But our Lord will not change His holy word written in the Gospel for the sake of my obscene prayer. And the interpreters of the Divine Scripture do not command the meek to be faint-hearted, saying that the land which the Lord has prepared for the inheritance of the meek is not earthly land, but heavenly land, that is, that the Lord called the heavenly kingdom itself the land of the meek.

Thus, for example, St. Theophylact says: "Some think that here is meant the land of thought, that is, heavenly, that the earth, which the meek will inherit, is the kingdom of heaven, and this is really so." Other teachers explain these words in the same way. And I again have pity for heaven: is it not dishonorable for heaven that it is called earth?

Heaven is the throne of God, and earth is the footstool. Heaven is the nature of the incorruptible, and the earth is all filth and decay. The sky is bright, and the earth is dark. Heaven is inhabited by angels, and earth by people. No defilement will reach heaven, but the earth is full of all kinds of defilement. Why is heaven so dishonored when it is called earth? Can the footstool compare with the throne, corruption with incorruption, the dark thing with the light, people with angels, the filthy with the undefiled?

But since these words were spoken by the mouth of the Lord Himself, there can be no disgrace to heaven, for they were spoken by Him Who is able to make the earth heaven and heaven earth. He who created all things visible and invisible is free to make His footstool a throne, and to change corruption into incorruption, and darkness into light, and man into an angel, and the filthy into the undefiled, as the Almighty.

He called heaven the land of the meek, the promised land, boiling with honey of eternal sweetness and the milk of eternal nourishment, which King David also prophetically mentioned, saying: "I believe that I will see the good things of the Lord in the land of the living" (Psalm 26:13), that is, according to the interpreters of the Divine Scriptures, in heaven. For this earth, on which we temporarily live, is not the land of the living, but the land of the dying.

The land of the living is heaven, where there is no death and eternal life reigns, where all unspeakable blessings are prepared for those who love God. Be you, O heaven, the land of the meek, and you, the meek, inherit heaven as the earth: "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth" (Matt. 5:5). And therefore, turning again to the meek lamb now being celebrated, the saint of God, St. Peter, I will say: blessed is the meek St. Peter, for he inherited not the earthly, but the heavenly one. Amen.   33. Homily for the Nativity of Christ (

"I see a strange mystery and a most glorious one: heaven is a cave, the Throne of the Cherubim is the Virgin")   God ceased to be hidden from people. All the mysterious things of Holy Scripture became clear. This is not surprising, for He appeared among people: "He appeared on earth, and dwelt with men" (Bar. 3:38), and among people, what can be hidden? Nothing is hidden. As long as God dwelt in heaven, as long as He rested in His omnipotence, Who sat in glory on the Divine Throne, until then no one knew His secrets, His mysteries, nor did even His closest holy Angels, who always stand before Him: "From eternity concealed even by the Angel unknown mystery."

When He descended from heaven to earth, when He began to dwell among people, then not only pious people, such as St. Joseph, the righteous Salome, not only important persons, for example, the three kings of the East, but even the shepherds of the common people, conversed, spoke and told about the hidden: "They told of the things which had been announced to them concerning this Child" (Luke 2:11). 17).

Only the ox and the donkey are silent, although they have long tongues. But who knows? If the donkey had the mind of a man, would he not have thought, standing at the manger, in this way: "What if my ancestor had been here, that donkey who carried the prophet Balaam and spoke like a man? Of course, he would not have been silent here. What would he say?

Most likely, this is what he heard with his own ears, when that prophet, sitting on it, said: "A star will shine from Jacob, and a man will arise from Israel" (Num. 24:17)." If the donkey had a human mind, it would also think: "If there had been that donkey here that Ezekiel saw between the six cherubic wings with the face of a calf, it would not only have spoken, but would even have sung the mystery of God's incarnation: 'The four animals have sung' (Ezek. 1).

And so, God's hidden mysteries have been revealed, and the Church now sings: "I see a strange mystery and a most glorious one." What can be compared with this sacrament? The whole sky with the sun, moon and stars, with all the power of God, was contained in one small cave in Bethlehem! "The sky is a nativity scene." A whole choir of Cherubim, whose number is infinite, thousands of thousands, thousands of thousands of those on whom God rests, all of them have yielded their office to one Virgin, the Most Pure and Most Blessed Virgin Mary! "The throne of the Cherubim is the Virgin."

All God's treasures and riches are innumerable, unpriced, not contained in any place, all of them are placed in a narrow manger, all are contained and covered with a handful of hay! "The manger is a container." Oh, truly, the great, wondrous, and most glorious mystery has been revealed to the world on the present feast of the Nativity of Christ, not so that people should be silent about it, but that they should speak about it, for only the mystery of the earthly king should be concealed, but the mysteries of the King of Heaven or the work of God must be preached and glorified.

The mysteries of God in their wondrous properties are not at all the same as the mysteries of men. The human mystery has only to be said once or twice, by one or two, and everyone will know it completely. The mysteries of God, the more you think and talk about them, the more you preach about them, the more hidden, more difficult, and more incomprehensible they become. "How incomprehensible are His destinies, and His ways cannot be searched!" (Romans 11:33).

It is necessary, however, to preach about them. Even if the stone were before you, cry out, do not be silent, preach and glorify the wondrous and most glorious mysteries of God. Leaving aside the other wondrous and most glorious mysteries of God, which appeared at the Nativity of Christ, for the sake of shortening time, we will turn our attention to only one thing and explain only the following mystery: why the cave became heaven, how it could become heaven, what this secrecy means, and what are the mysteries in that heaven.