Good News – Metropolitan Nahum of Strumica
~+~
Do you see how we are in need of “soft food” in that the Gospel extract which is read on the day of the Annunciation begins with Saint Elizabeth’s conception in old age and the rest which was to come (see Luke 1: 24–38).
What is solid food?
Solid food is, that the One Who is more honourable than the cherubim and immeasurably more glorious than the seraphim did not have need of an angel, even if that were the Archangel Gabriel, to learn the truth about the incarnation from the Holy Spirit of the Son of God in Her.
Do you remember what I have told you: at the second stage of spiritual development – enlightenment of the mind, we gain a certain freedom before God. Then, not only will our main plans often coincide with God’s plans, although not always at the time we expect, but now we receive the gift of God, ourselves, in our heart – in the realm of the Kingdom of Heaven, in order to prepare that which we desire for us.
I am talking to you about the graceful struggle (endeavour) of ascetic prayer of the mind in the heart.
How much more all of this is brought to bear on the unattainable hesychastic-prayer struggle that the Most-Holy Theotokos had in the Holy of Holies within the Temple of the Old Testament.
Thus, what the Archangel announced today was already agreed and harmonised between God and Ever-Virgin Mary in Her heart, before anyone else knew.
Today, this is only realised, testified and announced – for us.
I want to remind you of one more thing: man was created a god just by being able to say “no” to God.
But it is one thing to say “no” to God from a position of being fallen and sinfulness, and it is another to say “no” to God from the position of being a son of God by grace.
Through the first instance man gradually becomes demonised, and through the second he shows that he has realised himself, he has reached his fullness.
But before we can say “no” to God, we have to say “yes” many times, that may have no logic, no meaning, no certainty, and perhaps no life until we hear His “yes” as a testimony of our god-likeness.
Ah, that which is Hers, for my fallen mind – unattainable, and for my impure lips – an inexpressible “yes”, the beginning of the re-creation and salvation of the whole universe.
Obedience to God has nothing to do with the relationship of slave or hiree.
Obedience is the most wonderful mystery of our free personal relationship with God.
Only in this mystery does man grow as a free person to the infinite dimensions of becoming likeness of God.
And only in this mystery does God become obedient to man.
Do we not see that in the life of the Most-Holy Mother of God?
Obedience is Her most intimate mystery of love. Our mind and our word are powerless before this mystery, but what is evidently obvious to all is the fact that suddenly God begins to ask Her for permission to do, or not to do, something – He begins to listen to Her.
Let us recall only that miraculous moment of the wedding in Cana of Galilee – “they have no wine” (John 2: 3).
Did She, after the seemingly impolite answer, humbly ask Him or did She address Him again?
No, but She addressed the servants – “Do as He tells you” (John 2: 5), simply knowing that He will obey her!
And who acted according to her will, though He had previously objected? Personally Her Son, and, our God, the God-Man Jesus Christ. Who is obedient to whom here is quite obvious.
I want to share something else with you today.
I notice that some atheists and unbelievers, from all of the Orthodox belief, consciously, and even more unconsciously (read, the demon through them), most often attack and are troubled by that very moment – the moment of seedless conception.
They attack the possibility of perfection (deification) of man, created in the image and likeness of God, and the perfect love of God even unto the ultimate humility to become man.
Even the mystery of the existence of God in the Trinity, in three Persons – the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, is many times closer to them than the seedless conception of the Son of God by the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary.
And I was thinking, why is that?
Simple logic says that if there is a God, then anything is possible!
Is it not enough for them to deny the existence of God, for everything else to become pointless for discussion?
But how would we recognise the spirit of the antichrist if he did not expose himself?
By this you know the Spirit of God, and the spirit of the lie: “Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ came in the flesh is of God. And every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard was coming, and is now already in the world.”(1 John 4: 2–3).
Is it only by this that we recognise the abominable spirit of the antichrist?
No! The incarnation of the Son of God has its consequences (effects, results); we also recognise the spirit of the antichrist by denying the consequences of the Incarnation.
We can distinguish between blatant (obvious) and subtle denial of those consequences.
Blatant denial is when one denies the Church – which is the Body of Christ, its Sacred Mysteries, the Holy Mystery of Priesthood – especially the Episcopal rank (for example, the bishop apparently could not boil holy myrrh, or, apparently the bishop should mention someone in the Liturgy at an inappropriate place (passage) without that someone mentioning him in an appropriate place – Namely the Serbian Patriarch asks the Archbishop of Ohrid and Macedonia to mention him in “First remember O Lord …”, without him mentioning the Archbishop of Ohrid and Macedonia anywhere, and only the Bishop of the local Church is mentioned in that place, while the heads of the local churches are mentioned only at the time of the Great Entrance), denial of the saints of God, the holy temples, the honourable Cross of Christ, the holy icons, the holy Dogmas of the Church, Holy Canons, Holy Ecumenical Councils, etc.
The subtle denial of the consequences of the Incarnation occurs more unconsciously, due to ignorance, due to lack of enlightenment of the mind and under demonic influence, and is much more dangerous, because it is more difficult to recognise, and this happens when we divide the One, Holy, Catholic (Universal) and Apostolic Church into several national churches, when we enter into the secular schemes of division (either global, national, or party-based), when we do not consider all people as our neighbours, regardless of their race (such a division in theology does not exist), national and religious affiliation, and when we do not work for their unity (when we do not love our neighbour as a living icon of Christ).
Subtle denial is; when we do not understand the whole world as a holy temple of God, when we do not understand our workplace as an altar of God, when we do not understand our life as an unceasing Liturgy of God, when we do not see our body as the Body of Christ and the temple of God (when the priesthood gives preference to other sacred objects in blessing, and not to his hand – which is, after all, the immediate Body of Christ); when we do not understand the liturgical word as executive, etc.
Subtle denial is; when clergymen direct their spiritual children toward themselves, not toward their bishop and the God-Man Christ, when the bishop directs the faithful to himself and not to God, when we do not harmonise our way of life with the psychological or spiritual condition in which we find ourselves, when we relativise obedience, when we deny the special positive effect of Jesus’ prayer, when we return evil for evil, and so on.
I would especially emphasize the inability to understand, and denial of, the new personal relationships that are established after the Incarnation of the Son of God – for example, the God-Man Christ is not only the Son of God, but He is also the Son of the Most-Holy Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary, with all the consequences associated with it, for Him, and one of them is obedience to His Mother.
My beloved, do not doubt the authority of the Mother of God, from whom even God the Father sought permission before and during the incarnation of His Only Begotten Son, from the Holy Spirit, to enable your salvation – within God’s Providence for you and your desire for it, because that doubt disturbs the whole piety of the human soul.
Freely and without a doubt, with tears and joy call whenever and wherever you can:
Most-Holy Theotokos, save us!
Metropolitan of Nahum Strumica
07/04/2022
