THE ASSUMPTION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY HOLY MOTHER OF GOD

The Lord who commanded on Sinai with the fifth commandment: honor your father and your mother, showed by His example how one should respect one’s parents. Hanging on the cross in agony, He remembered His Mother and pointing to the apostle John, He said to her: woman, here is your son! Then he said to Jovan: there you are, mother! And having thus taken care of His Mother, He breathed his last. John had a home in Zion in Jerusalem, where the Mother of God settled and stayed until the end of her days on earth. With her prayers, gentle advice, meekness and patience, she helped the apostles of her Son a lot. She spent most of the time until her death in Jerusalem, frequently visiting places that reminded her of great events and the great deeds of her Son. In particular, she often visited Golgotha, Bethlehem and the Mount of Olives. Among her longer journeys, her visit to St. Ignatius the God-bearer in Antioch, visit of St. Lazare the four-day old, bishop of Cyprus, visit of St. Gori, which she blessed, and dealing in Ephesus with St. John during the great persecution of Christians in Jerusalem. In her old age, she often prayed to the Lord and her God on Jelenska Gora, the place of His Ascension, to take her from this world as soon as possible. On one occasion, Archangel Gabriel appeared to her and announced that she would be laid to rest in three days. And the angel of God gave her a palm branch, which will be carried at her funeral. She returned home with great joy, wishing in her heart to see all the apostles of Christ one more time in this life. The Lord granted her this wish, and all the apostles, carried by angels and clouds, suddenly gathered at John’s house in Zion. She saw the holy apostles with great joy, encouraged them, counseled and comforted them; after that, he peacefully breathed his last to God without any physical pain or illness. The apostles took the coffin with her body, from which an aromatic smell came out, and, accompanied by many Christians, carried it to the garden of Gethsemane to the tomb of St. of Joachim and Anna. A cloud shielded them from the evil Jews according to the providence of God. A certain Jewish priest, Athonius, reached into the coffin with his hands with the intention of rummaging through it, but at that moment the angel of God cut off both of his hands. Then he cried out to the apostles for help, and was healed after declaring his faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. The Apostle Thomas was absent, again by God’s Providence, so that a new and glorious secret about the Holy Mother of God could be revealed. On the third day, he also arrives and wishes to kiss the body of the Most Pure. But when the apostles opened the tomb, they found only the shroud, and the bodies were not in the tomb. That evening, she appeared to the apostles, – surrounded by a multitude of angels, and said to them: “Rejoice, I will be with you forever.” It is not known exactly how old the Mother of God was at the time of her success, but the prevailing opinion is that she had passed 60 years of his earthly life. The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, or Midday (Međudnevnica), is one of the greatest Christian holidays. It is one of the five feasts of the Virgin Mary, which are a red letter (major holiday) in the church calendar. It is the last major holiday of the church year, which begins on September 1 and ends at the end of August. This holiday commemorates the death of the Mother of God and, according to church tradition, the day when she ascended to heaven and “gave her spirit into the hands of the Savior”. Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary belongs to the order of the Virgin Mary holidays. The Serbian Orthodox Church and other Orthodox churches that use the Julian calendar celebrate it on August 28, or August 15 according to the Julian calendar, when the 14-day fast ends.