РОСА БЛАГОУТРОБИЯ

Give me the dew of Your compassion, Most Immaculate, Pure, to the one who melts away with the sinful heat, sadness to those who are weary and the joy of God to give (Thursday at Compline, hymn 3). Miracle 21 in 1676, September 16 Some of its parishioners live near the monastery of the Holy Prophet Elijah. Among them is one woman named Marina. In 1676, on the week of Fomina, she fell into the same illness as the one whom the Gospel mentions: “she was bent over and could not straighten up at all” (Luke 13:11). The mother of this Marina, Anna, fell with great tears to the holy image of the Most Pure Mother of God, asking Her for mercy to grant healing to her crooked daughter, who was seriously ill, which, although not soon, she received in full. Under Nadezhda of the same year, after the Exaltation of the Honest Cross, her Marina was released from her illness, and immediately straightened up, and everyone glorified God and the Mother of God. She, whose womb gave birth to us the Good God, knows no ill-will. The Apostle, moved by compassion, told his disciples: “You are not crowded with us” (2 Cor. 6:12). But which of the saints can have a more spacious composure to accommodate all than Mary? The chaste fits here, and the sinner is not crowded here. Here the repentant has his place, and the despairing with the unrepentant, like Noah’s Ark, not only clean, but also unclean animals, is not forbidden refuge. In Her benevolence, those who are sick in soul and body, as if in a hospital, moreover, I say in a doctor’s office, rest and are healed in every possible way. Here the blind receive their sight, the deaf hear, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, illnesses are driven away, the dead are raised, and whoever demands anything receives everything in the goodness of Her, which is depicted through a stack of wheat in the Songs: “Thy belly is a heap of wheat” (Song. 7:3). Wheat is the most worthy and necessary among all other grains. Mariina’s goodness is greater than all people and is needed by each of the faithful. The grains of wheat cannot be counted in a stack, so the wealth of Her goodness is innumerable. Wheat, feeding a person, supports his temporary life, and our Pre-Chosen mental Wheat, the Most Pure Virgin, saturating us with the Bread of Life, preserves our life so much that we live by It, we are supported by It. Do not close Your mercy to me, O Most Pure One! Wanting to ask for healing of her crumpled daughter, the mother, with great weeping, fell to God and the Mother of God and with tears opened the door of mercy. For it is not easy for anyone to open someone’s well-being without these keys, without tears, I say, with which you will open heaven. The Theologian writes that in heaven the gates are made of beads, that is, pearls: “Each gate was made of one pearl” (Rev. 21:21). Beads, or pearls, in Pierius (Jacob Pierius is a professor of philosophy in Rouen, his treatise on the nature of things was published in the middle of the 17th century) depicts a tear. In agreement with him, Svida (Svida is a Byzantine lexicographer of the 10th century, he owns an encyclopedic dictionary, one of the largest monuments of Byzantine scholarship, first published in Milan in 1499) says that when someone sees pearls in a dream vision, this signifies crying. Saint Chrysostom also seems to agree with this: “David’s eyes were adorned with tearful rain, like Margaritas,” that is, with pearls. I marveled: if pearls are an image of tears and a sign of crying, then why are there pearly gates where nothing tearful is seen, nothing lamentable is heard, but everything is filled with indescribable joy? Having examined it, I knew: so that those who want to enter heavenly joy should not try to enter it through other gates, but only through tears. Do you see the gates of pearls in heaven? Pearl represents a tear. Therefore, know that it is appropriate for you to enter heaven with a tear, and there is no other entrance except the pearl of tears. But what Paradise is better for a person if not God and the Mother of God, in which Heaven itself is contained? For all, through the compassion of God and the prayers of the Mother of God, more than by their own dignity, will inherit Heaven, for “the sufferings of this present time are worth nothing in comparison with the glory that will be revealed in us” (Rom. 8:18). However, to this paradise, to God’s, I say, mercy, no other gate leads than tearful beads. “Come, worship and fall down before Him, and weep before the Lord who created you” (Ps. 94:6), and immediately you will be found in the midst of His compassion. Notice of this is in the words of Jerome, with which he praises that pearl of tears and says: “Oh, humble tear! Yours is the power, yours is the kingdom, you do not tremble at judgment, for you silence the lips of the enemies who slander you, and there is no one who prevents you from entering God. If you yourself go to Him, you will not return empty from Him, for what more? You conquer the Invincible, you bind the Almighty, you incline the Son of the Virgin to the mercy of the Virgin, you open Heaven, you drive away the devil.” Look how strong a tear is! Through it, like a pearly door, enter into heaven, into the grace of God. The earthly one is pleased by the gifts he brings, And God is pleased by the tears of sorrow. Someone, after many sins, came to his senses, became a monk and all the time cried inconsolably about his sins, remembering the Day of Judgment. He lived in this contrition of heart for many years. The Lord wanted to console the crying person and show how he loves and accepts the tears of a repentant person. He appeared to him in a vision, dressed in priestly attire, carrying and showing a chalice full of tears. The monk who saw Him fell with tears at His feet, kissing them with insatiable love, and asked: “What is this, carried in the holy chalice?” The One who appeared answered him: “The tears of the sinner who wept at My feet in the house of Simon the leper, I have preserved them until now, for they are pleasant to me.” When the vision ended, the monk came to his senses and felt that his heart was filled with indescribable joy and sweetness. He marveled at the great compassion of his Lord and served Him in warmth of spirit until the end of his days. See how a person’s tears infuse God’s compassion into paradise! You might be interested in: