Amazing holiday. As the first rays of dawn, as the starting point. Maybe it is this holiday, this event is the uppercase of the first Chapter in our human history?
Photo: tatmitropolia.ru
- Homily on the blessed virgin in the Temple
- Introduction of the Theotokos into the temple: what we cannot forget
- The introduction of virgin into the temple: will the era of Church-building era of transformation?
- The introduction of virgin into the temple: the humiliation of women in the Church
- Introduction – the story of those who know how to love
The Priest Andrey Mizyuk. Photo:Ivan Privalov / eparhia-saratov
Yes, the story of the dedication of the blessed virgin to the service of God we know in Scripture, as, indeed, nothing we did not know about her childhood. But the Tradition of the Church reveals to us this page by no accident. The world for many centuries waiting for the birth of this Girl, as it were, waiting for the first gusts of the dawn wind that suddenly something changes in this endless night, which announces that the Sun rises. With the height of the East. And so retreats a time of darkness. So comes the news that the Second Adam is coming to bring out of the haze of the old Adam. Thus is fulfilled the promise given to eve that from her seed will be trampled ancient, cursed serpent, poison of human sin and death.
When the Daughter of the righteous Joachim and Anna was three years old, they are mindful of their vows to God, lead Her to the walls of the temple of Jerusalem. Lead, to devote his Daughter to the service of God. The girl, despite her young age, she climbed the steps, and upstairs she was met by the high priest. And the coming of the spirit, he enters little Mary in the Holy of Holies – the place where the high priest could enter only once a year.
Thus is fulfilled the will of God, so symbolic, we learn that this Girl who entered into the Holy of Holies of the great temple, the most must be the Temple from which the world will be revealed to the incarnated Savior, God made man for the salvation of men. “Now the harbinger of the grace of God and a foreshadow of the salvation of the people…” – with these words the Church sings and praises the beginning of the New Testament. The virgin will be brought up at the temple until Her betrothal to Joseph the righteous, here It grows in prayer, studying the Scriptures and lives in a particular severity. So the beginning of earthly Holiness of the blessed virgin, here She is in anticipation of the news that will bring Her the Archangel Gabriel.
Photo: tatmitropolia.ru
A touching and beautiful story of the beginning of the earthly Ministry of the Mother of God known to many of us. The holiday refers to the number of twelve, and performed every year by the Church on 4 December. But what is surprising in it. The center of the Feast, of course, is the blessed virgin Mary, but it seems that no less attention should be paid to Her parents. After recently celebrating the Nativity, remembering the history of this holiday, we are treated to the events that preceded Her birth.
The misfortune of an elderly couple, who for years have been struggling to conceive a child, which reproached and shunned as if accursed, leads to great joy. The sunset of their lives adorned with the long-awaited birth of the child. After all, it is not great joy not as a reason to finally close the mouths of blasphemers countrymen vilified them. Here – born Daughter, prayers are heard, life made sense.
And what Joachim and Anna? With the same humility and reverence in which they all these years waiting for God’s answer, they promised the Lord to dedicate his Daughter to serve Him.
They gain the Gift, but gratefully dedicate it to those who have left their prayers and affections. It is not the greatest humility of the righteous job who said that God has given Them will be taken.
But there is more than a broken heart job, here the Lord takes away, but people gratefully dedicated to Him for His great mercy, heard the prayer, for the gift of consolation. And comfort it becomes a comfort not only for older spouses, but to the entire fallen World, because the Girl climbing the stairs of the temple, she becomes the Tabernacle of the Creator and Savior of the world.
So, perhaps it is through this celebration we have a special prigotovleniya and the Feast of the Nativity. So through the story of the parents who dedicated the long-awaited Daughter to the service of the Lord, we are reminded about the main thing. What are we willing to devote to the Giver of our many blessings? And here we should, perhaps, be fair to yourself. So if we treat our children as though it were His Gift to us? Maybe not always.
Photo: spbda.ru
A common problem many parents, perhaps, lies in the fact that many of us see their children as extension of themselves, completely oblivious to the fact that our son or daughter is not my property, but a living, unique person, whom God gave to be born through us – the parents of earth, to come into the world, go your way, find a purpose and meaning to this life, and our parent help they can be executed only in one: to help people thereby to become a man. Not to shove it into a prestigious University, not to put it in a warm place, do not force it to continue pravdinskiy, and to see your exclusive path and become free.
The path from mother’s arms to Father’s Kingdom, the way the earthly and Heavenly paths, to see the beauty of life is temporary, and through her love given to him as a gift by God for Eternity.
The most important thing we can give to your child is one day to let him go. And only what we let him go, here and now depends entirely on us.
And we will be able to do it only under one condition.
With gratitude. Dedicating and entrusting all his ways to him who gave us our baby.
It is not less than us wants him to be happy.