Homily for the Sunday Before the Exaltation of the Holy Cross (St. Cleopa of Sihastria)

 

Homily for the Sunday Before the Exaltation of the Holy Cross 

 

(Concerning the Sign of the Son of Man) 

By St. Cleopa of Sihastria

“Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven” (Matthew 24:30).

Beloved faithful,

One of the great signs that will herald the Second Coming of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ for judgment will also be the appearance of the Holy and Life-Giving Cross. It will appear upon the clouds of heaven, brought by the angels of God with great and ineffable glory, the radiance of which will surpass the light of the sun a thousand times. This appearance of the sign of the Son of Man, that is, of the Holy Cross, will bring great and unspeakable joy to all faithful Christians who have honored it and bowed down before it, the altar sanctified by the Blood of Christ. But it will bring great terror and trembling upon the wicked and unbelieving who have not honored the sign of the Son of Man, that is, the Holy Cross.

A thousand years before the Incarnation, the Holy Spirit revealed that the Holy Cross is the sign of Christ God's victory, which He would give to Christians as a powerful weapon by which Christians would conquer their invisible enemies. Thus the Psalmist says: “You have given those who fear You, O Lord, a sign, that they may flee from the face of the bow” (Psalm 59:4). The Most Holy Spirit revealed at that time that, through the signing with the Holy Cross, Christians would draw upon themselves the light of the face of God, as it is written: “The light of Your face has shone upon us, O Lord” (Psalm 4:6).

Homilies from the Menaion for Every Day of the Year: September 13

The Month of September

Day 13

14. The Devil Cannot Overcome the Church of Christ

(Sermon on the Consecration of the Church of the Resurrection of Christ, which is in Jerusalem. Menaion, September 13)

The Lord said: “I will build My Church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18). What do these words of the Lord mean? They mean “that no hostile forces, not even the powers of Hades and Satan, will be able to overcome the Church founded by Christ, ... that no evil counsels, machinations, or actions of hidden forces will overcome it” (Mikh., Commentary on Matthew, p. 297); “that the Church of Christ will exist until the end of the world, that it will stand firmly upon the earth, and that no attacks of the enemy—the devil, together with all his accomplices—will destroy it.” (Euseb., Instruction on the Faith, Part 2, p. 273). Is all this really true? Is it true that no attacks of the enemy—the devil, together with all his accomplices—will destroy the Church of Christ, and that no evil counsels, machinations, or actions of hidden forces will overcome it? Of course it is true, brethren, for on the one hand you yourselves know that heaven and earth will pass away sooner than the words of the Lord will pass away; and on the other hand, it is true also because the devil has already shown his powerlessness in his struggle against the Church of Christ and has suffered defeat at the hands of Christ. From where, you may ask, is this latter thing evident, and when did it happen? From the following account, which we shall offer you, you will see from what this is evident and when this took place.

Homily for the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos (St. Sergius Mechev)

  

Homily for the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos

By Holy Hieromartyr Sergius Mechev

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit!

A few days ago, by the mercy of God, we entered with you into the New Ecclesiastical Year, and today we celebrate the first great feast of the annual liturgical cycle—the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos.

In order to understand the meaning of this feast, and together with it the meaning of the other feasts of the Church, we must first of all remember that the life of the Church is a mystery, incomprehensible to those who are outside the Church.

It is not by chance that the most important thing in the life of the Holy Church—Her center, through which we become partakers of the grace of God—we call MYSTERIES.

By our own created mind, we could not comprehend this mystery. But the Lord, in His mercy, gradually reveals it to those who live in the Mysteries, who draw near to this source of grace and drink its living water.

Homily One on the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos (St. Justin Popovich)

Homily One on the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos 

By St. Justin Popovich

(Delivered in 1964, at the Monastery of Ćelije)

This Holy Great Feast of today bears the joy of the whole universe, as it is said in the beautiful hymn: “Today the Most Holy Mother of God brings the Lord Christ into the universe!” It is as though God were driven out from the earth—and indeed He was driven out from the earth. God was driven out from the earth by us human beings, beginning with our first foremother Eve. The Most Holy Virgin brings God back into the world. That is a great joy. Her troparion today speaks to us of that great joy and of that great truth.

The Nativity of the Most Holy Mother of God, it is said in the troparion, “proclaimed joy to the whole universe,” to the whole world. Why? Because with her, in truth, the Lord Christ came into this world! He, because of her and through her, became man and gave us everything that He, as the God-man, could give us: He gave us all the joys of Paradise on earth and upon the earth, which became hell because of our sins, because of human sins; not because of some others, not because of the sins of the devil and his black angels, but because of man, because man fell through an indescribable fall. And the Most Holy Mother of God, giving birth to the Lord Christ, gave birth to salvation for the world. Hence, in the Orthodox Church, there are so many prayers, so many hymns to the Most Holy Mother of God.

Homilies from the Menaion for Every Day of the Year: September 12

The Month of September

Day 12

13. On the Incorruption of the Holy Relics

(From the Life of Holy Hieromartyr Autonomos. September Menaion, Sept. 12)

All truly Orthodox Christians venerate with faith the incorrupt relics of the holy Servants of God, approach them with reverence, and often travel great distances in order to venerate them and pray to the holy Servants of God who repose there in incorruption. This is how Orthodox Christians regard the relics of the Saints. But people of this age do not regard them in the same way, whether they are lame in faith, limping on both knees, or entirely unbelieving. And when the subject of the incorruption of relics comes up with them, they usually say: “I do not understand this! What is this all about? Can a body really remain incorrupt after lying in the earth for so many years?” and so forth. Are people of this age speaking the truth to us when they say such things, or not?

When the Hieromartyr Autonomos was killed by unbelievers, his body was buried by a certain deaconess named Maria and remained in the earth for a very long time. After many years had passed, a soldier, by the direction of God, discovered it and brought it out of the earth. The blessed Symeon the Metaphrastes then saw the Saint’s relics, and this is what he says about them:

Homily Three on the Nativity of the Theotokos (St. John of Kronstadt)

Homily Three on the Nativity of the Theotokos 

By St. John of Kronstadt

(Delivered in 1907 or 1908)

“The universal joy has shone forth for us from the righteous Joachim and Anna, O all-lauded Virgin, through whom, because of her exceeding purity, the temple of God is made a living one, and she alone is truly recognized as the Mother of God.” (Sticheron at the Aposticha, Forefeast Service)

Before beginning my poor word on the Nativity of the Mother of God the Word, I beseech this Pre-eternal Word to grant me understanding to glorify according to my strength, or rather according to the grace of God, this truly great Christian feast, the Nativity of the Most Holy Virgin Mary, who was destined by the Creator of the ages to become the Mother of the Son of God according to the flesh.

In my mind I compare two virgins: the first-created virgin Eve, when she had not yet known conjugal union, and the truly Immaculate and Ever-Virgin Theotokos Mary.

The first virgin became willingly the cause of ancestral sin, the curse, and death, and of all the evils to which we remain subject and from which we suffer terribly to this day; the second, by God, became the cause of righteousness, blessing, and life, with which God the Word, born from her according to the flesh, has benefited us.

Synaxarion of the Venerable Martyr Theodora of Vasta

Synaxarion

By Venerable Gerasimos Mikragiannanitis

On the 11th of the same month, the commemoration of the Holy Venerable Martyr Theodora of the Peloponnese, who lies in the village of Vasta in Megalopolis, Arcadia.

Verses

As a gift, O Mother, you offered to God,
The labors of asceticism and the shedding of blood.
On the eleventh, ruthless men severed Theodora’s neck.

This blessed woman came from the Peloponnese. She flourished in the ninth century and sprang forth from Messenia or Arcadia, the exact locality of her homeland being unknown. Her parents were poor and lived by their own labor, but were pious and faithful toward Christ our Lord, and besides the Saint they also had other children. Raised by them in the education and admonition of the Lord, and having become an example of decorum and good character, she discerned in a divinely-inspired mind that she should be espoused to Christ and came to embrace the monastic life in a monastery for men, not as a woman, but in male attire, as Theodore. The Monastery to which the blessed woman came, and which survives to this day, is called in the local dialect Panagitsa, and is situated in Upper Messenia, on the borders of Messenia and Arcadia, near the village of Monasteraki.

Venerable Theodora of Alexandria in the Hymnography of the Orthodox Church

By Fr. George Dorbarakis

The life of Venerable Theodora of Alexandria is wondrous. For although she is not the only one in the history of the Church who practiced asceticism disguised as a man in a men’s monastery, she is the only one to follow this paradoxical ascetic path on the basis of two distinct circumstances: first, she chooses the harsh martyrdom of complete exile in order to “make atonement” for the sin of adultery, which, however, is known only to her; second, she accepts the slander of a carnal relationship with a woman (!) from which an infant was also born (!), again interpreting the event herself as a “repayment” for the adultery she had committed against her lawful husband. This is a reality that reveals the sanctity of Theodora, because it shows that her entire course, not only her ascetic life after she donned the monastic habit but also her life before that, was continually before the eyes of the Lord. Indeed, her great fall into sexual sin did occur, “through the envy of the devil,” according to the Synaxarist, but from that moment onward she could not bear this tragic event in her life, even though she could have “overcome” it by following the rule of repentance through the Mystery of Confession.

Homilies from the Menaion for Every Day of the Year: September 11

The Month of September

Day 11

12. On the Reward Awaiting in the Age to Come for Wives Who Patiently Endure Unjust Wrongs in This Life

(From the Life of Venerable Theodora. September Menaion, Sept. 11)

As everyone knows, suffering from slander and enduring undeserved insults and unjust wrongs falls not only upon many men, but equally upon many of you, Christian wives. Yes, so it must be. For example, concerning those who desire to live godly lives, the Apostle says that not merely some of them, but “all,” that is, men and women without distinction, “will be persecuted” (2 Timothy 3:12). And the history that tells not only of martyrs but also of women martyrs, not only of confessors but also of women confessors of the name of Christ, fully confirms this truth.

But that is not our point. What we wanted to speak about specifically is the difference between men and women in enduring these things—slander, insults, and wrongs. A man, being generally stronger and more robust by nature than a woman, will naturally endure suffering more easily, whereas a woman, being weaker and more sensitive in heart than a man, will undoubtedly find it more difficult to bear such things. Therefore, a man suffering from slander, insults, and wrongs may, although with difficulty, stand firm more readily; whereas a woman under their yoke may fall more easily and more quickly than a man. From this, then, it naturally follows that if a woman may fall more readily than a man under the yoke of slander and wrongs, then when she suffers beneath this yoke, she is undoubtedly all the more in need of encouragement and consolation. On this basis, then, we now offer you, wives who suffer from slander, insults, and wrongs, this encouragement and consolation, and we give you strengthening for endurance. What do these consist in? You may see from what we shall relate to you below.