singing to the Lord. Having reverently given the last kiss and having performed the proper singing, the brethren consigned his honorable relics to the grave. Thus, for the old man, his labors turned into peace, and his tears turned into joy. You might be interested in: