Posts
Dear Parish Faithful,
CHRIST IS RISEN!
INDEED HE IS RISEN!
Bright Tuesday
"When Christ had risen from the dead on the third day and had shown Himself alive to His disciples, He ascended into heaven. He remained immortal and bestowed on us, with complete assurance, resurrection, immortality and truly blessed, eternal, incorruptible life in heaven.
"By means of the one death and resurrection of His flesh, He healed our twofold death and freed us from our double captivity of soul and body...
"As the evil one procured our twofold death by means of his single, spiritual death, so the good Lord healed this twofold death of ours through His single bodily death, and through the one resurrection of His body gave us a twofold resurrection.
"By means of His bodily death He destroyed him who had power over our souls and bodies in death (HEB. 2:14), and rescued us from his tyranny over them both."
St. Gregory Palamas from his homily "On Redemption"
_____
"Christians claim that the crucified Jesus had been raised from the dead and remains powerfully present in the world - a claim that deserves serious attention from any thoughtful person.
"If we accept this claim as true, it should radically change the way we live our lives as well as the hopes that we entertain for ourselves and for our world. We are not destined at death to lose consciousness forever and return our bodies to the pool of cosmic matter. The resurrection promises us a glorious personal future beyond this life, a future that, in 'a new heaven and earth' (Rev. 21:1), will bring radical transformation not only for our bodily existence but also for the material world.
"This is an extraordinary claim and an extraordinary promise, both centered on someone who died as a criminal on a cross, abandoned by nearly all of his followers, and seemingly abandoned by the God whose kingdom he had preached."
