I want to talk to you today about something very
important. Today, this day, is so amazing. We
had so much already. You heard so many words.
The subdeacon and Aaron came out and read from
St. Paul's epistles. And then the deacon came
out and he read three different selections from
the gospel. There's so much. And we can't talk
about it all. But I just wanted to say, here's
what we're doing today. Today is the Lord's Day.
That's how you say Sunday in the Greek language.
You say Kyrieki Imera. The Lord's Day. It's in
the paper, the Sunday paper, the Lord's Day paper.
And in Russian, you say Voskresenia. That means
resurrection. Sunday is resurrection day. And
that's right. Every Sunday is a little Pascha.
We can't do Pascha every single week. We would
never get to work on Monday or Tuesday. We'd
be exhausted all week long. We can't do Lent
all the time because that's like going to boot
camp here and here out. You just don't do that.
We exercise our spiritual life in a certain way
for a certain time and then we celebrate Pascha.
But every Sunday we have Holy Communion. Every
Sunday we have the Divine Liturgy, and that's
why it's Pascha. Because we celebrate the Lord's
Resurrection. That's the first thing. Today's
Sunday, so it's about the Lord's Resurrection.
Do you know that those that were baptized, and
you could see them, they're wearing their white
robes today, but you also were baptized. I baptized
lots of you. You don't have to raise your hands,
but there's a lot of you. It's my honor and joy,
absolutely. You also know something about the
resurrection because Christ is with you. And
Christ died and he rose and he will never die
again. And now he sits at the right hand of the
Father and he rules all things. And you are in
him and he is in you. When you're afraid, when
you're anxious, When you're not sure, remember,
Jesus is with you because you're baptized, because
you went to communion. Remember, Jesus sits with
the Father and all things in the entire universe
are in his hands. The second thing we celebrate
today is a feast day. It's actually a birthday.
Whose birthday is it today? Mary's birthday.
Anybody else have a birthday today in our parish?
September 8th? Well, that's probably good because
then we leave it all on the Virgin Mary. How
do we celebrate a birthday of your friend? What
would you do? You go to the house. Maybe you
have a present. Hopefully there's a party. There's
a cake. You sing happy birthday. There's a toast.
But there's something else we celebrate today
before I get back to the birthday. And that is,
today is the Sunday before the feast. There's
another feast coming up next Saturday. The Sunday
before the feast of the exaltation or the elevation
of the Holy Cross. We bring the cross out at
the end of that. Matins service on Friday night.
And then we sing. What do we sing? before thy
cross, right? And we sing, O Lord, save thy people,
and we celebrate. So today's the Sunday before
that. And it's very important that we remember
that God has begun our salvation, not just with
that day, the cross, not just with Christmas,
when he became... when he was born of a Virgin
Mary. But even before that, and even before that,
that is when the Virgin Mary was born. He started
everything. Well, he started everything before
that even, but that was one important stop. Her
birthday today, we sang, and let me ask you a
question. We sang, today proclaims joy. To the
whole universe. The whole universe. Everything.
Every city. Every town. Every place. In heaven
and on earth. The bottom of the sea. In outer
space. The whole world. If you're listening.
You can receive this joy. The joy of the Virgin
Mary's birth. If we were at her birthday party.
And this is her birthday party today. We honor
her. If you were there at a regular party, you
would want to have a toast. You'd ding, ding,
ding, ding on your glass. You'd stand up. I'd
like to make a toast in honor. And what would
we say to the Virgin Mary? We would say something
like, you were born. to the most wonderful parents
probably that ever lived, Joachim and Anna. Your
parents wanted a child. They couldn't have a
child. They tried to have children. They didn't
have children. They felt very ashamed because
in that culture, not like our culture, having
children, especially if you were in the line
of the Messiah, meant that you might, bear the
child, that would be the Messiah. They could
have no children. They prayed, they wept, they
prayed and they wept. When they were old, God
granted them a child, Mary. And we would say
at her birthday party, your parents, they never
gave up. And God showed how he could turn something
so sad into something more wonderful. And you
were born. And the whole universe now hears about
the joy. What joy? That from you, oh holy lady,
is going to be born Jesus, which means the Savior.
Jesus, the Christ, the anointed one. And you
that were just baptized, you were anointed. You
became small Christs today. And your place is
now in heaven. It says with the firstborn. Oh
my gosh. And that's all of you. And that's because
of the Virgin Mary. That she, her faith then
in God was so pure. When she was a young child
like you, Celeste. Or like you, Trinity. Her
faith was so pure and she loved God so much.
Do you know that she kept her heart pure? Yes,
she was tempted. Yes, she was tempted to sin.
But her heart was so in love with God that she
never committed terrible acts like what we do
all the time. She never rebelled. She was joyful.
She was unusual. She was... A human. She's not
superwoman. But God chose her because she was
pure of heart. And so we would say at her party,
O Holy Virgin Mary, you became the censer to
hold Christ the incense. You became the candle
to hold Christ the flame. You became the table
to hold the Holy Communion. You became the chalice
to hold Christ. You became the one that shows
us that we can hold Jesus Christ within ourselves
too. On this feast day, I want you to think,
and I'll end with this, what present you can
give to the Virgin Mary today. It's pretty simple.
You can give your joy. Give your joy, that's
all. Can you try and stay joyful all day, no
matter what happens, no matter what thing? occurs
to you that you didn't really want to happen.
Can you remain joyful? We can do that. And once
you remain joyful, then you're offering unto
the Virgin Mary another gift, and that is to
God too. The gift of love. The gift of kindness.
The gift of purity of heart. The gift of, well,
prayer. The gift of prayer. So, Bring your present
to the Virgin Mary today. Try to keep your attention
not on stuff outside. You know when we're in
church sometimes we start thinking of something
else and pretty soon we're thinking of lunch
or maybe something at school tomorrow or what
you're going to wear or what you're worried about.
Bring your mind back. Like take it like you have
a bird and you put it in this cage. That's your
soul. And try to keep that joy and that love
and that prayer for God on this day of the Virgin
Mary. The Sunday before the Feast of the Cross
and the day of the resurrection of our Lord.
To him be glory now and ever.