РОСА ЗАЩИТЫ

Rejoice, deliverer of barbaric service (Akathist to the Most Holy Theotokos, Ikos 5). In the same year, 1662, in which the Mother of God icon wept, the Saracens (Muslims), with God's remission for our sins, quietly crept up and filled many villages around Chernigov. The monks of that Ilinsky monastery, not knowing about the barbarian invasion, sat in their monastery, and one night they were informed about the Tatars. Then they all entered the church and hid in the cave of our venerable father Anthony. At midnight, the Tatars attacked the monastery and, breaking into the church where stood the miraculous icon of the Most Holy Theotokos, decorated as usual with silver tablets, the godless did a lot of dirty tricks: they threw all the icons from their places to the ground, took away all the church utensils... The icon of the Mother of God, standing in its original place, and the silver tablets on it were not touched. To know, just as once upon a time for the prophet Elisha, so here too the Lord God struck the wicked with blindness, so that, being blind with spiritual and physical eyes, they would not look at the icon of the Mother of God, at which, looking, we see the true Mother of God. The power of God forbade them: let them not touch the Mystical Icon with unworthy hands. And the infidels not only did not touch the icon, but also could not enter the cave to the monks hiding there, although they made repeated attempts, with a lighted torch and drawn swords, however, as if thrown back by someone, the expelled returned. It was the power of the Most Pure Virgin, protecting the monks, that forbade the Saracens from entering the cave. “Many are the punishments for the sinner,” threatens the Psalmist (Ps. 31:10). Not only in the present, but also in the next century, the sinner is subject to countless punishments, for there is no sin without punishment. From the beginning, the sins were executed: Adam with exile, Eve with sorrows, the sins of the giants with a flood, the Sodomites with fire, the Egyptians with many deaths, the sin of the Israelites with slave labor was punished. We also sin, and how many punishments we bring upon ourselves: internecine wars, deadly wounds, invasions of foreigners... And what shall we do, sinners? Let us accept the good advice of the prophet Isaiah: “Hide yourselves for a moment, until the wrath of the Lord passes away” (Is. 26:20). But where can we hide from the many punishments that come upon us? Under the roof under which David hid: “He hid me in His tabernacle on the day of my troubles, He kept me in the secret place of His tabernacle” (Ps. 26:5). And where will we find this good cover? At the Most Pure and Most Blessed Virgin Mary. It was in this cover that David hid when, being persecuted by Absalom, he “went to the Mount of Olives” (2 Samuel 15:30), which was a prototype of our Most Merciful Lady. And if only the shadow of Mary could hide David on the day of disaster, then how much more will She Herself, if we resort to Her, hide us in Her shelter. This is what Sirach says about Himself through the mouth of the Holy Spirit: “I... covered the earth like a cloud” (Sir. 24:3). But, oh dearest Lady! Why do you liken Yourself to such a bad thing, darkness? Do You not have the sun, the moon and the stars to name? What kind of beauty does darkness have that you don’t disdain to be called it? When the darkness over the earth increases and covers it, then all the animals are safe from the hunters: no one can catch them. Isn’t this the secret of why the Virgin was called darkness? He hides us from those who catch us, for we, sinners, because of our inhumanity, are like cattle, like beasts, according to Chrysostom’s reasoning: “We please the belly, like bears; we thicken the flesh like mules; we are malignant in memory, like camels; we kidnap like wolves; we are angry like snakes; we sting like scorpions; we are cunning like foxes; We carry the poison of malice like vipers.” Such animals are overtaken by various hunters, the righteous wrath of God comprehends, taking revenge on all our evil undertakings: “The God of vengeance, the Lord, the God of vengeance” has appeared (Ps. 93:1). Our iniquities also befall us; we may well complain: “My iniquities overtook me, so that I could not look” (Ps. 39:13). The invisible enemy befalls: “He has become like a bear in ambush, like a lion in a hidden place” (Lamentations 3:10). The visible enemy also befalls us. The enemy said: “I will pursue, I will overtake, ... I will draw my sword and my hand will destroy them” (Ex. 15:9). But let's dare! We have a Mental Darkness covering us, the Blessed Virgin Mary. We trust in Her, under Her roof “not a hair of our head will perish” (Luke 21:18). Oh, Most Pure Virgin, we hope in You and boast in You, let us not be ashamed, Thy servants! The prophet of God Moses, threatening people with terrible punishments if they did not keep the covenant of God, among many plagues, considers the invasion of foreigners to be a great one: “If you do not listen to the voice of the Lord your God and do not try to fulfill all His commandments and His decrees, the Lord will send people against you from afar, from the ends of the earth: like an eagle, a people whose language you do not understand will swoop down, an insolent people who will not respect the elder and will not will spare the young men" (Deut. 28, 15, 49–50). This prophecy is strikingly coming true for us when, with the punishment of numerous invasions of foreigners, sins for our sake, the Lord executes us every moment, “in which we saw evil” (Ps. 89:15). Because “we do not keep the covenant of God and do not want to walk in His law” (Ps. 77:10), “the Lord sends people from afar against us” (Deut. 28:49), as the aspiration of an eagle. “Those who pursued us were faster than the eagles of heaven; they chased us through the mountains, they laid an ambush for us in the desert” (Lamentations 4:19)... Because we do not take our minds captive into the obedience of Christ, the Lord gives us up into captivity, as David says: “He gave captivity their strength and their beauty into the hands of their enemies” (Ps. 77:61). He delivered them into the hands of their enemies, and those who hated them possessed them, and their enemies harassed them... Because we do not serve God with virtues, but serve ourselves with carnality and work for sin, he betrays us into the service and hard work of our enemies, which Moses predicted: “Because you did not serve the Lord your God with gladness and joy of heart, in the abundance of everything, you will serve your enemy, whom the Lord [your God] will send against you, in hunger, and thirst, and nakedness, and in every lack; he will put an iron yoke on your neck, so that he will torment you” (Deut. 28:47-48). Let us turn to repentance, let us be chaste, punished, let us follow the footsteps of those people who, “when He (the Lord) killed them, they sought Him and quickly turned... to God, and remembered that God is their helper and God the Most High is their deliverer” (Ps. 77:34-35). If we turn to God, then God will turn to us and protect us from barbarian captivity, and deliver us from His righteous punishment, and have mercy on us. If we do not turn... Let us be careful lest what was said by the prophet Isaiah befall us: “But if you deny and persist, the sword will devour you” (Is. 1:20), for this is what the mouth of the Lord speaks. In an hour of evil, the blessed husband happened to die: Usually the wood of cheese burns dry. From the Lavra of Saint Sava, fifteen fields away, there was another Lavra called Khuziva. A certain hermit John lived with her with his disciple. His disciple, seeing every day in Jerusalem from the Persians the rebellion and sorrow that threatened desolation, prayed to his father, saying: “I believe, Father, what God wants to do will not hide from you. Tell me, I pray you, will this city be desolate?” But the elder answered him: “Don’t force me, child, who am I? And how can I know this? I am a sinful man." But the disciple did not retreat from him with his request to tell him what should be, for he knew about his insight. Then the elder, shedding tears, said: “I’ll tell you, child, what God revealed to me before these five days. While praying, I saw myself raptured to the holy Place of Execution, and the people and the clergy crying out: Lord, have mercy! Having looked up, I saw our Lord nailed on the Cross, and the Most Holy Theotokos praying for people. He turned His face away from the people, saying: “I will not listen to them, because they have defiled My Church.” Then people moved to the Church of St. Constantine and there they continued to cry: Lord, have mercy! I also followed to the church with the clergy and people. When he went to venerate where the tree of the Holy Cross had been found, he saw a certain stinking stream flowing from the church. Two radiant elders stood there, and I turned to them: “Shouldn’t one fear God without caring about this stream? We can’t pray because of the stench. Where does this stench come from? And those elders said to me: “Because of the iniquity of the people of this city.” Then I turned to them: “Can you clean this up so that we can pray to the Lord?” But they answered me: “Believe, Abba, only by fire will what you see be purified.” Having told this, the elder began to cry and turned to his disciple: “I tell you, child, the command came from God: let my head be cut off. I prayed a lot so that I would not allow this to happen, but the Lord told me that what was said would come true.” And while the hermits were talking and mourning like this, barbarians suddenly attacked them. The disciple fled, and they cut off the old man’s head and left. Returning, the disciple found his father beheaded, fell on his body, wept bitterly, and then laid him in his father’s tombs. So, along with the tares, the wheat was also plucked up. You might be interested in: