Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!
In the Name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
It is true, beloved, that this Feast of our Lady’s Dormition, that is, her Falling Asleep, her death, comes to us, not from Sacred Scripture, but rather from non-canonical sources, which is to say, from non-Biblical sources. First, this isn’t something unheard of, that is, the use of sources other than Sacred Scripture to bolster a Biblical teaching or point of view. The Epistle of St. Jude calls upon the non-canonical sources of The Book of Enoch and The Assumption of Moses to make some points as does the Apostle, St. Paul (Ac. 17:28; Ts. 1:12). It is from him that we learn the names of the two Egyptian magicians in Exodus who battled with Moses – Jannes and Jambres (2 Tm. 3:8). This should not disturb us in the least. As the introduction to the Epistle of St. Jude in the Orthodox Study Bible New Testament edition tells us, “But to quote a book is not to believe that it is inspired.” The writer simply uses what is pertinent from those sources.
Consequently, the Church makes her own the story of the Falling Asleep of the Most Holy Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary. She does so from the sense that this story rings true to the Church’s historical experience of the Blessed Virgin and Mother of our God. Although she is barely mentioned by name in Sacred Scripture, she is nonetheless present and active in the Body of her Son, that is, in the Body of believers. Furthermore, she is found in various types identified by the Church in Scripture, again based on the Church’s long experience with the Mother of God, types that punctuate and dominate our hymnody. That we hear little of her in Sacred Scripture does not invalidate her importance in the life of the Church. Rather it testifies to our Lady’s utter humility and desire to decrease so that her beloved Son might increase (Jn. 3:30). It is practically unheard of to find an icon of the Theotokos without the image of her Son. That is more common in the Western Church. For us, however, she is nearly always found directing us to Jesus – with her gaze, by the use of her hand, or by her body language. She exists for the sake of her Son and for our salvation! Does that surprise you? It shouldn’t for without her surrender to the Archangel’s words at the Annunciation, there would have been no Virgin Birth without which there would have been no Saviour and no salvation!
And yet, for all of her importance – indeed she is absolutely critical and the linchpin in salvation history! – our Panagia chooses to lay low, to defer constantly to her Son and His Church, almost undetectable to the naked eye. This is in keeping with who she is, with her humble demeanor, exercising within herself the mind of Christ (Pp. 2:1-4). “Let this mind be in you,” says St. Paul to her and to us, “which was also in Christ Jesus.” It is the mindset of humility and of meekness. It is the very mind of the One Who, though God Almighty, willingly chose not to cling to His rightful glory, but to voluntarily lay it aside and to take up the form of a slave in the very flesh of His own creature fashioned in His image, even voluntarily embracing death – death on the Cross! Why? Because He Who is the glory of the Father does not do anything vaingloriously, but in lowliness of mind esteems sinners in need of salvation better than Himself (Pp. 2:1-4)!
This is the mind of Jesus Christ. This is the mind of the very Lady who bore Him in her womb and was His first disciple and beneficiary of His Incarnation (Magnificat)! This is why the Master comes to the bedside of His beloved, humble, and holy Mother and receives her soul at her departing. Three days later He receives her body, so that now every generation calls her blessed (Magnificat).
One of the beautiful things – if we may speak of beauty within death – is how the Theotokos becomes the first of the firstfruits of our Lord’s Paschal Resurrection (1 Cr. 15:20, 23, 50-53). That which she has already experienced awaits us. She has passed over from death to Life. She does not await in Hades the Second and glorious Coming of her Son. She does not await – as we must – the Great Judgment. She has already been raised like her Son from the tomb and now stands as Queen Mother at the right hand of her most beloved Son, Jesus! This is the understanding attested to by the priest in the Prothesis when he extracts a particle from the Prosphora “in honor and memory of our most blessed Lady Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary. Through her prayers, O Lord, accept this sacrifice upon Thine Altar above the heavens.” The priest, then, places that particle for the Theotokos at the right hand of the Lamb on the diskos (paten), and prays the psalm verse, “The Queen stood on Thy right side, arrayed in golden robes, all glorious” (Ps. 44:10).
The Blessed Virgin is there, in the Church’s understanding, by her Son, doing what she has always done, but now can do in a more powerful, more direct, and greater way, having died and been raised up by her Son to stand in His Presence! Like Queen Esther, she prays. Like the Queen Mother, Bathsheba, before her son, King Solomon, she prays. She prays and intercedes for us. She prays for the world. She prays for the lost and the erring. She prays for the well-being of the Church. She prays, ever interceding on behalf of all who in death must face her Son in judgment. Why? Because in the Church’s Faith, death does not change her relationship with her Son. She remains Ever-Virgin and the Mother of our God: the God Who was enfleshed from her virginal womb; the God Who has been crucified, dead, buried, and raised up again on the third day; the God Who has ascended into Heaven with our deified flesh to sit at the Father’s right hand in glory. The Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary is this God’s holy Mother! And, she prays on our behalf at our behest. She “wishes every human being more good than she wishes for herself, and delights when she sees others happier, and grieves to see them suffering” (St. Silouan the Athonite). This, beloved, is the mind of Christ.
“As there is no boldness in us because of the multitude of our sins,” we humbly pray in the Sixth Hour,
Do thou, O Virgin Theotokos, intercede with the Son Whom thou hast borne; for the entreaty of a mother has great power to win the favor of the Master. Despise not, O Pure One, the prayers of us sinners, for He Who graciously deigned to suffer for us is merciful and strong to save (Theotokion).
This is why the Church boldly dares to call upon her in faith, believing her to be our utmost Steadfast Protectress and Protection of Christians, our constant advocate and unchanging mediation before the Creator (Theotokia). In death as in life, our Panagia remains our Mother in the Faith and a great warrior in prayer (Dormition Kontakion).
This, beloved, is the beauty within the Dormition of our Most Holy and Blessed Mother, lauded by the Church in the Dormition Troparion:
In giving birth thou didst preserve thy virginity! In falling asleep thou didst not forsake the world, O Theotokos! Thou wast translated to Life, O Mother of Life, and by thy prayers thou dost deliver our souls from death.
Most holy Theotokos, save us!
Through the prayers of the Theotokos, O Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us and save us. Amen.
Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!
VIGIL PROPERS: PROPERS:
Gn. 28:10-17 Pp. 2:5-11
Ek. 43:27-44:4 Lk. 10:38-42; 11:27-28
Pr. 9:1-11