Our Lady the Virgin Mary: Mother of All the Saints(1970)
This short pamphlet is a transcription of a lecture by the late Bishop Youannis of Gharbiyya on St Mary. As the editor’s introduction indicates, Bishop Youannis cultivated a special connection with St Mary, the patroness of his original monastery (Dayr al-Suryan), and even wrote about a vision he once had of the Virgin in a text eventually published as “I saw there” [Ra’aytu hunāk]. This translation was originally produced on Treasures of the Coptic Church in English, and has been edited and annotated for ACCOT.
Our Lady the Virgin Mary
Mother of All the Saints
Bishop Youannis of Gharbiyya
Contents
1. Introduction
2. Our Lady the Virgin
3. The Virgin, Full of Grace
4. Hail to You, O Full of Grace
5. Do Not Be Afraid
6. The Life of Submission
7. Behold the Maidservant of the Lord
8. Love
9. The Praise of the Virgin
10. For He Has Regarded the Lowly State of His Maidservant
Introduction
For the passing of the shining light and faithful garden, His Grace Bishop Youannis.On Wednesday, November 4, the Coptic Orthodox Church called to the Heavenly glory a hierarch and most greatly esteemed pontiffs of the church our blessed and beloved father, His Grace, Bishop Yoaunes . We bid him farewell after about 16 years in the service of the diocese with much effort in ecclesiastical education, and after he filled the library of the church with a high number of valuable writings on spirituality, dogma, history, and rites of the church.
This year, we celebrate the 10th year anniversary of his departure to the community of the saints, and for this reason, we have ensured that we publish this series of small writings on different occasions in memory of this luminous light and fruitful garden, His Grace Bishop Youanes, who even though he has died, will continue to speak.
This time, we have published a lecture of his entitled, The Holy Virgin St. Mary: The Mother of all the Saints. We have chosen this topic because of the strong bond of love that bound His Grace to the pure
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St. Mary whom he always called, “My mother.” This was not only because he was tonsured a monk in the monastery that carried her name, The Monastery of the Virgin St. Mary — al-Suryan (The Syrian Monastery), but because of the strong relationship of love for her in his heart, as he constantly repeated praises for her with joy. When he reached her part in the liturgy in the Commemoration of the Saints, he would say it as one who was truly receiving the Queen of the heavenly and the earthly. She was also the one he saw in a vision which we published with the title, “I saw there.”
We wish for our beloved father repose in the bosom of the saints which he wrote their stories and the martyrs whose bodies and relics he honoured, and that he always remember us his children before the throne of grace. By the prayers of our beloved father, the thrice-blessed Pope Shenouda III, may God prolong his life for us.
Until the next book on Martyrdom and the Life of Purity.
To God be all glory and honor from this time and forever Amen.
Subdeacon Guirguis Ibrahim Saleh
Servant and Disciple to Bishop Youannis of Thrice-Blessed Memory
July 21 1997 AD
Abib 24 1712 AM
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Our Lady the Virgin: The Mother of All the Saints
I would like to speak to you this evening about some of the traits of the holy virgin as the mother of all the saints.As you all know, the saints in our church have an order at which the holy Virgin Mary is at the top. She is above all the heavenly, the angels and archangels, the Cherubim and the Seraphim, and the innumerable hosts in the heavens. She is above them all because she is the Queen, the mother of the King. For this reason, in the Coptic Orthodox Church, we never draw an icon of her alone, but always show her with her Son because her rank is taken from her being the mother of the King. She is the queen, the mother of the King. The traditional picture of her in the church is the Virgin
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holding the Lord Christ in her left hand such that she is on His right hand, fulfilling the prophecy of the psalmist, “At Your right hand stands the queen in gold from Ophir” (Ps 45:9).
The queen is the Virgin Mary and for this reason we draw a crown on her head, being the queen of the heavenly and the earthly. The holy virgin is not ever separated from the Lord Christ.
For this reason, before the Offering of the Lamb, we chant the hymn Tenouōsht. This hymn is translated as, “We worship the Father of light, and His only-begotten Son, and the Spirit the Paraclete, the co-essential Trinity.”
After that, we chant the hymn, Shere Maria. What is the relationship between these two hymns?
The holy virgin, as I said, is never separated from the Lord Christ. The hymn, Tenouōsht is said before the Offering of the Lamb, and the holy virgin
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is the one who carried this Lamb. She carried Him in her womb and the Lord Christ took flesh from her. For this reason, in the Confession, the priest says a confession that is very strong and theologically deep, “I believe, I believe, I believe and confess to the last breath that this is the life-giving Flesh that Your only-begotten Son, our Lord, God, and Savior Jesus Christ, took from our Lady, the Lady of us all, the holy Theotokos, Saint Mary. He made It one with His divinity without mingling, without confusion, and without alteration…”
The virgin has a place that surpasses all the saints in Heaven and on earth. Her intercession is powerful and acceptable to her beloved Son as a result of her status as mother. She is not only a saint, but a mother, and we are all her children. All the father starting from St. Irenaeus of Lyon (the 2nd half of the second century) called
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the holy virgin the Second Eve, because the first Eve is the mother of all humanity, and the holy virgin is the new Eve, the mother of the new creation. She is not only a saint, but a mother that senses all the needs of her children. For this reason, I would like to speak to you this evening about some of the characteristics of the holy virgin St. Mary that we may all benefit from them.
The Virgin, Full of Grace
When the announcing angel Gabriel — an archangel sent from God to announce to her the divine pregnancy — appeared, he said to her, “Hail to you, O full of grace” (Lk 1:28).
Our teacher St. Paul takes about the state of humanity and says, “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells” (Romans 7:18). But the Virgin Mary is in a different situation that differs from all humanity, for she is full of grace, and
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God was preparing her. She was raised in the temple from the age of three years old. The witness of heaven is enough that she is full of grace, “Hail to you, O full of grace.” We do not read in the entire Bible, be it the Old or New Testament that anyone was greeted with a heavenly vision in this manner or received such a witness from heaven. “Hail to you, O full of grace. The Lord is with you.”
Here, I would like to clarify that the phrase, “The Lord is with you” is not a form of prayer like when someone asks me to pray for him and I say, “God be with you, my son.” The phrase, here, is not a prayer or wish but a reminder of the reality that God is truly with her. “The Lord is with you.” After nine months, she will give birth to Emmanuel whose name means “God is with us.” She was with God in her life and for this reason God was with her and then for the act of Salvation and Incarnation, the second Person of the Trinity, the Son of God, the Word, took flesh from her.
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Hail to You O Full of Grace, the Lord is With You. Blessed are You Among Women
The angel announces these witnesses coming from Heaven as a messenger of the Lord of Hosts. He cannot utter a single one of these words unless he was supplied with them from God Himself.
There was a wondrous position for the holy virgin – and there is no wonder in this for it is expected that God will prepare for this person whom He knows that He will take flesh from her. For this reason, the holy virgin is different than all the saints.
These words caused the young girl to be astonished and troubled by his words. Can anyone bear the vision of an angel? Some may wish to see this in a dream… but for the Virgin, this was not a dream, but a vision which she saw in a state of consciousness. When she saw him, she was troubled.
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Do Not Be Afraid Mary, For You Have Found Favour with God
She found favour with God, and he [the angel] began to announce to her the divine pregnancy. She was astonished and asked, “How can this be? I am not married.” Her response reveals that she was insistent on living out a life of celibacy and this was certain inside of her, not merely a desire. “How can this be for I do not know a man?” Here, Archangel Gabriel the announcer began to explain the words to her and tell her what will happen, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God” (Lk 1:35). This is what we say in the Divine Liturgy, “who of the Holy Spirit and of the holy Virgin Mary was incarnate and became Man.”
With this annunciation, the angel gave her a sign that she may rejoice:
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Now indeed, Elizabeth your relative has also conceived a son in her old age; and this is now the sixth month for her who was called barren. For with God nothing will be impossible. (Lk 1:36)
Yes, there is nothing impossible for God. Elizabeth, who is barren, conceives a son in her old age. For this reason, she thanks God and says,
Thus the Lord has dealt with me, in the days when He looked on me, to take away my reproach among people (Lk 1:25).
Barrenness was one of the signs of God’s wrath in the Old Testament because blessing was in the abundance of descendants, “multiplying I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heaven and as the sand which is on the seashore” (Gen 22:17). Thus, abundance of descendants was one of the signs of blessing and for this reason it was considered that God was wrathful on the woman that was unable to bear children.
“This is now the sixth month for her who was called barren. For with God nothing will be impossible…” What is impossible with men is possible with God for there is nothing impossible
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for Him. What was the response of the holy virgin? This is the first point:
The Life of Submission
The first characteristic that I would like to consider is the life of submission. The holy virgin answered the angel, “Behold the maidservant of the Lord [maidservant or slave]! Let it be to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38). May this submission be in our lives. I personally hold a very firm belief that the life of Christian perfection is the life of complete submission. St. Paul the apostle affirms this when he says, “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me” (Galatians 2:20). For as long as I remain with Christ, He lives in me, meaning that He acts as He wills. I do not do anything of my own. This is the life of Christian perfection. For this reason, I tell those who contact me to receive
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spiritual guidance to live the life of submission. I instruct them to submit their lives to the Lord because we do not know what is good for us. I may see that this path is good, but it may not be right for me. Thus, I must lift everything up to God in prayer and submit even if what will happen to me after that is a very difficult matter. However, it is still better to accept this difficulty from the hand of God, “For the bitterness that God chooses for me is better than the sweetness that I choose for myself.”
Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word. (Lk 1:38)
The truth is that the Lord Christ, to Him be the glory, gave us this teaching in what is known as the Lord’s prayer (Our Father who art in Heaven…) which we repeat multiple times
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a day, and everyone knows it, even small children. In a part of it we say, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven” (Mt 6:10). May Your will be done here as it is also done in Heaven. God has distinguished us from the rest of the creation by granting us free will. By free will, I am able to live with God or leave Him, to walk in a good path or an evil path.
God gave us free will, but unfortunately, we sometimes abuse it. For this reason, we should train ourselves very strongly to completely submit all things to God.
The life of complete submission is what the saints did such that they did not utter a single word unless they felt that God placed this word on their lips. David the prophet said, “Open my lips and my mouth shall show forth Your praise” (Ps 51:15).
You, O Lord, are the One who opens my lips …
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The difference between us and the saints is that they did nothing unless they felt that God willed for them to do it. This is the life of perfection and we see this life in the mother of us all, the holy virgin, when she says to the angel, “Behold the maidservant of the Lord.”
I would like to say a word to you as we speak about the life of submission. May we take the blessing of voluntary submission, because sometimes God in His wisdom carries out His will in a certain matter in our lives. For this, we will receive the blessing of voluntary submission if we accept this matter with thanksgiving and joy.
Our teacher St. Paul in his epistle to Philemon, when he is speaking to him in regards to a slave named Onesimus who left Philemom and went to St. Paul to serve with him, writes, “I appeal to you for my son Onesimus, whom I have begotten while in my chains, who once was unprofitable to you, but now
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is profitable to you and to me. I am sending him back. You therefore receive him, that is, my own heart, whom I wished to keep with me, that on your behalf he might minister to me in my chains for the gospel. But without your consent I wanted to do nothing, that your good deed might not be by compulsion, as it were, but voluntary” (Philemon 10–14). For this reason, I say to you, take the blessing of voluntary submission. God left for us in the Holy Bible commandments for God does not leave the world to wander in whichever direction it wishes, but God who alone is wise, manages and directs everything in the universe. When the holy virgin says, “Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word,” we read after that the angel departed from her. The message has been sent and the virgin accepted it, “Let it be to me according to your word.” The second thing that we notice about the virgin and wish to discuss is:
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Love
We notice that when the angel said to the holy virgin, “Now indeed, Elizabeth your relative has also conceived a son in her old age; and this is now the sixth month for her who was called barren. For with God nothing will be impossible” (Lk 1:36). How wonderful … She exceedingly rejoiced that God had granted Elizabeth a child, and what did she do? The Gospel says, “Now Mary arose in those days and went into the hill country with haste, to a city of Judah” (Lk 1:39). Traveling during this time was not easy, especially for a young girl like the virgin. How will she travel amidst the hills in where thieves would gather and dwell as we read in the parable of the Good Samaritan when Christ says, “A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, who stripped him of his clothing, wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead” (Lk 10:30).
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How did this young girl possess the strength to walk among the hills? This points to the great love that she had in her heart towards Elizabeth and the complete faith she had that God is with her.Let us talk about love. “Now Mary arose.” It seems that she immediately and quickly arose. She quickly arose because her heart was filled with love for Elizabeth. She arose to share with her in her joy and congratulate her. She arose quickly because the feelings of love moved her to go quickly through the hill country to the city of Judah.
The truth, beloved, is that I feel that the time which Christians who carry the name of the Lord Jesus Christ most need the commandment of love is today. Yes, the problems of life and its distractions have increased, but this does not mean that we forsake our love for one another. For love is not only
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in asking about, but also in caring for others. We, as Christians, must feel deeply that we are members of one body. The One Body is the Body of the Lord Christ and the Head of this body is Christ Himself. As our teacher St. Paul says, “if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it” (1 Cor 12:26). If one member is in pain, all the members groan in pain with it. So, what then of our feeling for one another? The truth is that if we felt for each other, our state would have changed. The Christian of old would immediately offer up a fervent prayer on behalf of anyone he heard an unpleasant word about and he would not cease praying until God had mercy on this person. But these days, we hear bad news and are in constant war with the evil powers for we are in the last days.
Beloved, the Lord Christ has given us a sign of the approach of the last days and said, “And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold” (Mt 24:12). What is meant here is that the love of many will grow cold towards God,
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consequently, our love for God springs out of a love for one another. It is not possible for a person to love God and not love his brother. The Lord Christ, to Him be the glory, summed up the Ten Commandments in a double commandment, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbour as yourself.” The Lord clarified who your neighbour is when He told the parable of the Good Samaritan and said that the neighbour is the one “who showed mercy on him” (Lk 10:37).
Beloved, we must have love for one another and have the same care that we may have one, holy life.
We need to love one another, beloved, for this is the commandment of the Lord, “By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love
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for one another” (Jn 13:35). Disciples, here, refers to believers for love is required of all.
This is the sign, “if you have love for one another.” This is the sign that distinguishes us from those in the world, or how will we be a light to the world if we hate one another? This love will not be if we do not have a personal relationship with God and love for His blessed Person. This is the love that moved the holy virgin St. Mary to visit Elizabeth and the reaction to the love was that Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit by Mary’s entrance into her house. She said to her, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! But why is this granted to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For indeed, as soon as the voice of your greeting sounded in my ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy” (Lk 1:42-44). John the Baptist is the first one to bow down and worship the Lord Jesus Christ which the fathers of the church interpret him leaping in his mother’s womb as worshiping with joy. “Blessed is she who believed, for there will be a fulfillment of those things which were told her from the Lord” (Lk 1:45).
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The Praise of the Virgin
I would like to move to meditating on some of the words that were stated in the praise that reveal some characteristics of the holy virgin.“And Mary said: ‘My soul magnifies the Lord, And my spirit has rejoiced in God my Saviour.”
Notice the phrase, “My soul magnifies.” We see this in the psalms, “To You, O Lord, I lift up my soul” (Psalm 24:1), “My soul clings to the dust” (Psalm 119:25). The soul in the Holy Bible refers to the Spirit. You know that the person as a living being is composed of a body, soul, and spirit. This is why we say in the Divine Liturgy, “Make us worthy, O our Master, to partake of your holy mysteries unto the purification of our souls, bodies, and spirits that we may become one body and one spirit…” Therefore, when the holy virgin says, “My soul magnifies the Lord,” this exemplifies how the words are coming from her inner depths.
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There is a story that I will never forget when I met with a righteous person who was a contemporary of our generation. He is the reposed Mr. Sadiq Rofail from Alexandria. When I met with him after the Divine Liturgy in the church of St. George in Sporting, he said to me something that I will never forget, “When we lose the Spirit, we begin to worship God with our voice.” Are voices what are needed in the liturgy? No, what is required is that the prayer be from my depths.
“My soul magnifies the Lord.” My soul, meaning my depths, and David the psalmist says, “And all that is within me, bless His holy name” (Ps 103:1).
“And my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.” It rejoices because it is a deep joy that St. Peter speaks about saying, “you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory” (1 Pt 1:8) …and what is the reason for this joy, “receiving the end of your faith—the salvation of your souls” (1 Pt 1:9).
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“My spirit rejoices in God my Saviour for He has regarded the lowly state of His maidservant.”
These words are not used by the holy virgin to speak about herself for a person can never say about himself that he is humble, but the Holy Spirit is the One who uttered these words. “For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed.” These are the words produced by the Holy Spirit.
For He has regarded the lowly state of His maidservant
We want to know what humility is. The definition of it that I am comfortable with is that humility is for a person to truly know himself and that he is a handful of dust. It is to know that all that his talents are from God. There is nothing good in any person, but as St. Paul says, “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells” (Rom 7:18).
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All that is in me in terms of gifts and talents is from God.
Humility is the foundation of all the virtues. The fathers liken it to the foundation upon which the entirety of the spiritual life is built.
My beloved children, may we acquire the virtue of humility and imitate the Lord Jesus Christ who is meek and humble and His mother whose fast we celebrate.
May God bless these words for the glory of His Name, preserve His church, preserve your lives, and bless you. To our God be all glory and honor from now and forever, Amen.?
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How to cite this text (Chicago/Turabian):
Youannis, Bishop of Gharbiyya. Our Lady the Virgin Mary: The Mother of All the Saints [al-Sayyidat al-‘adhrā’ Maryam: Umm jamī‘ al-qiddīsīn]. al-Abbasiyya, Cairo: al-Anba Ruweis, 1997. Translated by Mariam Guirguis. In Archive of Contemporary Coptic Orthodox Theology. Sydney, NSW: St Cyril’s Coptic Orthodox Theological College. https://accot.stcyrils.edu.au/byou-virg1996/.
(For more information, see Citation Guidelines)
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