Nativity of the Most-Holy Theotokos – Metropolitan of Strumica Nahum
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The Nativity of the Most Holy Sovereign Lady, our Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary, is a beautiful occasion to remember how far we are still from true love towards Her and how much we need to repent for our fallen state. I’m talking about spiritual love, not psychosomatic love. In the first instance, great effort is needed in the Orthodox spiritual life; we are born with the latter one.
We must not disturb the balance of God-Man’s synergy, i.e. cooperation in the Church of the Holy Spirit, where not only God is the One who does everything, nor only man. The first is the heresy of Monophysitism, and the second is the heresy of Nestorianism. Thus, it is true that God did everything – for us and our salvation, but, none of what He did would have been possible without Her “yes”, without the consent of the Theotokos and without Her asceticism of love towards God.
The Theotokos could not have been just any woman, as some Christians claim, because then God would have turned out to be a sadist, Who, although He could have saved us immediately, waited thousands of years for the Virgin Mary to appear. So, not just any woman could have done that, but She (the one) who prepared herself for it. Nor was that girl something special and separate from the human race, as other Christians claim – because then She could not represent all people. Nor is it orthodox to compare the work of the Son with the work of the Mother. The work of the God-Man Christ without the work of the Ever-Virgin Mary is unimaginable and impossible. And, in all three cases, the God-Man’s balance and co-operation, whose faithful guardian is the full of grace Orthodox experience and theology of the Church, is completely disturbed.
But the way of our salvation is also important. We would not have been saved by the God-Man Jesus Christ if, after the entire Dispensation for our salvation, He had only ascended to Heaven and sat at the right hand of the Father, in the flesh, but He saves us, as we have already mentioned, in the Church as a Mystery of His Body, whose Head He is. As our venerable Abba Justin would say, interpreting the Holy Apostle Paul (I’m paraphrasing): in the Church of the Holy Spirit, as the Body of the God-Man Christ – The One Who rose from the dead, everyone, is prayerfully and by grace saved and is perfected through all and with all, and all are saved and perfected through everyone and with everyone. Because everyone, in the God-Man Christ, by the grace of the Holy Spirit, lives in all and all live in everyone, in a holy mutual interaction.
Apart from this, pervading interaction by grace, another way of existence and salvation for us, Christians, is impossible and unimaginable. We are not an ethical body, we are the Body of Christ – organically connected by grace with each other and organs of each other. Salvation is a mystery of participation in the Body of Christ in exactly this way.
Now, hypothetically speaking, you can consider to leave out any saint from this Body, but try to consider leaving out the Theotokos from this God-Man’s organism and you will see that nothing will remain of it, nor of our salvation.
The mystery of the Church consists of the newly established personal relationships, where a girl from the human race becomes the Mother of God, and the Son of God – God in essence, becomes the Son of man, i.e. Her Son; where we, in the God-Man Christ, become sons and daughters of God, i.e. children, children of God and Her children – by grace, and Christ’s brothers and sisters. The newly established personal relationships go beyond the relationship of only God and only man – a relationship without an ontological connection between them; and only by fulfilling God’s commandments are they understood.
The Holy Tradition and the Orthodox ascetic-hesychastic struggle of which our Orthodox Church is the guardian and the entire God-Man’s balance is often, consciously or unconsciously, intentionally or unintentionally, attacked with words and deeds.
There is a golden rule: Upon entering the Church, a person should be silent with his mouth, and speak with his actions, until receiving the gift of enlightenment of the mind, that is, the gift of the prayer of the mind in the heart! He can speak publicly about spiritual matters only in three cases: if he is a priest, or in case he is not, but someone asks him something useful for his salvation, when he has the blessing of the spiritual father (Bishop) for that – but in both cases , he speaks not from himself, but from the teachings of the Holy Fathers, and in the third instance, when someone, from within – in the Church, destroys the dogmas or grossly violates the Holy Canons.
No one should be exalting himself by his darkened mind? And no one should try to interpret the Gospel with such a mind, and that being the case for anyone. But, some people are talking of or about the Mother of God Herself, before Whose Mystery even the heavenly hosts are humbly silent, Whom the Holy Fathers called the Mother of the Church? Why do people do that – let them think about it? Let them think well because through exaltation the mind becomes a demon-like mind.
Or, if for someone is not clear of Her position in the Church, I would just ask them: why should She be a goddess, when She is the Mother of God? Or to whom would Her position in the Church be an issue, if not primarily to the demon.
How do we avoid the trap of our nous becoming compatible with demonic nous? We will avoid it by trying, as much as we can, to use the primary function of the mind, and that in particular would mean – constantly trying to be in communion with God through obedience and prayer, and thus to acquire a spiritual, that is, transfigured nous – with the help of which we will act correctly in relation to the world in which we live. It is the path shown to us by the Theotokos Herself.
Why did we place obedience, (that is, putting the fallen mind into a healing process) before prayer? Because, before we enter into a natural way of life and existence, this is made possible only by obedience, otherwise, every asceticism in the Church would be fruitless.
Let us not fool ourselves: either we are in obedience to God and His Tradition in the Church or we are in obedience to the demon. Either we transfigure the energy of the mind or we feed only the nous with knowledge and inflate it with pride to demonic proportions. We don’t have a third option.
Obedience to God, in the Church, has nothing to do with the slave or hiree relationship. 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. Don’t we see that in the life of the Most-Holy Theotokos?
Obedience is the mystery of Her most intimate love. Our mind and our word are powerless before this mystery, but what is, nevertheless, obvious to everyone 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.
Just see that unspeakable moment in the Holy Annunciation – without Her “let it be done to me according to thy word.” nothing happened of that which latter happened later in God’s Dispensation of salvation for man and the world. Or see that miraculous moment from the wedding in Cana of Galilee when She tells Him that the guests “have no wine.” After the seemingly rude response, did She ask Him something or address Him again? No, She addressed the servants – “Do as He tells you!” And who acted according to Her desire, turning the water into wine? Personally, Her Son, and our God, the God-Man Jesus Christ. Who obeys whom here? And what is not clear here!?
Now I want to share with you some of my insights, experienced as certain events, which I feel were crucial in my spiritual life, and I hope they will also help you a lot. Take them as a mere confession, and pray for me, for, even though I knew, I fell quite short in fulfilment.
Many years ago, at the very beginning of my Orthodox spiritual life, I read the following in the book “Elder Zacharias” (1850 – 1936): “The Elder was very happy when one of his spiritual children fulfils the prayer rule of the Theotokos, which consists of that the prayer “O Theotokos and Virgin, Rejoice, Mary, full of grace” should be said one hundred and fifty times every day. The Mother of God Herself has established this rule, but people neglected it ever since a long time ago, as a result neglecting obedience to the Mother of God the Leader-of-the-way, our Joy.” I experienced what I read as if it was written for me and I accepted it with great joy.”
He was also saying: “Do not start anything, my children, without the blessing of the Queen of Heaven. And when you finish the work for which you asked for a blessing, thank Her, the quick Helper in all good deeds.” We said that we receive every gift of God only through Her. Hence also the prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, for the sake of the Theotokos, have mercy on us!”
In the same book I also read this: “Saint Seraphim of Sarov (1759 – 1833) also recommended this rule to his spiritual children. He was advising the nuns from the Diveyevo monastery to say the prayer “O Theotokos and Virgin, Rejoice, Mary, full of grace” one hundred and fifty times every day, walking around the wall of the monastery. In the cell of this saint, an unusual booklet was found with a description of the miracles that happened to people who fulfilled this prayer rule. Verily it is that, first we experience them as miracles, and then they become everyday reality. They are recorded solely to encourage the faith and endeavour of others.
St. Gregory Palamas, in his works, explains where this attitude comes from, especially for us, the monks, towards the Theotokos Virgin Mary.
I would only underline the following: “he freed himself from all creaturely fetters and cast off all (earthly) ties … and established a new and ineffable way to Heaven.” A few words encapsulate everything that I keep telling you about harmonizing the way of our struggle with the stage of spiritual growth we are at, that is, about the extreme alienation in the first stage until receiving the gift of the prayer of the mind in the heart. Neither will we have, nor will we want, a better model and teacher for a composed and heedful life of the inner man than the Most-Holy Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary.
But how does Saint Gregory Palamas know all this? Of course, only from personal experience. Read his hagiography, from which I will now present you a small excerpt:
“One day, on the Holy Mountain, when Gregory was immersed in prayer to God, suddenly a luminous and fair-looking man, St. John the Theologian, stood before him, and tenderly looking at him, asked him: ‘Why do you, praying to God, every time you keep repeating: enlighten my darkness, enlighten my darkness?’ Gregory answered: ‘What else would I ask for besides that: to be enlightened and to know how to do His Holy Will?’ Then the holy Evangelist said to him: ‘By the will of the Sovereign Lady of all, the Theotokos, from now on I will be an unyielding companion.’
How beautiful: “By the will of the Sovereign Lady of all, the Theotokos…” Do you see how She – our Teacher, pays attention to the efforts of those who follow the path She showed them and how She supports them?
Here is something else from the little experience that I have, composed in Her School, which each of you can immediately adopt and taste in practice, without any special preparations:
When we give (when we offer ourselves to Him) through prayer to God without asking Him for anything, then our prayer is composed, and when we ask God for something, then our mind is scattered.
When the prayer is not a goal in itself (the constant recitation of the name of Christ), but its goal is communion with God, then the prayer is said in a spirit of repentance; and vice versa.
When we seek only God in prayer, then the heart opens and the mind enters in it, and when we seek the opening of the heart, then the heart closes.
Let us come again this year – as in previous years, on Her birthday, to renew our struggle – the prayer rule “O Theotokos and Virgin, Rejoice, Mary, full of grace”… This prayer, for us, the weakened ones, is the last barrier before the evil that comes from all sides; both on a personal and congregational level. But this time, not without cry – at least internal, regardless of whether we pray in earnest (force ourselves) or it comes to us by grace. Not without repentance, before Her.
Most-Holy Theotokos, forgive us and save us!
Metropolitan of Strumica Nahum
20.09.2022 15:01
