In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and
of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Glory be to Jesus Christ.
Glory be forever. Today we celebrate the ancient
and glorious feast day of the falling asleep,
the dormition of the Theotokos, the Virgin Mary,
the Mother of our Lord. This event, of course,
is not recorded in the New Testament. but it's
a very ancient belief that is seen in the sermons
and the writings of the fathers of the church
in the gospel of st luke of course gabriel is
sent to the virgin mary and announces that she
is to become the mother of the messiah the mother
of the redeemer and then mary makes a trip to
see her cousin, Elizabeth. Elizabeth, of course,
who was the mother of John the Baptist. And when
Elizabeth came, or rather when Mary came and
Elizabeth saw her, Elizabeth said, the baby within
my womb leaped for joy. Recognizing, of course,
who it was that was within the womb of his mother's
cousin the stories in early christian literature
about the dormition of the virgin mary have a
have a common idea and that is that when it was
time for the virgin mary to conclude her life
on this earth Then the apostles were miraculously
transported back to Jerusalem to see one last
time the mother of the Savior. Then I'm sure
you know this story. They buried her, and Thomas,
late Thomas, just as he wasn't there at the appearance
of the Lord the night of the resurrection, Thomas
arrives late. And then according to the story
that he said, I want to see once again the face
of the mother of my Savior. So they went and
brought him to the tomb of the Virgin Mary. When
they went inside, her body was not there, only
flowers. That is one reason why, of course, in
some churches, flowers are blessed on August
15th. The liturgical texts make it very clear
the prominence of this feast day and the logic,
if you want to use that word, of the assumption
and dormition of the Virgin Mary. That Mary,
who contained within her womb the uncontainable
God, that when she died, this body, this ark,
this new temple of the presence of the Lord,
would not see corruption. So it is very fitting
that from the earliest days, this was celebrated
as a feast day. I thought of another one. I should
have mentioned it when I talked about when Mary
went to see Elizabeth. After the greeting, Mary
says her beautiful hymn, My soul magnifies the
Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
which is sung at the matin services in the Orthodox
Church. There is one verse in there, Behold,
henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.
Now I, of course, grew up with this and understood,
basically what it meant, but not a few Protestants
who, as Protestants, when they decided to investigate
the Orthodox Church, one of their struggles was
to see how prominent Mary fits into the worship
of our church. And I remember one especially
who told me that for once, It finally dawned
on him what that means. From now on, all generations
will call me blessed. And indeed, therefore,
the veneration and prayer to the Virgin Mary
is most appropriate. So this is her feast day.
Like for any Christian saint, our real birthday,
we have three birthdays. One, the day we're born,
we celebrate our birthday. Our second birthday
is when we are baptized, born again. And our
third birthday is when we leave this world and
are born into the next. So we have this feast
day of Mary's third birthday, so to speak, when
she enters into the kingdom of heaven. And it
is a feast day of hers, but it is also a feast
day for us. Because the resurrected and glorified
body, which now sits at the right hand of her
son Jesus in the kingdom of heaven, we too, at
the second coming, when Jesus returns in glory
and our bodies, our souls are reunited with our
bodies, that we too will fall asleep in this
world. and enter into eternal life. So Mary,
who is blessed and the mother of the life, remember
each and every one of us and our church in her
prayers today. Amen.