Last week, we commemorated the Dormition of the Mother of God. This great feast is about our victory over death. For death had no power over Her, who had given birth to our Lord, whose ultimate love was more powerful than death.
She gave her protection to the whole Christian world. To our earthly mothers, we owe our coming into the world. The Mother of God is our Mother in Heaven. She intercedes for us and comes to our help. Her love is salvific and everlasting. Mother of all of the world's children, she defeated death in her heart.
We dedicate to Her so many of our prayers. She is depicted in many icons. We plead with her to come to our rescue, as we cannot accomplish anything big by ourselves. We are caught in a vicious storm of the news, happenings and our day-to-day concerns. Our lives of the flesh are dearer to us than the Grace of God, and we need her help, and the help of the Church to start moving in the right direction.
Truly, we all have yet to be reborn. We are hiding under the shell of our lives of the flesh, which is very hard to break. Yet it is up to us to get out of it and rise to Heaven. We must challenge our spirits to grow, to endure, and to reach out to God so that it would not linger forever in the darkness and the cold. The Holy Theotokos overcame death, and we must do the same.
We are navigating the seas of our daily lives. It is a perilous journey amid the towering waves. - We must endure to the end, and stay with Christ throughout our journey. We must not let fear or panic seize us and lead us to step away from Him. We must resist the workings of our enemy to keep our unity with the Lord. In this world, we need to work hard to nourish our bodies and take care of our worldly needs. But man does not live by bread alone. We must not neglect to nourish our souls. For this nourishment, we come to Church. As the Lord has said, not even the gates of hell can withstand the Church. - We remain as confident as ever, that Christ, the head of our Church, is always in our midst, and that no temptations of the finite world of the flesh or workings of our enemy can be more powerful than Him.
The devil is hard at work to distract people from the Church and oneness in Him and to get them to betray their shepherd. But the true shepherd lays down his life for his sheep. He shows us the way to the Kingdom of Heaven, and nothing in this world can stop us if we follow Him. The Mother of God is standing at the Throne of Heaven asking for mercy and salvation for all Christians.
O, Lord! Glory to You!
