Fragments for Friday

Source: legacyicons.com

 Here are two deeply insightful passages from two of my former professors at St. Vladimir's Seminary during my three years there: Frs. Alexander Schmemann and Paul Lazor. In my final year, I served Holy Week and Pascha with them both in the old seminary chapel. Quite an unforgettable experience!

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"The Orthodox Church never loses sight of the universal significance of the Passion of Christ. The glorification of the wounds, the bloodshed and the tortured agony experienced by Christ does not find its origins in a simple awe before human suffering. Beyond the scene of the human suffering of Christ is the reality of His work for the redemption of all men. He is the God-man. He does what no human being alone can do. He takes upon Himself the sin of the all and shatters its power. He suffers and dies for all in order that all might be able to pass through and find new hope in the agonies of suffering and death. ... Christ suffered and died not for the sake of some vague "human mass," but for unique human persons - for you and me. In this fact lies the hope and joy of each Christian."

Archpriest Paul Lazor

"Christ freely accepts death; of His life He says that "no man takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself." (Jn. 10:18) He does it not without a fight: "and He began to be sorrowful and very heavy." (Matt. 26:27) Here is fulfilled the measure of His obedience and, therefore, here is the destruction of the moral root of death, of death as the ransom for sin. The whole life of Jesus is in God as every human life ought to be, and it is this fullness of Life, this life full of meaning and content, full of God, that overcomes death, destroys its power. For death is, above all, a lack of life, a destruction of life that has cut itself off from its only source. And because Christ's death is a movement of love towards God, an act of obedience and trust, of faith and perfection - it is an act of life (Father! Into Thy hands I commend my spirit - Lk. 23:46) which destroys death. It is the death of death itself."

Protopresbyter Alexander Schmemann