Feasts of Meskerem 26
✞✞✞On this day we commemorate the Miracle of the Virgin St. Mary and the feast of St. John the Baptist✞✞✞
✞✞✞In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen!✞✞✞
✞✞✞The Miracle of St. Mary✞✞✞
=> A miracle is a great sign, a happening that’s supernatural and an act that can’t be done with human capabilities. A miracle, when done by our Lord is of His own nature. And when done by the saints is of grace. In Holy Scripture, miracles done by the beloved of God are numerous. But
*It should be understood that miracles can also originate from demons.
*One should not seek out miracles (signs) on a daily basis.
*Trying [from which source the signs originate] and discerning are expected from a Christian.
*As St. John Chrysostom told us in his homily, performing miracles does not save one from the fires of hell. The Lord had also elaborated on the matter (Matthew 7:22, 12:39).
✞There is none that has performed as many miracles after God our Lord as that of the Virgin Mary. Leaving the other signs, she has done many miracles in each of our lives, we, ourselves, are the witnesses. The miracles of our Lady started from the time of the creation of the world.
✞Of course, to comprehend this it takes a broad and grasping mind. The Virgin Mary is the treasury of the mercy of God, she is the entrance of His grace. This is because He chose and loved this. The Mother of Light, after her conception and birth, performed many mighty things. The miracle she did on this day, 2007 years ago, was marvelous.
✞Her uncle, guardian and servant, St. Joseph the elder, after he brought her from the temple, used to chop wood. The time was a period of hardship and he had went for work for months and returned from a far land.
✞He had a philosopher friend called John who told the elder Joseph what he had not noticed. He said, “This child has conceived, inquire into the matter” and went. St. Joseph was shocked. He said, “Let alone in act she doesn’t think of such things” and entered to the house.
✞Then he asked our Lady, “My child! From whom did you conceive?” She replied, “Of the [economy of the] Holy Spirit”. He was confused. The mystery was hidden from him. He started inquiring and worrying saying, “How could a woman conceive without the seed of man?” But, when she noticed that he was anxious, our Lady called him and took him outside.
✞She lodged in the ground a chopped wood that he had left a long time ago and prayed over it. Within a minute, while the elder was looking with his eyes, that dry wood sprouted, bloomed and bore fruit. He was extremely shocked.
✞She said, “My father look! Who did this?” He answered, “My daughter and my lady! It is God.” And she replied, “The one in my womb is God, about Whom Isaiah prophesized, Who is almighty.” And the elder, as St. Iraklis, in the ‘Faith of the Fathers’, told us by saying “bowed to her”, prostrated before her on the ground.
✞✞✞ St. John the Baptist ✞✞✞
=>It is difficult to say that, in the Gospel, there is someone whose honor was mentioned as much as the family of Zacharias, except our Lady. St. Luke started his Gospel with this family and the Holy Spirit inspired him to write the following. Says, “And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless.”(Luke 1.6)
✞ Let’s leave ‘before mankind’, but how transcendent is it to live blameless before God? And to this, awe is appropriate! These, holy husband and wife, were far gone in years without bearing a child as they were barren.
✞ According to the Tradition of the Church, the age of Elisabeth was 90 and Zacharias had reached 100. But the Lord who saw their patience, sent the angel of annunciation, St. Gabriel, to give them [annunciate the birth of] a great prophet, who was greater than men and about whom a prophecy was told about (Isaiah 40.3/ Malachi 3.1).
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