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Dear Parish Faithful,
Christ is Risen!
Indeed He is Risen!
I am in the process of reading a very lengthy interview with Jean-Claude Larchet, a brilliant French Orthodox patristic scholar and theologian. The interview is centered around an Orthodox reaction to the coronavirus pandemic, and is filled with some "interesting" insights as well as a theological reflection on the cause of disease and sickness. This pandemic is not sent by God is what Dr. Larchet speaks of with great erudition, faith and eloquence. I will probably forward it to the parish eventually.
For the moment, I just wanted to share a mere fragment of what Dr. Larchet said about living in a newly-imposed isolation and how that can be translated into an Orthodox experience based on our spiritual tradition. Perhaps nothing new here, but as we grow impatient with being pretty much confined to our homes, and perhaps with our "company," these few sentences can call us back to an Orthodox Christian response, and to how we can make something good out of this troubling experience. We thus need to continue to pray, to read the Scriptures and to be a real "neighbor" to our loved ones in the sense of how Jesus taught.
Overall, the confinement is a good opportunity to experience the hesychia dear to Orthodox spirituality, a state of solitude and especially of exterior and interior calm; to rest from the incessant movement, noise, and stress linked to our usual living conditions; and to re-inhabit our interior dwelling—what the Hesychastic Fathers call “the place of the heart.”
Confinement also allows couples and children to be together more often than usual, and this is beneficial for everyone. Of course, this is not always self-evident, since some are not used to living together for a long time, but it can be an opportunity to strengthen relational bonds positively.
This return to oneself and to married and family life should not be a forgetting of others, however. Almsgiving, which is part of the usual practice of Lent, can take the form of a more sustained and regular assistance to people we know who suffer from illness, loneliness, or excessive worry.
For this activity, modern means of communication are good…
