St Theophan the Recluse (+1894)☦️:
Word one
The Holy Apostle Paul, speaking about the Holy Sacrament of Baptism, compares its hidden power with the death and resurrection of the Lord. He says that when we are immersed in the font, we die; when we come out of the font, we are resurrected. We die in the font to a carnal and sinful life, but we are resurrected from the font to a spiritual, holy, God-pleasing life. “Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death ? We were buried with Him by baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also might begin to walk in newness of life... our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer serve sin” ( Rom. 6:3, 4, 6 ).
Just as the risen Lord is bright, so our nature is bright, being renewed in the bath of rebirth by the grace of the Holy Spirit. But let us not think, brethren, that here grace alone produces, and produces it only externally or somehow mechanically. No.
Its saving action is accomplished invisibly – within. The grace of the Spirit that comes into baptism imprints a series of internal changes in the heart and movements of the spirit and from them forms a new one in us, “the hidden heart of man” ( 1 Pet. 3:4 ). Why does the holy apostle Peter call baptism “good conscience by asking God” ( 1 Pet. 3:21 ), the formation of a special, grace-given strong moral character. What and how it happens and should happen here, I will explain to you with a few thoughts.
The All-Merciful Lord, having created man in His own image and likeness, indicated to him the final goal in inner communication with Himself, protecting it with certain conditions that are at man’s disposal.
God laid the way to achieve this goal in the zealous fulfillment of His holy will, which He imprinted on the pure and blameless conscience of man; but He did not bind him in the direction of his activity, but gifted him with freedom to act as he wishes, at his own discretion, so that he himself voluntarily and willingly determines to steadfastly walk in the known will of God. In order that man have the opportunity to cope with his freedom, He, in the same spirit in which freedom dwells, implanted the fear of God, or the feeling of all-round dependence on God the Almighty, the All-Provider and All-Rewarder. Here are all the elements of our spiritual life according to the original arrangement. When united into one, it formed the most moral spiritual person, whose life was built and accomplished in such a way that a person, in the feeling of his all-round dependence on God, would willingly determine himself to walk steadfastly in the holy will of God, interpreted by conscience, in the confidence that through this he would remain in the innermost communion with God, the source of life, and be blessed in Him. Man is destined for this, and his life would always go in this way, just as it goes in this way constantly with the holy angels, if not for the fall.
The fall upset the internal order of spiritual life. Man fell away from God, and direct communication with Him ceased; the feeling of dependence on Him died out or weakened, and man no longer had the strength to cope with freedom itself, which did not follow the will of God, especially since the conscience either completely ceased to interpret the will of God, or began to interpret it crookedly. Thus the elements of spiritual life fell apart, and spiritual life ceased to exist.
Meanwhile, the nature of man remained the same, and his purpose remained the same. Therefore, his restoration could not be accomplished otherwise than through the restoration of his original spiritual powers and their elevation to a predetermined mutual relationship. This is what the Sacrament of Baptism accomplishes after the preliminary preparation of man for it by a series of moral changes.
I will give you an example to illustrate this. The holy apostle Peter preaches on the day of Pentecost. The listeners, having heard the sermon , exclaimed: “What then shall we do?” The holy apostle answered: “Repent” ( Acts 2:37–38 ); and in another place: “Repent and believe in the gospel , and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ... and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” ( Acts 2:38 ).
Let us examine this here. The sermon has enlightened the conscience, the enlightened conscience has revived the feeling of dependence on God, or the fear of God, and here comes a cry from the heart: what are we to do? This is to repent, to believe, to receive grace through baptism. To repent means to decide to abandon deeds contrary to God, to turn to God ( Acts 3:19 ) and to determine one’s freedom again to walk in His will, as was determined originally. The repentant one would be ready for this, but how can one begin to do this when he feels in himself, on the one hand, his moral impotence, and on the other, his uneasiness with God, Whom he has always angered, and with his conscience, which he has always offended. For the healing of these main infirmities, faith in the Lord Jesus Christ is given to him as the only means to peace and reunification with God, and the grace of the Spirit as the support of moral strength. Do you notice how here, in the new grace-filled dispensation, all the former elements and powers of spiritual life, weakened and disintegrated in the fall, are raised again to their significance and union! The feeling of dependence on God is resurrected in repentance, conscience is enlightened by the word, freedom is strengthened by grace, communion with God is mediated through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, the only Intercessor of God and men... Thus all the elements, each with its own special life-giving medicine, are revived.
It now remains to merge them together, to gather them, like rays, into one focus. This is accomplished in the baptismal font, which in this respect is like a gracious furnace, where from the previously restored elements of spiritual life, by the all-effective grace, a “new creation in Christ Jesus” is created ( 2 Cor. 5:17 ), and “the hidden man of the heart” is formed ( 1 Pet. 3:4 ). We emerge from the font new in precisely this sense; we feel ourselves to have tasted a new life and begin to be blessed. Look at what is said about those who have converted to the preaching of the holy Apostle Peter. “When they had received the word…, ” it says, “ they were baptized” ( Acts 2:41 ), and it is immediately added: “they began to continue in doctrine, fellowship, prayer, all together, having everything in common, as if one soul and one body, with one mind abiding in the church, continually praising God, living in joy and simplicity of heart” ( Acts 2:42, 44, 46 ). As soon as they were baptized, they began to live a new life. This new life is recognized by all those baptized and is their lot and inheritance.
Having now gathered together in one thought all the principles of the spiritually-graceful life, corresponding to its original structure, we will see that each person being baptized is such in his inner disposition: by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, having reconciled himself and received from Him the grace-filled power, the Christian feels himself determined and strong for an unswerving walk in the will of God, about which he is zealous with readiness for any labors or sacrifices, feeling even here temporary joy in communion with God and anticipating the endless joy that will be in eternity. This is what constitutes “the questioning of a good conscience” ( 1 Pet. 3:21 ), or the formation of a Christian-moral character. I bring this to you so that you do not forget that the power of baptism consists not only in the grace-filled renewal of the natural powers of the spirit, but also in the moral change of character, or in both together. According to God's arrangement, moral changes first occur in the spirit of man, and then grace, entering into man through the sacrament, imprints them in him and thereby renews his very nature. In a Christian there is no longer only nature, but also grace. Outwardly he is the same as all non-Christians, but in fact he is a dissolution and mixture of nature and grace. Copper, for example, alone produces a dull sound, but when combined with silver it sounds purer and clearer, although outwardly the difference in the one and the other is not noticeable. Copper alone is our nature; copper combined with silver is the same nature, blessed in baptism. Take an apple from a wild apple tree and an orchard apple. In appearance they may be completely similar, but the inner worth of one and the other is completely different. Thus a Christian and a non-Christian seem to be alike in appearance, but their inner character, as it were, is not the same. All the strength of Christians is inward. Christians themselves cannot help but be aware of this difference and change - not to the detriment of their humility, but in giving glory to God who saves them. Not everything in man perishes with the fall. Traces of the former beauty remain on all his powers, only they have become disunited and disintegrated. This is the same as a broken mirror. When the internal structure of spiritual life is restored, then it is the same as a whole mirror, which clearly reflects all the features and parts of the face of the one looking at it. Turning inward, can a Christian not be aware of this wholeness given to him? Even before baptism, a person is the same as a paralytic in all his parts: he cannot stand or move. After baptism, he is the same as the paralytic who was healed, about whom the Gospel says that he walked, jumping and rejoicing ( Acts 3:8) .). So, can the feeling of cheerfulness and strength inherent in a Christian blessed in baptism not be attested in consciousness? And one more image. The viewing tubes have three parts. When these parts are pushed one into the other, the tube does not show things as it should; but when they are moved apart proportionally, then everything is seen well in them... The tube is an image of our three-part nature: spirit, soul and body. In the fall, the spirit submitted to the soul, and the soul and spirit to the body, and man began to see his relationships poorly and behave poorly in them. In a new, blessed birth, the spirit is elevated to its own rights, holds the soul in its rank, and through it the body. Man then receives a predetermined order of parts of nature, clearly recognizes his relations to Heaven and earth and worthily behaves in these relations. Can such an arrangement be hidden from the eyes of the mind and conscience?!
Do you see now what power holy baptism has and how its saving effects in us cannot be hidden from ourselves?! Now enter into yourself and decide for yourself whether there is there what holy baptism gives or not. If there is, let us thank the Lord, without self-exaltation, however, for everything is from Him; if not, let us expose ourselves and reproach ourselves, and let us hasten to make up for this through the Sacrament of Repentance, in which sinners are baptized anew, not in the font, but in tears, although they receive a new life, the same as that given in the font. Amen.
Word two
Recall my last conversation. There we saw that the believer must emerge from the baptismal font as a zealot exclusively for pleasing God, with a readiness to sacrifice everything for that sake. This ardor of zeal for God, with love and self-denial, is such an integral feature of Christian life that whoever has it lives, and whoever does not have it is either dead or frozen and asleep. This is the seed of life and at the same time the power of life. It is the fruit of the combination of grace with freedom. Man surrenders himself entirely to God's guidance; grace, having come, accepts it, fulfills it, unites with it, and from this hidden treasury of life comes forth “a man of renewal” ( 1 Pet. 2:9 ), “a zealot for good works” ( Titus 2:14 ), chosen to be “holy and blameless before God in love” ( Eph. 1:4 ).
When adults are baptized, they truly become such immediately after baptism, for they immediately present in their own person all the dispositions of the heart that are necessary for union with grace. As for those who are baptized as infants, the Divine economy of our salvation has deigned to establish such an order that everything that depends on the grace of God for the position of the beginning of Christian life in us is given immediately, and renewal is accomplished by grace; but that which depends on our freedom is postponed until age, until the first confession and communion, when a person consciously and willingly surrenders himself to grace, and then the renewal, which was accomplished before as if independently of him, by grace alone, is appropriated to his person and begins to be accomplished together with grace and freedom. Then he too appears as a strong zealot for pleasing the Christian God by the grace of God, exclusively with complete self-denial.
Everyone knows that up to this moment, so decisive in life, almost everything depends on parents and godparents, and then on them, and on our freedom; further - and on those diverse combinations in life, into which an incomprehensible combination of circumstances places each one. From the effects on our consciousness and freedom of all these influences and from how we use them, it turns out that for some - everything is light, for others - everything is darkness, for others - neither light nor darkness ... I mean by this that some, after a wonderful childhood and adolescence, having come to consciousness, love Christianity with a strong love and are zealous for it unswervingly, rising from strength to strength and striving to reach "the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ" ( Eph. 4:13 ); others quickly deviate from the Lord into the path of passions, into slavery to the spirit of the world and its prince, and live in forgetfulness of God and God-opposing orders; The third group does not know to whom they belong - either to Christ or to the world: outwardly they participate in all the orders of Christian life, but their thoughts and hearts are in another area and they find their comfort, delight and happiness in other things - these are Christians who do not have the spirit of Christ! They do not care about the Lord, but about one thing: how to live peacefully and comfortably on earth, among all the orders in which the accidental situation of temporary life places them, without revealing themselves, however, as alien to the Christian order and without declaring themselves to be outright God-fighters and Christ-fighters.
So, if, turning back, we want to conscientiously determine what we are in relation to the Lord Jesus Christ, to Whom we accepted the obligation to serve exclusively in holy baptism, then some will turn out to be zealous lovers of the Lord and the Christian life; others - devoted to the world and passions, Christ-fighters; others - external Christians with a peace-loving heart.
To which of these shall I now address my word?
The first do not require a word. We can only, looking after them, glorify the Lord and bless them. Blessed are you, having heeded the calling of the Lord! You walk “in the light of His face” and “rejoice in His name” at every hour ( Ps. 88:16, 17 ), crying out: “My heart disappears in You, O God, the God of my heart and my God ” ( Ps. 72:26 )!
What is the use of saying a word to the latter, when they are not here and never will be? They have completely deviated to the path of destruction. We can only pity them and pray for them.
So, my word is to you, external Christians, without the spirit of Christ, without a heart entirely devoted to the Lord, without zeal for pleasing Him alone! Or not to you alone, but to us together, for I am the first of you. What shall we say to ourselves? Ah, brothers, let us force ourselves to rise to a sense of fear for ourselves and our eternal lot. Think of what all true lovers of God say about us, both those who are still here on earth and those who are already in Heaven. What else can they say except the following: “Here are people who, it seems, are from us, but are not ours.” A simple word, it seems, but what a terrible word! For if we are not theirs, then they are not ours and nothing of theirs is ours. Therefore, Christ is not ours, all His promises are not ours, paradise and eternal bliss are not ours. And if this is not ours, we ourselves know that it should be ours ... You see, what a disaster! Meanwhile, look around: we have almost everything Christian - Christian customs, Christian concepts, Christian speech, many Christian rules and deeds! What is missing? The Christian heart is missing. It is not directed in that direction. Its good is not in God, but in itself and in the world, and its paradise is not in Heaven, but on earth. This zeal for pleasing God and salvation, strong as death, is missing. It is as if we have fallen asleep and frozen, and we move as the current of life moves us. Let us arouse this zeal in ourselves, for who will do this except us?! We have become attached to the world, and we ourselves will tear ourselves away from it. Let us enter into our heart - cold, careless and negligent - and begin to persuade it in a friendly manner to finally come to its senses, to shake off the bonds of passions and the world, arbitrarily imposed on itself, and to strive for the Lord. Let us say to the soul thus: “You were created in the image and likeness of God. The Infinite God so deigned to arrange you, so that He could shine in you with His perfections, as the sun shines in a small drop of water, and be visible in you, both to you and to all who see you, earthly and heavenly. But you turned away from God and turned to the world, took on its vile image, through which you began to bear the bestial likeness of the prince of this age. Remember your first nobility, great and incomparable with anything, regret the present ugliness and turn to the Lord, so that you may be renewed in the image of the One Who created you.
God seeks you and, seeking, surrounds you with all His mercies and cares: your life is His, and everything necessary for life is His - and light, and air, and food, and clothing, and shelter, and everything that is in you and with you, is His. And what else is this? For your sake He descended from Heaven, suffered, died on the Cross, rose again, ascended to Heaven, sent the Holy Spirit and established the Church on earth , in which He combined everything necessary for your salvation, and, most importantly, by means of birth and the order of your external life He has already introduced you into this treasury of spiritual blessings! See how much love! And for all this He requires of you your only heart. And a drop of water, warmed by the sun, ascends on high. Why do you hesitate to turn to the Lord, warmed from all sides by the warmth of His love?!
Do you not see that everyone around you is going to the Lord, the poor, the ignoble, and the uneducated? Why do you stand there, allowing everyone to precede you into the Kingdom? As if you were worse than others? Are you deprived of something?! Are you deprived of something that is given to everyone?! What are you standing there for?! Move, hurry, before the door is closed, which has opened to receive all who are now turning.
What are you standing there for? Turn to the Lord and begin to work hard for Him. Time flies – the forces grow old, become coarse and approach immobility in their perverse direction. Meanwhile, today or tomorrow is death. Be careful that you do not remain completely in this ossified coldness towards the Lord. Remember the terrible end, when God will finally turn away from those who do not turn to Him, will reject those who reject Him, and be moved by fear to rush towards the Lord.
Seek the Lord! God or the world – there is no middle ground. Or do you sleep so carelessly that you see nothing?! There is everything – here is nothing; there is truth – here is a phantom; there is peace – here are painful worries; there is contentment – here is incessant languor; there is joy and gladness – here are only sorrows and heaviness of heart. You know all this, you have experienced all this, and yet you remain in the same vanity of mind and heart. Do you want to create paradise on earth? It is already the eighth thousandth time that peace-lovers have run out of means to create paradise on earth. And not only is there no success, on the contrary, everything is going for the worse. You will not succeed either, but will only be exhausted, chasing after the phantom blessing of the world, like children after a fleeing rainbow."
With such and similar speeches let us persuade our souls to love the Lord, to turn to Him completely – to be finally resolutely zealous for our salvation. Will not the same thing happen to us as happens to balloons. Being filled with gas, the most subtle element, with what speed they rush upward! Let us also fill our souls with heavenly truths and convictions. They will penetrate into the heart, attract desires, and then our whole being will direct to Heaven and everything heavenly.
However, what soul does not know all this? We all know that we must belong exclusively to the Lord with our hearts and turn everything to pleasing Him alone – both small and great. But when it is time to get down to business – to renounce everything – we begin to use various excuses in order to remain with our passions. “Where are we!” they say. “This high life belongs only to the chosen ones. We are at least somehow... He who is chosen is especially called. Here is the Apostle Paul and others, like him, visibly called...” To this I will say this: did not these chosen ones themselves follow the call of the Lord? Were they drawn by grace, as if bound? They heard the word, submitted and rushed to the Lord. Let there be special chosen ones – and for them everything is special. But there is also a common path for all... Let us follow this common path. In general, we are all chosen. Once the word of truth has touched our ears, it means we are chosen – the Lord calls us, and we are without excuse if we do not follow Him. Look how others addressed themselves... One heard: “Do not hide for yourselves treasures on earth” ( Matt. 6:19 ) – and left everything. Another read: “In vain does man roam! He hoards, and no one knows with whom he will lay it up” ( Psalm 39:7 ) – left vanity and entered upon the solid path of pleasing God. The third looked at the crucifix with the inscription: “Behold, what I have done for you; what are you doing for Me?” – and surrendered himself with all his heart to the Lord. What is this, are all extraordinary callings?! Yes, we hear and read a thousand similar truths every day. Can we consider ourselves uncalled after this? No, brethren, it is not the calling that matters, but the work that we do. How did these converted ones turn? They realized that there is no life except in the Lord, and changed their unworthy life. So it should be with everyone. Internal change, or a turning point, depends on conscientiousness in relation to the recognized truth. And this conscientiousness is always from us. Let us apply it - and we will overcome ourselves. No outsider will enter the inner sanctuary of the heart. There a person decides everything with his conscience and consciousness. Let us stand in ourselves before the face of God and, having more vividly reproduced everything that God wants , and having realized the inevitability and urgency of it for salvation, let us put this covenant in our hearts: from now on I will begin to belong to the Lord with all my heart and to work for Him alone with all my strength. And our election will be accomplished, for election is the combination of our determination with the calling of God. “The Lord is near” ( Phil. 4:5). It comes to everyone and knocks at their hearts, will anyone open it? If the heart is a closed vessel, who is to blame?! The fault lies in our dishonesty towards the known truth. If it were not for this, everyone would always be directed towards the Lord. And is that much required?! After all, we are not completely alienated from the Lord. Only pleasing Him is not in our first place – it is not our main business, but something of an add-on. Our business is pleasing people and worldly customs. Now put pleasing the Lord in first place and rearrange everything else according to the demands of this single goal – and your inner mood will change. Everything will remain the same, only the heart will become new. That’s all! Is that much?!
There is much more I would like to tell you about the same, but I see that I have tired you... You will finish the rest in your own souls. For who, except ourselves, will help the Lord to take possession of our hearts? Oh, when would we submit to Him and surrender our hearts to Him and contemplate Him in ourselves face to face, and all revolve in His light, around Him, as all the luminaries revolve around the sun, turned toward it and illuminated by it, forming their own special harmonious choir! Amen.
St Philaret of New York (+1985)☦️:
On the day of the feast of the Epiphany – the Baptism of the Lord, it would not be amiss for every Orthodox Christian to remember another baptism, the baptism that was performed on each of us, Orthodox Christians, the baptism in which each of us gave through the lips of our godparents a promise to God that he would always renounce Satan and his works and would always unite, “be united” with Christ.
This, I repeat, is especially appropriate for this day. Right now the solemn rite of the great blessing of water will be performed. Its center, its main part, one might say, is the majestic prayer in which the Lord is glorified and the grace of the Holy Spirit is called upon the water to be blessed. This prayer begins with the beautiful words: "Great art Thou, O Lord, and marvelous are Thy works, and not a single word is worthy to sing of Thy wonders." Those who have been at the performance of the sacrament of baptism and were present attentively know that the prayer for the blessing of the water in which a person will be baptized begins with these same words, and the first part of this prayer is absolutely the same, both at the great blessing of water and at the performance of the sacrament of baptism. And only then, in the last part, the prayer at the performance of the sacrament of baptism changes, applicable to this sacrament, when a new human soul will be baptized.
So, it would not hurt us to remember those vows that were given at baptism on behalf of each of us. When a person is baptized as an adult, as sometimes happens now, and especially often in ancient times, then he himself makes vows on his own behalf, and if he is baptized as an infant, then these vows are pronounced for him by his godfather or godmother - "godparents", as the Church calls them . And these vows, in which a Christian promised God to renounce Satan and all his works and to unite, to be united with Christ, these vows are not only forgotten by people, but many do not know anything at all about them and about the fact that these vows were pronounced for them and that they should think about how to fulfill these vows.
But what if on the last day of the history of the human race on earth – on the day of the Last Judgment – it turns out that a person has made vows (or godparents have made vows for him), but he does not know what these vows are and what was promised? What will happen to such a person? Think, brothers, about what it means to renounce Satan and all his works and to unite with Christ.
The times are such that mankind has been seized by a vanity that is contrary to God, in which the enemy of the human race reigns and, as they used to say in the old days, forces almost all people to “dance to his tune.” All this vanity, of which our present life is composed, is a vanity that is contrary to God, in which there is no God, in which the enemy of God rules and governs. If we have made a vow to renounce Satan and all his works, then we must, in fulfilling it, try not to suppress our souls with this vanity, but to renounce it, and remember that, as the Church says, “there is one thing needful” – only one thing is needed – remember that we must unite ourselves with Christ, i.e., not only fulfill His commandments, but also try to unite with Him.
Think about this, Christian soul, on this bright and great holiday, think and pray that the Lord will send you firm faith and determination to fulfill these vows, and not to be absorbed in the vanity of the world and lose connection with the Lord, with Whom you promised to unite forever.
Today's holiday is called the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord, otherwise the Feast of the Epiphany; but those who know the church charter well also know that sometimes in this charter it is also called the "Feast of the Holy Epiphanies" - in the plural.
Why? Here is why: of course, the center of the memories of this festive day is what the singers sang about today - "God the Word was revealed in the flesh to the human race." The incarnate Son of God, about whose birth only a very few knew when He was born, "was revealed to the human race," for His baptism is like His solemn appearance on His ministry, which He then performed until His death and resurrection.
But at the same time, today's holiday is characterized by the fact that, as it is sung in its troparion, on this very holiday "the worship of the Trinity was revealed." All three Persons of the Holy Trinity appeared for the first time in Their separateness, which is why this holiday is called, I repeat, "the feast of the holy Epiphanies." People heard the voice of God the Father: "This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased," the Son of God was baptized by John (and we know from the Gospel that John the Baptist seemed confused when the Savior of the world came to him, and tried to hold Him back), and the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove descended from the Father upon the Son. Thus, for the first time "the worship of the Trinity was revealed," which is why the Church sings this in the troparion, and why it calls this holiday "the feast of the holy Epiphanies."
Christ the Savior appeared to begin His saving ministry. Not long ago here, when there was another great holiday of the Nativity of Christ, we spoke about how the Lord, by His birth in a poor cave, when He deigned to lay Himself in a cattle manger, by this, as if emphatically rejected all earthly glory, all earthly splendor and magnificence, for He did not deign to appear in royal chambers or rich chambers, but precisely in these poor and modest conditions. And by this He immediately showed that He brought a new beginning to earth, the beginning of humility.
See how He is, so to speak, true to Himself, how He now, on today’s great feast, carries out the same principle of humility clearly and undoubtedly for us. For where did He come? To the Jordan. Why? To be baptized by John. But sinners came to John, confessed their sins to him and were baptized. But He was without sin, “untouchable by sin,” absolutely free and pure from it, and yet humbly stands in line with other sinners, as if He needed this cleansing ablution with water. But we know that it was not the water that cleansed Him, the most holy and sinless, but He sanctified the water by deigning to be washed by it, as was sung about today during the blessing of the water: “today the nature of the waters is sanctified.” Thus, Jesus Christ brought the principle of humility to earth, and was true to it throughout His entire life. But that is not all. He also left us a covenant: “Come and learn from Me , for I am meek and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”
Remember another bright, joyful spring holiday - the Annunciation holiday
Here the Most Blessed Virgin Mary hears the Archangel's good news about what will happen through Her - about the incarnation of God. What does Her most holy, pure and immaculate soul say when She comes to Her relative, Elizabeth, to share Her joy with her? She only says: "My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior." This humility was the beauty of Her spirit. From the very story of the Annunciation we know that the Archangel appeared to Her at the moment when She, having read the prophecy of Isaiah about the incarnation of God from the Virgin, did not even think to apply this to Herself, but only thought in the depths of Her humility: "How glad I would be if I were the least servant of this blessed Virgin" ... And then the Archangel Gabriel appears before Her with his good news. The Lord, Himself meek and humble, looked upon Her humility.
He also commanded us humility, contrary to the principles of pride and self-love with which modern humanity is full.
Look, why do we have so many disagreements, both within the church and in the parishes? Because everywhere there is a clash of incandescent human self-love, and if we had that humility to which the Lord calls us, none of this would happen. Let us learn, brethren, from our Savior, Who as the last sinner came to John to be baptized by him, let us learn from Him this God-loving and fragrant virtue, without which, as the holy fathers said, no other virtue can be perfect. Amen.
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