All Generations Will Call Me Blessed: Sermons on the Mother of God

by St Philaret of Moscow

Do you see something strange or, as it seems to you, incorrect in the words and deeds of your neighbor? Don’t hurry to accuse and condemn him if you do not hold the responsibility of a father, pastor, ruler, or instructor. Do not be righteous like the Pharisee, who found no other righteous people in the world other than himself: I thank You that I am not like other men—extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector. Instead, be righteous like Joseph, who was good and meek.

And You, O Eternal One, Who is one in essence with the Father, even after You spoke as no man has ever spoken , even after You performed miracles that no man can perform unless God is with him,, did they know You, from Whom the only true knowledge proceeds as light from the sun? If they knew, they would never have spoken so irreverently: Is this not the carpenter’s son? They would never have rejected You so flippantly: As for this fellow, we do not know where he is from. Had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. If these blind people could not see the stars in heaven or the very Sun Himself, if they did not recognize men who were clearly sent by God and even incarnate Wisdom Himself, then it is not so strange that the world does not recognize those who belong to God. God’s Providence does not reveal His chosen to the world, and their own humility hides them from their fellow men.

You may profess the Name of the Lord with your lips and with your faith; however, if you confessed as the holy confessors and martyrs did, amidst the horrors of persecution, while being threatened with death for your faith, your confession would not be a mere frivolous word, but it would also be a powerful deed. Then it would be clear that you confess the Name of the Lord unto salvation. But without that, who can know if the confession of his lips comes from true internal strength or from living faith? In the spring, some trees bud that will never bring fruit, for whether their roots are shallow, or they don’t have enough sap, they will wither and fade. What if your tree will only bear small and bitter fruits? What if your apparent faith, which calls itself Orthodox and may even present itself as miracle-working, is actually accompanied by a carnal and sensual lifestyle, by deeds of iniquity and unrighteousness? In that case, no matter how impressive the buds, no matter the abundance of flowers, you cannot hide the fact that the tree is not cultivated, but wild. For every tree is known by its own fruit. These are the words of the Gardener Himself.

No matter how much you might trumpet about your faith, no matter how much you decorate it with words of confession, your unrighteous deeds and impure life reveal what you are in actual fact. And so, do not delude or be deluded. You do not belong to the good, cultivated trees of the garden of Christ, but to a garden where every plant which My heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted, unless the plants be cultivated with new spiritual deeds of righteousness and holiness.

Miracles are glorious without words; mysteries often are better contemplated in reverent silence rather than a brazen attempt to explain them; virtues and perfections—oh, if only it was enough for us only to speak of virtues and perfections! If only we did not need to remind ourselves of imperfections and even of sins! However, I believe many will agree with me when I say that every day, if not several times in a day, we are brought to confusion by this or that word or event, and that this confusion often extends to our own words, actions, and relations with others. Such confusion ruins our calm and dims the clarity of our soul.

Let us now compare our typical inner confusion to the blameless confusion of the most blameless Virgin. Mary is confused by a word of praise, even though there is no word of praise capable of worthily extolling her, for no praise could be too great for her. But is this how we encounter praise when it enters our ears? Do we think that though the words seem to be coming from an angel, it might still be a false word of temptation? Are we ashamed of undeserved praise, do we abhor passionate praise, do we fear even justified praise, lest it put to sleep our virtue or taint it with impurity? Does not our careless heart swallow praise whole like a sweet morsel, though it might be a sweetened poison? Does not our insatiable self-love reach shameless levels when begging for praise or when simply ascribing it to ourselves? Without any shame, some say of themselves: I am a good Christian; I am a true son of the Church. And they remain calm when speaking these words! But I must admit that I would prefer if they had a bit of dubious self-doubt instead of excessively careless and overconfident calm that might end with a much more terrible confusion down the line. Mary is confused by a word that clashes with her humility. But are we not, on the contrary, often distressed by words that clash with our pride? Not only words that are actually hurtful or actions that are truly insulting cause us to abandon our patience, but even trivial inconveniences, inadvertent words, or justified and temp...

Lord! We do not investigate Your actions, but rather we desire to learn from Your salvific wisdom. Do not find us guilty of testing the scriptures, but instead give us the grace of discernment.

When your parents, relatives, instructors, superiors require of you something that is contrary to your thoughts, your inclinations, or your taste, but is necessary or beneficial or at the very least harmless, then you should offer your thoughts, your inclinations, your taste as a sacrifice to the requirements of obedience. Remember Jesus, the Wisdom of God, Who was subject to Joseph the carpenter.

I will quickly say here that I would earnestly desire that of our wandering brethren, who, before the judgment of Christ, have abandoned the priesthood, look at the example of the mother of God. For they have punished themselves through the willful abandonment of priesthood to complete chaos, allowing themselves to be guided by women in services, women who are doubtless not wise but foolish! For what Virgin other than a foolish one would dare put on herself, within the Church, that which the most holy Virgin Theotokos herself did not dare assume? Now let us look at a different spectacle, also too immense in space, but now visible because of the light that revealed itself after the death of the mother of God. As soon as she died, the entire assembly of apostles, as pious tradition tells us, was gathered from all direction by the Spirit of God, not to lament her passing, but rather to celebrate her burial. As once before the doubt of Thomas became proof of the resurrection of Christ, so now the dilatoriness of Thomas becomes the means of glorifying the ascension of the mother of God, which to that point was hidden, just as her life on earth was hidden. Having accepted the glory of God in the heavens, from that moment she no longer rejected human glory on earth, which up to that moment was not appropriate for her humility, and which now has become beneficial and useful for all who live on earth.

O Christian! Be, and do not seem to be! This is one of the most important rules for your life. Know the incomparable dignity of a meek, quiet, secret virtue. For it is natural for virtue to be secret on earth, because it has a heavenly birth, and it exists for heaven alone. And so, be virtuous in secret, and preserve your virtue from the eyes of men, which are often impure and pass on their impurity to the actions of others. Instead, carefully and constantly offer your virtue to the pure and purifying eye of God. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly. Amen.

Wondrous are Thy works, O Lord! Wondrous are thy mysteries, O Theotokos! Who hears your quiet words, spoken in the secret room, closed for prayer? Who could predict what wondrous deeds your quiet words would lead to? Does the world even sense this moment, a turning point in its fate, during which the relationship between earth and heaven has been totally transformed? Does Rome even imagine, in its misguided dreams of universal dominion, that in one of its distant provinces, some unknown daughter of kings that calls herself a slave of the Lord has spoken a decree that will establish for the world a new, better, Most High Lord, while declaring for Rome a destruction of its proud and self-willed Lordship? Do the glorious oracles of the pagans even guess that the mouth of an obscure virgin uttered a prophecy that would force them all to fall silent, that would cast down the idols and their houses, that would put an end to blood sacrifices, that would destroy the blood-thirsty priests of the old order? Do the wise of this world have any idea that at the voice of a Hebrew woman Wisdom itself, unknown until then, descended from heaven, this being the Wisdom that will cast down the wisdom of the wise and reject the reason of the knowledgeable, but will reveal mysteries to children, mysteries that the wise cannot understand?

Obedience, by its very name, means to follow the one whom we hear, both in instruction and in command.1 But in the exalted, essential, spiritual sense of the word, obedience means the subjection of human will, as created and contingent, to the will of God, which is creative and almighty. This meaning immediately reveals to us the responsibilities, benefits, and importance of obedience.

If you sincerely wish to know the will of God, you have an angel (i.e., messenger) who is close to you and ready to help. This is your conscience. Listen to your conscience; don’t drown out its quiet voice by the noise of your passions, and the will of God will begin to reveal itself to you, and you will walk on the path of obedience. There is a more reliable and more complete knowledge of the will of God, which you can find in the holy books, hear in the Church, see in the examples of the saints. Listen to them, and the will of God will become clearer to you, and obedience will become easier and more assured for you.

Prosperity comes, and it announces to you the will of God that you thank God. Disaster comes and announces to you God’s will: be patient in suffering. And obedience may appear not only in your acting according to the will of God, but also in not acting contrary to the will of God, especially if you suffer by God’s will without complaining. Find the courage to answer the messenger of this most exalted lot: “let it be according to thy word.” But learn also to say, when you see your cross, Not as I will, but as You will, O Heavenly Father!

Jerusalem fell. Jeremiah sat over the ruins, lamenting over the reasons for its fall. What reason, do you think, did the prophet reveal for the disaster that befell Jerusalem? Perhaps there were more than one, but he mentioned that the most important was this: Jerusalem did not remember its own death. She did not consider her destiny. And so, when the usual flow of earthly, corruptive things does not inspire people to think of death, when they do not pay attention to the ones admonishing them with this short word of salvation, and sin increases, then God, who does not want the eternal death of a sinner, announces human mortality through much louder means for the spiritually deaf: through storms, calamities, and destructive events. Brothers, fellow communicants in death and immortality, let us not set aside remembrance of death, so that we may not sin, but be saved, both temporally and eternally. Amen.

Whoever you might be, fellow wanderer in this earthly life, hear me now. Sooner or later, both your soul and mine will stand before the invisible domain of the age to come. Have we thought about what we will encounter there? Who will greet us? Will we be found worthy of having our souls borne by the angels to the mansions of light, like the soul of the poor man Lazarus? Or perhaps you do not think of this, and instead imagine that you might manage without this honor? Do not delude yourself. It is true that this is an honor for those who are worthy, but is it not also an aid for those in need? If we need the protection and guidance of angels in this visible life, will we not need them all the more when we step into the unknown and limitless invisible world? Now the physical world stands before us like a wall that separates us from the bright kingdom of heaven, but it also protects us from the dark kingdom of hell. But now, more or less, the influence of the abyss comes through to reach us, and so we need the helping influence from the kingdom of light all the more! What will happen when our souls, separated from our bodies, step beyond the threshold of the physical world and enter into direct contact with the spiritual world? Will we not then be threatened by an open attack from the dark powers, at the moment when we will not be able to say, as the Sinless One said, The ruler of this world is coming, and he has nothing in Me?