Father Bradford preached this sermon at Evensong & Benediction on the Solemnity of the Assumption at 5:00 PM on August 15, 2021 at St Lawrence Church.

Music by Loyset Compère, Peter Philips, and Thomas Tallis accompanied the service under the direction of Dr. Janet E Hunt and a reception followed.

Father provided the following on the back of our service leaflet:

Beyond death and judgement

The destiny of the Church and world has already been fulfilled, not only in the uncreated person of the Son of God, but also in the created person of his Mother. That is why St Gregory Palamas calls the Mother of God ‘the boundary between the created and the uncreated’. Beside the incarnate divine hypostasis there is a deified human hypostasis.

We have said above that in the person of the Mother of God it is possible to see the transition from the holiness of the Old Testament to the holiness of the Church. But if the all-holy Mother of God has reached and consummated the holiness of the Church, and all holiness which is possible for a created being, we are now concerned with yet another transition: the transition from the world of becoming to the eternity of the Eighth Day, the passage from the Church to the Kingdom of God. This last glory of the Mother of God, the eschaton realized in a created person before the end of the world, henceforth places the mother of God  beyond death, beyond the resurrection, and beyond the Last Judgement. She participates in the glory of her Son, reigns with him, presides at his side over the destinies of the Church in time, and intercedes on behalf of all before him who will come again to judge the living and the dead.

VLADIMIR LOSSKY


Vladimir Lossky (1903-1958) was an
Eastern Orthodox theologian
who lived and worked in Paris.

LITURGY OF ST BASIL THE GREAT

O full of grace, thou art the joy of all creation,

of the hierarchy of angels and the race of men.

Hallowed temple,

Paradise of the Word,

The glory of virginity,

From thee God took flesh and became a little child,

He who is from all eternity our God.

Thy womb he took as throne,

Thy body he made wider than the heavens.

O full of grace, thou art the joy of all creation:

Glory to thee!

Father Bradford’s sermons back to 2014 are here.