Lives of the Saints
1. THE ENTRANCE OF THE MOST HOLY THEOTOKOS
When the Most Holy Virgin Mary reached the age of three years from her birth, her holy parents, Joachim and Anna, brought her from Nazareth to Jerusalem to present her to God for service according to their earlier promise. It is a three days' journey from Nazareth to Jerusalem; but going on a God-pleasing deed, that journey was not difficult for them. Many relatives of Joachim and Anna also gathered to take part in this celebration, in which the angels of God also invisibly took part. Virgins with lighted candles in their hands went ahead, and then the Most Holy Virgin, led on one side by her father and on the other by her mother. The Virgin was adorned with royal beautiful garments and ornaments, as befits a king's daughter, the Bride of God. After them followed a multitude of relatives and friends, all with lighted candles. Before the Temple there were fifteen steps. The parents raised the Virgin to the first step, and then she herself quickly ascended to the top, where the high priest Zechariah, future father of Saint John the Forerunner, met her, and taking her by the hand led her not only into the Temple but into the Holy of Holies, the Holiest of Holy Places, into which no one ever entered except the high priest, and that once a year. Saint Theophylact of Ohrid says that Zechariah was "beside himself and seized by God" when he led the Virgin into the holiest place of the Temple, behind the second veil; otherwise this action of his could not be explained. Then the parents offered sacrifice to God according to the law, received blessing from the priests, and returned home, while the Most Holy Virgin remained at the Temple. And she abode at the Temple for a full nine years. While her parents were alive they visited her often, especially blessed Anna. But when her parents were called by God from this world, the Most Holy Virgin remained as an orphan and wished in no way until death to depart from the Temple nor to enter into marriage. Since this was contrary both to the law and to custom in Israel, after she turned twelve years old she was given to Saint Joseph, her kinsman in Nazareth, to live in virginity under the appearance of betrothal, so that she might both fulfill her own desire and outwardly satisfy the law. For at that time in Israel maidens vowed to virginity for life were not known. The Most Holy Virgin Mary was the first such maiden vowed to lifelong virginity, and after her followed in the Church of Christ thousands upon thousands of virgins, both female and male.
“The Most Holy Virgin Mary was the first maiden vowed to lifelong virginity, and after her followed thousands upon thousands of virgins, both female and male.”
Hymn of Praise
The parents brought the Holy Virgin
Into the holy Temple,
And according to their promise
Presented her to the Lord:
The Temple was brought into the Temple,
While the angels sang,
Sang in tenderness
To the small Virgin in whiteness.
Virgins accompany our Virgin
With hymns and with candles,
Zechariah leads her
To the Holiest of Holy Places;
He leads her into the sanctuary
Where the terrible mystery is hidden
Where the ark of the covenant is,
Where the golden censer is,
Where the rod and where the manna is,
Where the treasury of all mysteries is—
There is the pure Virgin led,
The secret ark of the living Christ.
Reflection
Submit to the will of God and do not examine God's judgments too much, for thou canst lose thy mind. For the judgments of God are countless and unfathomable. A certain monk in the desert, thinking to himself that he had attained perfection, prayed to God further that God would reveal to him His various judgments in human life. And God put a thought in his mind to go far away to a certain elder confessor and ask about this. And when the monk was on the road, an angel of God joined him in the form of an ordinary man and told him that he too was going to that elder. Traveling thus together they stopped for the night at the home of a certain God-loving man who received them well, giving them food to eat from a silver plate. When they ate, the angel took the plate and threw it into the sea. This seemed both strange and wrong to the monk, but he kept silent. The second day they stopped again at the home of a certain hospitable man who received them warmly and honored them in his own way. At departure that man brought out his only son for the travelers to bless. And the angel of God took the child by the throat and strangled him. The monk became enraged and asked the angel who he was and why he committed such evil deeds. The angel answered him meekly: that first man is pleasing to God in all things, and there is nothing in his house acquired through injustice except that silver plate. By God's judgment I threw away that stolen plate so that man might be righteous in all things before God. And that second man is also pleasing to God, and there is nothing in his house that would draw the wrath of God except his son, who, if he grew up, would be a great evildoer and a vessel of demons. Therefore by God's judgment I strangled that child to save his soul in time because of his father's goodness, and also to save his father from much misery. Behold, such are the mysterious and unfathomable judgments of God. And thou, elder, go to thy cell and do not labor in vain examining that which is in the power of God alone.
Contemplation
Contemplate the wondrous creation of the world, namely:
1. How God created man from the dust of the earth;
2. How He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life;
3. How man became a living soul.
Homily
on the faithful as one body and one spirit
There is One body and one Spirit (Eph. 4:4)
Let the faithful take care to be one body and one spirit; this the holy apostle recommends. By one body is understood one faith, without division, without heresies, without self-will: the whole Church is one body, whose head is Christ. By one spirit is understood love, the flaming love of all the faithful toward Christ, from which proceeds mutual love as well. Let the multitude be as unity; many people as one man. This is the miracle of Christian faith and Christian love. There is no power in the world that can be a stronger bond among people. Neither the same blood, nor the same language, nor the same hearth, nor the same parents, nor any material interests whatsoever – none of this is even remotely such a powerful bond as Christian faith and love. By this powerful and irresistible bond all members of the Church are bound to one another. And the Church of God stands as one man, in time and in eternity – One body, one spirit. Nothing contradicts this wondrous unity so much as the pride of individual people. Pride distorts faith, cools love; pride creates heresies, divides the Church, sacrifices the good of the whole to personal convenience. Pride is in essence the absence both of faith and of love. May God, brethren, preserve us from pride, the primordial ailment of the human race. That we may be always one body and one spirit in our Lord Jesus Christ.
To Thee, Lord Jesus, to Thee, Head of the Church, to Thee be glory and praise forever. Amen.
“Nothing contradicts this wondrous unity so much as the pride of individual people. Pride is in essence the absence both of faith and of love.”