Rejoice Always! - Sermon for the Feast of the Dormition of the Theotokos (2025)

How do we sum up a life? How do we encapsulate a person’s whole being into a few words? Often, we are at a loss at a funeral to fully depict the life of the person being commemorated. We try our best with anecdotes, with words of advice that have stuck with us. And so it is fitting today, when we celebrate not the death, but the passing over from death to Life of the Most Holy Theotokos, to find a way to sum up her life. I would offer her own words, the words she gave in response to the Archangel Gabriel at the Annunciation, as perhaps the most succinct and perfect summation of the life of our Panagia.

“Let it be to me according to thy word.” As we’ve heard those words over and over throughout our lives, we can lose the gravity they contain. We forget what is required of a soul in order to say those things. What purity, what absolute faith and trust in God one must have. We forget the power contained in those words because we ourselves often lack the ability to generate those words in our own hearts. 

“Let it be to me according to thy word.” To give oneself up utterly to God’s will. To be totally available for God. To deny oneself in the extreme. These words can only be uttered by one who spent her entire life dedicated to God. Many of us have spent as much time in monastic life as the Holy Virgin did in the temple, yet how hard is it for us to simply say, “Let it be blessed,” in the face of an untimely or inconvenient request from a brother, from our spiritual father, even from our Abbot?

“Let it be to me according to thy word.” And yet here they come from a 15 year old. The Mother of God began her adult life at the same spot we hope to die at, or at least the same spot we hope to be able to see, if only in the distance. Elder Zacharias of Essex says that these words were the Mother of God’s acceptance of her heavy cross she would bear.

We get a glimpse of what this cross looks like in the Akathist to the Softener of Evil Hearts. Listen to some of the refrains that show the sorrowful life she followed, the heavy crosses she bore. In describing the flight of the Holy Family into Egypt, we sing:

“Rejoice for thou didst bear the entire turmoil of exile!...Rejoice for thou didst remain for seven years among dishonorable pagans”

And after they returned to Israel, her sorrows continue as we sing:

“Rejoice! for thou didst live with the Elder Joseph the carpenter in poverty…Rejoice! for thou didst spend all thy time in hard labors…Rejoice! Mother of God, destined for suffering.”

And at Christ’s trial and passion:

“Rejoice! Thou whose heart was broken by woe...Rejoice! Thou who didst see thy beloved Child given over to trial... Rejoice! Seeing Him tortured… Rejoice, Thou who didst watch all His disciples forsake Him. Rejoice! Thou who didst see thy beloved Son sore wounded… Rejoice! Thou who didst see thy Light as a naked and wounded corpse.”

This is almost unbearable to read because the juxtaposition between what is commanded (Rejoice!) and the pain and suffering she is experiencing is unfathomable. What does this mean?

What does it mean for the Mother of God to rejoice in her pain? What does it mean for the Holy Virgin to rejoice in the unbearably heavy crosses she has to bear? What does it mean to rejoice in the midst of a sword piercing her own heart? It means she is living out what she said three and half decades before, “Let it be to me according to thy word.” It means she is fully submitting herself to the will of God. But what is this will? And who is the God she is submitting to?

Does she submit to God because God demands absolute submission like a tyrant? No! Does she submit to God because God wills suffering? No! She can rejoice in all her sufferings, in all her pain, because the will of God she submits to is that all men should be saved. (1 Tim. 2:4). The Mother of God could rejoice in all her terrible sorrows and her painful trials because she truly desires the salvation of all mankind, just like Her Son does. And she trusted that God would bring about such glorious and radiant fruit from entrusting her whole life to Him, regardless of what crosses she might have to bear, even regardless of whether or not she understood what was happening at the time.

The Holy Virgin lived out fully what St. Paul would later exhort the Thessalonians (and all Christians) to do. St. Paul writes “Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing. In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you” (1 Thess 5:16-18). This is the will of God for all of us, regardless of circumstances, regardless of the people we’re with. Regardless of how we feel. The Fathers asked, “How can we rejoice always?” And they answer, “By doing what St. Paul says two verses later, ‘in everything give thanks.’”

To be clear, rejoicing is not an emotional response. To rejoice does not mean forcing ourselves to feel a certain way when we don’t. To rejoice is not to pretend we’re happy when we’re not. To pretend we’re not overwhelmed by work or crushed by disappointments when we are. To rejoice is not to believe others aren’t causing us pain when they are. Think back on all the verses of the Akathist I recited. Rather, by giving everything back to God in thanksgiving, everything we experience can be a way to find Him. Everything we experience. To thank God for our successes and more so to thank Him for our failures and disappointments. To thank Him for our friends and more so to thank Him for our enemies. So our whole life becomes one of thanksgiving. Our whole life becomes eucharistic. That is how we can rejoice always.

Elder Aimilianos of blessed memory asks, “What sort of heart is it that feels joyfulness?” His answer is surprising: A broken one(The Way of the Spirit 137). The Fathers point out that our hearts can be broken in many ways, and all for our good. They can be broken from contrition over our sins and our inability to change. They can be broken from the patient endurance of our crosses and the circumstances we find ourselves in. They can even be broken from the love of God bombarding our hardened hearts, they can be broken at the majesty and awe of God. Regardless, it is only when our heart is broken that it can be open and available to God. Again, Elder Aimilianos tells us, “Your afflictions point towards Him Who is beyond all afflictions… And your joys… point to Him Who is the source of joy, and so all things reveal God to you” (137-138 Way of the Spirit). This is how the Mother of God could rejoice always.

Let us turn our attention briefly to the fruit that was borne of all this sorrow, and why the Theotokos could rejoice in all things.

The Mother of God loves sinners, she loves fornicators, profligates, harlots. But she loves them too much to leave them in the mire of their sins. She was the guarantor of the repentance of her namesake, Mary of Egypt. By her benevolent protection and care, it wasn’t as if she just gave Mary, a debauched harlot and worse than a harlot, a deathbed confession, although that would already have been more than what she deserved. She didn’t just make Saint Mary a nice normal laywoman who could function in society. She made her a clairvoyant God-bearing eldress who levitated in prayer. What bright and shining fruit! And countless others stuck in the mire of carnal lusts have entrusted themselves to the prayers and protection of the Theotokos and were not put to shame.

The Mother of God loves atheists, even as she weeps at the perdition of their souls. What clearer example can there be than all her miraculous intercessions in Russia during World War II, and in fact throughout the entirety of godless communism? By her prayers and by the blood of the New Martyrs, God wiped away the soviet regime. Tens of thousands of churches have since reopened. Such is the endless harvest the Mother of God reaps.

The Mother of God loves Muslims, even as she sorrows at their terrible blasphemy of Her Son. As we celebrated earlier in the month, when she appeared in glory above the Holy Monastery of Pochaev when Turks were attacking it, she brought Muslims to repentance, some actually demanded baptism, and not only that, but monastic tonsure! Even in our day, we are witnessing the conversion of thousands of Muslims to Orthodoxy, especially in the nation of Georgia, the first portion of the Mother of God. Time would fail me were I to recount all the ways our Most Holy Lady brings her lost children to salvation.

“Let it be to me according to thy word.” This is the legacy of our Most Gracious Lady. Everything before the Annunciation prepared her heart to say these words and everything after was the perfect fulfillment of them. Her heart was broken open and totally receptive to the will of God. She could endure everything—exile and poverty; even the slander, rejection, abuse, and crucifixion of her beloved Son because she willed what God willed—the salvation of the world. O Most Holy Theotokos save us!