In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

There’s a saying that I remember from my childhood, and I think people still use this saying from time to time: “Still waters run deep”. This saying applies very much to the Mother of God, I believe, and by extension it really needs to apply to us, too. She is the image of the Church. She is the embodiment of the Church. She is the example for us of how to live the Christian life.

“Still waters run deep”. You don’t see the Mother of God being so very vocal, so very visible in all of the Gospels, or even in the time of the Acts of the Apostles. However, we know from secondary sources that she is always there. She is always present. Her way of being there is always a manner of being peaceful, even when she is asking questions about what does the Lord mean about one thing or another. She is peaceful, yet she is self-assured. She is revered by all the Apostles, loved by all the Apostles, loved by people around her; and in the end, in this sort of background humility, she is exalted into the highest ranks in Heaven – in fact, above all the ranks of Heaven. She is “beyond compare more glorious than the Seraphim”. She is spoken of in our hymns now as a “General” over armies: armies of heavenly hosts. Her obedience, her love, exalted her to such an extent that she is above everything else. This is exactly the embodiment of what the Lord is saying – “some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last” (Luke 13:30).

The world in which we live promotes us all the time, every day, in every environment, to do the opposite. We’re exhorted: “push yourself into the front of everything”; “ be a squeaky wheel”; “get your own way”; “make sure that you drive ahead, and get what you want out of life”. The Mother of God in her life did the opposite. She listened for God’s will. She heard God’s will in her heart. She did God’s will. She didn’t have to drive and force anything, because the Lord, in her obedient love, accomplished everything in, with, and through her. She didn’t have to trumpet anything, because the Lord was accomplishing everything in her.

In this, she, herself, is a reflection of WHO IS Jesus Christ, because Jesus Christ, Himself, is not driving Himself into the front of everyone’s attention in the Gospels. Yes, He is very much in the front of our attention, but as people are writing quite truthfully these days (when they are trying to pooh-pooh who He is), He didn’t write anything. People wrote about Him, but He didn’t write anything. In fact, He didn’t say so many things very original. He summed up, rather, in what He had to say, and do, and be, all of the prophets that had come before Him. The Law and the Prophets are fulfilled in Him. He is not innovating; He is fulfilling. He is in the front of the Gospels because He is the incarnate Son of God, but in the world He is scarcely noticed. He is referred to in some secondary sources, very indirectly, but we know Him because of the effects of His love, the effects of the life that flows from Him. It’s the same with the Mother of God.

You and I, Orthodox Christians, need to remember this in the course of our attempt to live a life that is pleasing to the Lord. The Mother of God is our example, as I said, and I’m only repeating what the Fathers tell us about her. The Mother of God is our example of how to live our lives: lives that are full of life-giving love, lives that are full of life, lives that are full of service. The Christian way is imitation of Christ who is Love, and Life, and Service. He is saying to you, and to me: “Come to me, all you who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). He says: “Take my yoke upon you … For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:29, 30). He is the One that is bearing all this weight for us. He is the One that is doing everything for us. He is the One that cares about the brokenness of our hearts, our lives, our pain, and our sorrow. He is the One who continually is serving us by healing us, by consoling us, by renewing us, by giving us hope.

The Lord never has stopped His way of service. It’s this service that we should be living in as well, as an example: love, life, service in imitation of our Saviour, Jesus Christ. We see how this is lived out perfectly in the Mother of God, taking heart that it can be so for us. We see how the lives of the Apostles are filled with the same life, love, and service. We see how effective are their lives because they are so in harmony with the Saviour. We look at the lives of the saints, who are also looking to the Mother of God, and those Apostles, and imitating Christ in the same way. Although some people do have to have degrees, we don’t have to have degrees to be great in the Kingdom of Heaven. Degrees or no degrees, we have to be loving, obedient, humble, and serving persons. Then, whether we have degrees or whether we don’t have degrees, the Lord uses our education, our gifts, our talents, our everything to our welfare, to the building up of the Body of Christ, to the strengthening of His Church. He makes us, like the Mother of God, strong in our weakness, effective in our humility, and even, dare I say it, great in our smallness, and our invisibility.

So, here in our midst, here in N, the Lord is doing this also with us. We have not been a very big, visible or influential community in the way the world understands such things. However, the Lord has been doing much in, and through this community, as He has been doing much in, and through others of our communities. He has been touching lives. He has been healing people. He has been drawing broken people to Himself, and healing them, and renewing them, and making them strong. He is continuing to do this in, and through us.

By the intercessions of the Mother of God, let us determine to be as faithful as we can, as obedient as we can, according to her example, offering our lives in service to our Saviour, and asking that in, and through our lives, someone might see something of Him, and be able to find hope, and consolation. Even if our whole lives are spent, and only one person is encouraged and renewed by our example, our lives are far from empty because every single person created by God is precious to Him. However, I rather think that in any one of our lives, it is not just one person. It’s very likely not just one person that is renewed, and given hope, and consolation by our loving service to the Saviour. If it is only one person, however, our life is still not empty – it is still a fruitful life glorifying our Saviour.

Through the prayers of the Mother of God, let us do our best to turn our lives over to our Saviour, following her example, and do our best to glorify Him in everything, together with His Father, who is from everlasting, and His all-holy, good, and Life-giving Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

† Archdiocese of Canada - Orthodox Church in America