DYNAMIS!
A publication of St. George Orthodox Christian Cathedral
Wichita, KS
St. Luke 10:38-42;
11:27-28 (5/2) Gospel for the Feast of the
Theotokos of the Life-giving Spring
St. Luke 10:38-42; 11:27-28, especially vs. 27:“...a certain woman from the crowd raised her voice, and said
to Him, Blessed is the womb that bore You....” Having
no thought to contradict the Lord Jesus, Who characteristically deepens so many
thoughts of others about Himself, we can say that there surely is a lasting, if
lesser, truth in what was spoken by that unnamed woman who lifted up her voice
above the crowd: the womb that bore the Lord, and most especially the Lady from
whose womb He came among us, indeed they hold a special place in
salvation history. The Service to
the Most Holy Lady Theotokos of the Life-giving
Spring most definitely deserves a place in the Church’s liturgical
life. As The Pentecostarion
of Holy Transfiguration Monastery notes, “we chant the following Service
to the Most Holy Lady Theotokos of the Life-giving
Spring, composed by Kyr Necephorus
Callistus Xanthopoulos,
though we do not find such a Service mentioned in the Typicon,
yet it hath been placed here...out of love for the Most Holy Theotokos.”
The Services for the Feast of the Life-giving
Spring are widely celebrated by the Faithful in devotion to the Theotokos. What
these liturgical texts show is not only pious veneration for the Birth-giver of
God but a careful delineation within the process of Salvation between the work
of the Christ our God and the essential, cooperative participation by the Theotokos in that Divine restoration of the world. Christ is the Savior; but she bore Him
for that work; and she was not left untouched but was gloriously transformed by
her motherly relationship to Him.
The Lord Jesus likens salvation to water
flowing from a spring. Thus, at the
Festival of Tabernacles, on the last day of that week-long Jewish Feast, when
water was poured out from a golden pitcher as a libation of thanksgiving to
God, He declared, “'If anyone thirsts, let him
come to Me and drink. He who
believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of
living water'” (Jn. 7:37,38). And whom, may
we ask, drank more deeply of Christ our Savior, than the Theotokos? She, most certainly, drank the water He
gives, never to thirst again, which became in her, “'a fountain of water
springing up into everlasting life'” (Jn.
4:14).
If this transformation in her were not known
by the Disciples at first, its reality was disclosed to them later, as Apostles
of Christ, by the miracle that followed her Dormition;
for when they opened her tomb for the late-arriving Thomas, they beheld not her
body in the tomb but did see her assumed into heaven. Consider this verse sung at Vespers of
the Feast:
O thou all-blameless one...[Christ
Jesus] came down from on high like rain in thy pure womb, and He thus proved
thee, O bride of God, a fountain gushing forth every kind of blessing and all
good things; as well as a flood flowing with lavish benefactions of remedies
unto all that ask thee for strengthening of soul and for health of body, which
thou dost grant to them through the water of God’s grace.
A spring emits water from a source beyond sight; it is the
opening of a channel through which water comes to the surface to refresh. Actually springs are not water, but
points at which water that has dropped down from above as rain and soaked into
the ground breaks out at a definite locale point, clean and pure. Do not confuse the spring with the water
that comes from it.
Analogically, the water is Christ Himself, God
Incarnate, the grace of God for us, which we, like the
Theotokos may drink and not thirst again. Yet we give thanks for springs because
they bring us pure water. We turn
to them, protect them, and value them.
We turn to the Theotokos to intercede for us
as we protect her name and value her prayers on our behalf.
Who would not call thee blest, O all-holy
Virgin? Do thou beseech the
Only-begotten Son, O august and all-blessed one, to have mercy on our souls.