“Our preparation for meeting the heavenly King, and for the inheritance of eternal life in heaven, should consist of these things.
The heavenly King desires souls adorned with immutable virtue, souls prepared so that the Very Lord Himself could abide in them.
Do not marvel that the Very Lord wants to live in us.
In fact the human soul is more spacious than the heavens and the earth, for it exists in the image of God.
And if one removes sins from the soul, the Lord of all will settle in it and will fill it with Himself.
“We will come to him and make our dwelling with him” (John 14:23), says the Lord about the souls who love Him.
And so, ye participants in the Christian feasts, and especially the present feast of the Dormition of the Mother of God, ye who are brightly adorned with every virtue and translated to the heavenly kingdom, to Her Son and God, proclaim to each and every one about preparing their souls to be the dwelling place of the Lord, about continual repentance, and about the incorruptible adornment of Christian virtue.
Let your death also be unashamed and peaceful, serving as the pledge of a good answer at the dread judgment seat of Christ. Amen.”
St. John of Kronstadt, Sermon on the Dormition of the Theotokos