During the celebration of this Holy and Great Feast of the Dormition, we have many occasions to ask the Virgin Mary to come and save us.
We do so with humble and hopeful hearts, because this request reflects our frequent supplication to the Theotokos for her compassionate intercession. "Pour the grace of your Son and our God into my restless soul," we pray in the evening. And in the morning: "By the strength of your prayers, cleanse my clouded mind and bruised heart. Free me from the memories of sins long gone by."
This speaks of a warm, tender piety that is missing in other Christian communities. It speaks of an intimate dependence upon a more powerful, more compassionate human being, whose maternal personality comforts all those who need her prayers.
We are so accustomed to this dependency, having been raised on it like milk from our childhood, that we are surprised when our friends ask questions about this. "Why do you pray to the Virgin?" they ask with sincerity. "She is not God – how can she hear your requests for her prayers? Why do you ask for her pity? for her help with confused minds, restless souls, and broken hearts?"
There is a response to these good questions – not from the explicit credo or doctrine of the Church, but in the Church's internal piety and praise. In particular, let us look at the words from these very services of the Holy Dormition.
"Come, all ye ends of the earth, let us praise the Most Holy Translation of the Mother of God."
In these words of St. Germanos, which are sung at the Great Vespers for this Feast of the Dormition, there is not one hint of requiem or sorrow. There is only serene rejoicing and deep reflection on the mystical dogma that we experience this day.
Departing this life is all gain for the Mother of God. She, more than anyone else, came to understand intimately the words of St. Paul: "For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain."
There is no grief at the Dormition of the Theotokos: "Let us praise this holy Dormition," Germanos says, "for she has delivered her spotless soul into the hands of her Son." There is celebration and gladness, as this Vesperal verse continues: "The whole world, restored to life by her holy Dormition, in radiant joy celebrates this feast with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs together with the angels and apostles."
It is a celebration, and it is a celebration that involves the whole world, both material and immaterial, both in heaven and upon the earth.
All creation celebrates this "translation" of the Most-Holy Theotokos out of the grave, even, and into Paradise. We see this in the abundance of flowers and herbs this day. Every bloom, and every fragrance is a testimony of the joy of Creation in the glory of the blessed Virgin. Why should we be surprised at this? According to St. Paul, "Creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God; for the creation had been subject to futility … but it will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God … until that time, the whole creation has been groaning in travail ... "
In the Most Holy Theotokos, the long anticipation of Creation is fulfilled. Already, in the person of the Theotokos, creation no longer needs to groan, for it has found its anchor and extension through Christ in her. St. Maximos the Confessor teaches that in her, as the first and pre-eminent Christian, full of grace and the Holy Spirit, creation is re-unified to man, and that unity is then offered to God. Creation is blessed by God through man. Through the Virgin Mary, and through the intercessions of all Christians "made perfect in the faith," Creation is given the hope of becoming Eden again.
The Dormition is a well-spring of mystical hope for fallen man, as well as Creation. It is an event of assurance and promise. Here is someone like one of us, born into a broken world, into a darkened human nature and a culture of illusion and alienation. But this same someone in repose ascended the heights of heaven in the embrace of her Son – the Son Whom she held once as an Infant in her arms. Here is the Virgin Mary, who answered the Divine Call of the Archangel Gabriel, and said, "Behold, I am the handmaiden of the Lord, be it unto me according to your word."
"Be it unto me," she said, and she could say these words as a complete truth, for they already articulated the "logos" of her life. Instead of the waywardness of sin and passion, the Theotokos – even as a little girl in the Temple – pursued the vocation of prayer. Even before our Lord raised her into the heavens, her soul ascended – in a lifetime of devotion – into communion with the Trinity. Her life was a "vocation of ascent" – the Dormition itself was the capitol, the fulfilling image of that lifelong vocation.
She was the first of the Church who received the grace of Christ and participated in His Divine Nature … the first who received the individual Personhood wrought by the Spirit. And thus she was the first Creature to enter the fullness of communion, the fellowship in the always proceeding, ever emerging, fellowship of the Triune Uncreated Light.
After the Dormition, and because of the Dormition, the Theotokos breathed in the atmosphere of "forever." She emerged into the heights of eternity, and she looked upon Time and Space as creations of God, and not as gods themselves (which is a perennial and idolatrous temptation to us in the material realm). Her soul embarked upon the wings of the Spirit, and even now she is borne upon the winds of Grace – no longer limited by distance or sequence, division or alienation, or any obstacle of the fallen world.
It is impossible, now, for us to understand her. We cannot comprehend her experience, now that she has reached the everlasting sky of Divine Love.
But she remains one of us. She is a member of the Body of Christ, and so are we. We are bound together by the cords of redemption, and we commune with the same Body and Blood of Christ.
This is to say that the eternity of Christ and Mary – even though it is beyond us – is our eternity as well. Though we cannot understand the light and the truth and the beauty of the Virgin in Paradise, we may rest assured that she understands us in the wisdom of Our Lord.
So we find that we cannot answer just how the Theotokos hears the requests of the faithful for her prayers. We cannot explain the wherewithal of her intercessions and her presence. We find that our questions are couched in the language of limitation and darkness. We suspect that in response to these irrational questions of "how" and "when," the Theotokos, along with all the Saints, may simply respond with a gentle "of course" and "why not?"
But to the question of why the Virgin Mary is so concerned about the state of our hearts and the clarity of our thoughts, there is a satisfactory answer. Once again, we look back to the flowers to help us understand. The flower itself, along with the fragrant bloom of herbs, is an image of the Mother of God. Her life became a blossom like the flower, a sign of beauty, in the drabness of an ugly world. In her every word and every act, in the psychic language of her prayers, she opened a window into hope and forever. And at the moment of her repose, that blossom sprang into ultimate bloom, whose petals would never decay, but would deepen in beauteous splendor with every passing age.
Did we not sense this mystical link to eternity, in every moment of her earthly Christianity? Did we not hear the echo of Heaven, when she hid the youth of the Child Christ in her heart? Did we not understand the full import of her direction, when she told the wedding attendants in Cana, "Do whatever He tells you"? Did we not notice the lesson hidden in the words of the Gospel, when Jesus told Martha, "You are anxious about many things, but only one thing is needful: Mary has chosen the good portion, which shall not be taken away from her"? Did we not hear Him, the Word of God crucified, speak to us from the Cross, when He said, "Behold your mother"?
Because if we did, we will know that the chief concern of the Mother of God is that we may know her Son. This is what she prayed for on the earth, and her prayers helped compel the great Apostolic Mission that proceeded from Pentecost – a mission that turned the world upside down.
But imagine now, that same concern, that same love and compassion, that same abundant knowledge of the power of the Saviour to save the sinner and to heal the wounded. If she knew Him best then, should she not be able to pray best now? If she believed Him best then, should she not be able to intercede for us now, and pray with the undimmed faith of Paradise?
We live in an age of unprecedented nervousness and lack of belief. Faith is sparse in our modern day, and there is no time to love, to talk of important things, and to care for needs of our friends. With so little faith, and so much unbelief, it is difficult now, more than ever, to pray.
The Most Holy Theotokos is able to pray, along with all the saints, to help us in this present weakness of our faith. The Theotokos can see far beyond the confines of this present darkness, and she desires us to know her Son, Who can brighten our souls.
So let us celebrate this holy feast of her Dormition, and rejoice in her victory and in her eternal life. It is for our benefit that we do so. For in her gladness, and in her beauty, the Most Holy Theotokos grants us the kindness of her richest, most powerful gift – the gift of a Mother speaking to her Son, the gift of the prayers of the Mother of God.
O Most Holy Theotokos, save us!
Amen.
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see also last year's post on the Theotokos.
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