“Become what you already are”

Reflections on The Transfiguration of our Lord and Saviour & the Dormition of our Most Holy Theotokos for the Homily on 9/8/25

Reflections on The Transfiguration of our Lord and Saviour & the Dormition of our Most Holy Theotokos

“Become what you already are”

My beloved ones, we are richly blessed to find ourselves in the midst of the spiritually nourishing fast of the Dormition of our Most Holy Theotokos, the Pascha of the Summer. This week, we celebrated with appropriate jubilation the glorious feast of the Transfiguration of our Lord and Saviour.

The feast of the Transfiguration is among the greatest and most important feasts of our Church. The Transfiguration allows us a glimpse of who we are all called to be. It shows us that we are not made to live in interior or exterior darkness, to live in a broken world, but that we are made in the Image and Likeness of God.

And indeed, we “put on Christ” in Baptism. St. Gregory the Theologian says, “The Holy Spirit divinizes (deifies) the person who is baptized.” Just before the tonsure during the service of Baptism, the Priest says, “You are baptized. You are illumined. You are anointed with the Holy Chrism. You are sanctified.” We are bathed and imbued with the Divine Light of our Lord at our Baptism - we are illumined - we are made to be radiant beacons of His Eternal Light.

In 1st Corinthians we read, “...do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.” (1 Cor 6:19)

God adopts us, He saves us and makes us Holy, that is, He sets us apart for a specific purpose - this is what Holy means. He saves us and sets us apart for what specific purpose? Theosis. This is what He desires for all people, the transfiguration and intimate union of Theosis.

“The light of Christ illumines all”, we say at the Liturgy of the Presanctified gifts. So strive to allow yourselves to be transformed by it, to be transfigured into your true selves, to grow closer and ever closer in union with Christ.

This light that illumines all, the light that the Holy Apostles saw on Mount Tabor, which is depicted here in the Icon of our Parish. My dear ones, it shines in all of you. It is imbued within each of you; the Kingdom of Heaven is within you.

Find it inside yourselves, dwell in it, radiate it. As St. Gregory of Sinai says, “Become what you already are”.

Saint Isaac of Syria says, “Be at peace with your own soul, then heaven & earth will be at peace with you. Enter eagerly into the treasure house that is within you, and you will see the things that are in heaven, for there is but one single entry to them both. The ladder that leads to the Kingdom is hidden within your soul...Dive into yourself and into your soul, and you will discover the stairs by which to ascend.”

Each day our Lord gives us endless opportunities for this transfiguration, for the transfiguration of our hearts. No one can force you to regularly confess, fast, pray, give alms or receive the Holy Body and precious Blood of our Lord, or simply to say ‘yes’ to God - but do those glorious things and see that you will be transfigured. Bear Christ within you, and your interior will be illuminated. Indeed, if we will it, my dear brothers and sisters, as Abba Joseph shows us, “[we] can become all flame”.

“You are the light of the world.” Says our Lord in Matthew 5, “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.”

Look at all of the lights that shine before you, look at the Saints, where are their halos? Have they been delicately placed just above their heads by an unseen hand, as we see in Western Religious art? Or is the halo, the radiant light of our Lord, pouring out from the very centre of their being? My dear ones, the light is flowing out from within them. As Vladimir Lossky, of blessed memory, wrote, “the icon transmits visually the realisation of the patristic formula… ‘God became Man so that man might become god.’”

At the Dormition, we will see the greatest possible example of this in our Most Holy Theotokos. Who is so blessed, and so dear to us. The tender love we Orthodox have for our mother, the most blessed Virgin Mary, is unparalleled among created beings. In our difficult moments, we run directly into her arms. Some of us may even invoke her name before invoking the name of her son and our God - so close is she to our hearts.

It is, of course, natural that we love Panagia so much, for she is the person in whom all God’s love is revealed to us and through whom the salvation of the world takes place. She is the mother of salvation. She undoes the work of our ancestor and the mother of humanity, Eve, the woman who told Adam to say ‘No’ to God, by always saying ‘Yes’ to God, in total and unmatched obedience and humility.

It is from Panagia, who we confess is a “hallowed Temple and spiritual paradise”, that God becomes incarnate. He who is uncontainable, who is God before the ages, becomes “a little child. For He made [her] womb a throne and caused it to become wider than the heavens.” God is mystically contained within the blessed womb of Panagia and takes human flesh and blood from the Virgin Mary and becomes man. No person in creation is as closely united with God as Panagia. She gives her own flesh to God that God might become man.

And God, having become incarnate, and dwelling in Panagia's womb, expanding it wider than the heavens for 9 months, was born into the world and passed into the care of Panagia, who wrapped Him in His first clothes. He entrusted Himself into His mother's care, Panagia nursed Him; truly, He put Himself under Panagia's protection, just as we all should. If Christ entrusts Himself to the Virgin Mary, we should willingly do the same.

Our Most Holy Theotokos is an Icon of many things, among them: love, humility, obedience, motherhood, but importantly, she is a great Icon of faith for us. In Panagia, we see the impossible become possible.

The Archangel Gabriel comes to Panagia and says, “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.” (Luke 1:35) and she in turn replies “Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word.” That is faith - a concrete understanding and trust that what seems impossible for us is possible with God. To know and to confess in one's heart that God can do anything. As we chant on the Feast of the Nativity, “Where God wills, the order found in nature is overcome” (Kathisma II, Feast of the Nativity of our Lord)

You have all just heard today's Gospel reading. Some four thousand people were fed with seven loaves of bread and a few small fish. That is not logical, and yet it is true, and all were satisfied. So, cultivating that faith, the pure and spotless faith of the blessed Virgin Mary, let us always strive to say ‘Yes’ to God in our lives.

If you take a few moments later to look at the glorious Icon of the Dormition, at the centre, you will see Christ, holding in his arms the soul of our Most Holy Theotokos, depicted as a radiant and pure infant. The Birthgiver of God, the true Christ bearer, is now borne by Christ, and carried in His arms into paradise.

If in our lives we can struggle to bear Christ within us, cultivate His Divine Light, and the poverty of Spirit. If we can as St. Gregory of Sinai tells us, “Become what you already are, find Him who is already yours, listen to Him who never ceases speaking to you, own Him who already owns you.” we will see that gladly Christ will bear our soul into His own hands and carry us into eternity too.

Amen!

- Rev. Presbyter Charalambos Clark