HG Bishop Ioan Casian: The Mother of God stands as a shield above and before us in the Church to introduce us to the knowledge of His Son and to the fulfillment of His will.
“The presence of the Mother of God and the saints in the worship of the Church shows us that the liturgical time is not a simple time but one full of the eternity of God - said HG Bishop Ioan Casian in his sermon at the end of the Divine Liturgy on the occasion of the feast of the Protection of the Mother of God. ‘Today the virgin, before, sits in the Church and with the saints, prays unseen to God, the angels with the hierarchs pray and the Apostles with the prophets dance; that for us the Mother of God prays to the eternal God’ says the text of the feast. For us, the religious services exceed the measurable temporal dimension. The Mother of God is always present with the heavenly powers in the Church when we pray. The kingdom of heaven opens when at the beginning of the Divine Liturgy is given the great blessing. In the Divine Liturgy and the Holy Sacraments, a particular dimension opens that makes us live in advance and mysteriously already the sacrament of the kingdom of heaven and in this way to foretaste eternity.
The consent of the Virgin Mary and the premises for the annulment of sinful logic
The Mother of God is our mother of all. She reveals to us the way of being a parent not only according to the flesh but also according to the faith in spirit. The dialogue between the Mother of God and the Archangel Gabriel that we hear on the feast of the Annunciation shows us the spirit of what it means to be truly a Christian. No one among the people except the Mother of God received the Savior as she did. We find the dimension of being parent, son or daughter of God in the examples of the saints. The one who overcomes the immediate evidences of our materiality is the Mother of God. How will this birth will take place - the Virgin asks - when I don’t know about the man? The Mother of God examines the word of God spoken by the archangel and does not hesitate for a moment to follow it when she receives God's explanation. At that moment she creates the premises for the annulment of the whole sinful logic that followed the sin of disobedience committed by the first humans. Adam and Eve based their knowledge and reasoning on what they will do on a deceit, on an illusion created by the devil. They based their act of knowledge and the gesture they will make on someone limited and immanent to the world not on the direct command, on the word of the eternal God, on the direct communion with the Creator and on the fulfillment of His command. The Word of God puts the light of knowledge in the midst of Paradise - the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It thereby indicates that knowledge is not a purely human attribute but depends on the grace or on the word of God.
The Virgin reveals to us that the faith and prayer of many generations of Old Testament believers added to the presence of divine grace are transformative and stronger than the evidence of our immediate materiality. Our nature even in its materiality has become fruitful of life also because of the power of God who sought to prevent the death of man which was the consequence of sin. Man would have ended up in nothing, he would have returned to nothingness. In the midst of the weaknesses and limitations that were introduced by sin, God found the means to give man the chance of life.
The Mother of God stands as a shield above and before us in the Church to introduce us to the knowledge of His Son and the fulfillment of His will. We rejoice because we have her as a intercessor that carries us under her care in our prayer to God. She is also the protector of us, of the whole humanity, among doubts, weaknesses and disease.
She is the queen of heaven who has martyrs, apostles and saints by her side in prayer. The Mother of God, who is the pinnacle of creation, carries us as Church under her omophorion.
Mother of God example of spiritual and social responsibility
In this turbulent period of the pandemic, our assurance comes from the fact that God is present through His providence in all the events of our world. Fear, panic, exaggerated worry come from the fear of death, from the ungodly, worldly foundation of the life of our society. Above all, it is God who embraces our earthly time and eternity. The Christian knows that whether he lives here or with his soul after leaving this life until the second judgment and the end of the world, he remains alive with God and will be reunited with the body forever. We are called and have the responsibility to seek and follow the true path to the kingdom of heaven. But this does not mean neglecting the world we live in here and now. Generations before us have manifested this responsibility in all ages. Christians had the opportunity and did so especially after the freedom granted to the Church by Emperor Constantine the Great through the edict of 312/313 AD. They endeavored to change certain laws that were not in the spirit of Christian teaching. They created institutions - orphanages, schools, charitable institutions, hospitals for the elderly, etc. The Mother of God is the example of social responsibility too through the birth of the Son of God according to the flesh. Through His birth and his life spent in our world, through His saving deeds, He penetrates, lay a new spiritual foundation, and potentially restores the deep health of our nature in order that it could redevelop in the spirit of His will manifested in the creation of the world and man. The spiritual life to which man is called is a life lived in the social dimension of our relationships here and now. Man is called to transfigure these social relationships so that they reflect the quality of the son or daughter of God for which we were created.”
(edited text)
