Under Her Mantle

We at the Hermitage live two timezones from the eastern shores of the Russian Land and nearly 8,000 miles from Ukraine. But we join them today in a national holiday, when the hustle and bustle of daily life stops, in order to commemorate the Protection of the Most Holy Mother of God. Today is said to be the most important feast of Russian Orthodoxy apart from Pascha and the Twelve Great Feasts.

The Russian word capturing this is pokrov meaning "cover" generically but in particular on this feast day, "mantle" or "veil." The Most Holy Mother of God shelters us "under her mantle" (we would say in the West) and under the protection of her prayers — all expressed in this word, pokrov.

Here in Polynesia, living as we do on a small rock in the middle of a vast ocean, we marvel at the scope of this veil. As the icon at the top of this reflection depicts, it is likened unto rays emanating from the sun, touching all, warming all, with its life-giving beams. It is visually linked to angel's wings, suggesting that God is everywhere present through His messengers. The prayers and protection of the Most Holy Queen of Heaven are boundless and universal.

Yet, the Mother of God is also seen to keep us under her cloak — a much more personal and intimate experience suggesting her encounter with us individually and her knowledge of our particular weaknesses and needs. In the the Ukrainian icon, Pokrova (also posted) she protects particular figures, a monarch and a Hetman (or general) of the Ukrainian Cossacks.

We think of Psalm 91:

We think of our Lord's related image,

Let us go back to the image with which we began — Mary of Bethany sitting at the feet of the Lord Jesus. Is she not a chick covered by the safety of His feathers? Jesus declares, "This is the one needful thing."

Both this dimension of intimacy and of universal protection are perceived in Russia as the Pokrov-Protection of the Most Holy Theotokos. She is seen to protect all the Russian Land. And, by that fact, she binds together this most diverse land — with its thirty-five official languages and 100 minority languages — into a one Russian people. In fact, we might say, that under the wing of Russian Orthodoxy the Church's faithful, scattered all over the world, are fathered as sons and daughters of Holy Rus' — not a geography, but a holy spiritual being, says our First Hierarch Metropolitan Hilarion Kapral.

Our Hermitage is devoted to the Most Holy Theotokos. She is our Patroness and our Most Holy Protectress. Each of us here .... You see we live together as hermits, individually. We pray together. We work together. We eat together. Yet, we are individual hermits living in a lavra. Each one of us here individually thinks of her as being his or her Most Blessed Mother, Who hears our prayers and knows our struggles and aspirations. We may sit before the Altar here and see her depicted twice, meditating on these holy images. She is present to each of us as a mother. We are her children.

Yet, we know that in her universal love we are gathered among all people born into the world, both the quick and the dead, who mysteriously are touched by the warming rays of her beams and who are gathered together under a vast veil .... if they will .... wings that reach out to gather all of us, if we will, Jesus says. As with all things, her love and the love of Her Most Sovereign Son, go out to all, to each living soul and heart, where it is received .... or ignored.

How do we receive this love as a most honored guest is received? Tell all whom you know .... If you are not baptized, be baptized! If you are not churched, find a faithful congregation! If you do not pray, then begin and end each day with at least a brief prayer. But, above all, do not ignore God. Do not ignore His Most Holy Mother. For They do not ignore you, nor have They forgotten you.

On this day especially, remember Your Most Blessed Mother. Her prayer is simple: that each of us be the apple of her eye and that each live under the shadow of her wing.