St. Alexis Orthodox Christian Church
Endings connect to beginnings at Dormition
August is the last month of the Liturgical Year and
the "end" of the summer for us in Alaska.
The new academic year begins and the weather turns wetter and cooler.
In agricultural regions, these last official months of summer are
the time of ripening, harvesting, of the work of the past year coming
to its conclusion, its fruition. The Jewish New Year comes with the
September moon.
As the image each year of the End, August celebrates the Dormition,
or Falling Asleep of the Virgin, the final Feast of the church year.
The main cathedrals in Russian medieval cities are all named for this
Feast, in the Moscow Kremlin and in Holy Trinity-St. Sergius Monastery.
The Theotokos "falls asleep" and her soul is depicted as
being reborn as a child, wrapped in swaddling clothes, held this time
in her Son's loving embrace. Her death is a transition to a new beginning.
And this is also the meaning of August. Every end is a new start,
every old year passes and inaugurates a new one. The church celebrates
the time of harvest by inviting the faithful to bring an offering
of the first fruits of the summer: apples in Russia, grapes in Greece,
berries in Alaska. By bringing the food we have planted and gathered,
or simply picked from the wilderness, we acknowledge the miracle of
this new and abundant life. The ancient pagans worshipped this fertility,
this energy, which they often personified in gods and goddesses, and
in ceremonies the early Christians considered immodest and immoral.
Nevertheless, the Church does recognize that the Earth and the fruits
it produces have a sacred origin and dimension. In offering food to
God at each Liturgy, the Church returns to Him what is already His:
"Thine Own of Thine own, we offer to Thee, on behalf of all and
for all!" The bread and wine are already God's, since He created
the Earth and endowed it with the properties needed to produce botanical
life. He sustains the sun and allows it to warm and illumine the earth,
and sends "gentle showers on the Earth that it may bear fruit."
He allows the farmer or the vintner to interact with his land, to
plant, fertilize, tend and harvest the crop, and today the truckers
and pilots to transport the crops to processing plants and supermarkets,
where we gain access to this abundance.
In bringing the "first fruits" to the temple on the Feast
of Transfiguration, we acknowledge and render thanks to God for the
miracle of life, made possible by His abundant mercy and goodness,
not only because He set into motion the dynamic process by which the
Earth is capable of producing and continuing life, but because by
His power and will, He sustains and maintains the world, which we
so easily take for granted.
We take life for granted until we become sick, and we take the world
for granted unless we are called to remember that it is all His, His
Creation, His Gift, sustained by His Will and His Grace and His Love.
Only at the End can we look back and appreciate the whole story. Only
in August can we reflect on all that God has given us and done for
us. As the Virgin "falls asleep" we can recall the entire
sacred story that the Church has reviewed and celebrated for us during
the past year, and with the blessing of the "first fruits"
we are challenged to recount all the "good things" that
the Father of Lights has showered upon us in the time of our lives
that has passed.
Let us participate in the blessing of fruits this year, on August
19, with renewed commitment and dedication to be more thankful, more
intensely aware, of our blessings and miracle that life itself is,
which we so often overlook.
And in this spirit of humility and gratitude, may we then, in love,
begin a new year, offering continuous thanks to God for all that He
has done for us, whether manifest or unseen. For certainly He has
"raised us up and endowed us with His Kingdom which is to come."
It is into that Kingdom that the Virgin passes at her Dormition, and
it is into that Kingdom that we have been baptized, and in that Kingdom
we already "eat and drink" at His Table, partaking of the
Heavenly Bread and the Cup of Life. Let us give thanks to the Lord,
as the "old year" ends, the new year begins, and always,
as long as we are able, healthy in body and alert in mind, to offer
eucharist, thanksgiving, to God, preparing for our own dormition,
and transition into Life without End.
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