Holy Saturday Meditation

Source: royaldoors.net

Great and Holy Saturday is the day on which Christ reposed in the tomb. The Church calls this day the Blessed Sabbath.

By using this title the Church links Holy Saturday with the creative act of God. In the initial account of creation as found in the book of Genesis, God made man in his own image and likeness. To be truly himself, man was to live in constant communion with the source and dynamic power of that image: God. Man fell from God. Now Christ, the Son of God through whom all things were created, has come to restore man to communion with God. He thereby completes creation. All things are again as they should be. His mission is consummated. On the Blessed Sabbath he rests from all his works.

Holy Saturday is a neglected day in parish life. Few people attend the services. Popular piety usually reduces Holy Week to one day—Holy Friday. This day is quickly replaced by another—Easter Sunday. Christ is dead and then suddenly alive. Great sorrow is suddenly replaced by great joy. In such a scheme HolySaturday is lost.

In the understanding of the Church, sorrow is not replaced by joy; it is transformed into joy. This distinction indicates that it is precisely within death that Christ continues to effect triumph.

We sing that Christ is "...trampling down death by death" in the troparion of Easter. This phrase gives great meaning to Holy Saturday. Christ’s repose in the tomb is an "active" repose. He comes in search of his fallen friend, Adam, who represents all men. Not finding him on earth, he descends to the realm of death, known as Hades in the Old Testament. There he finds him and brings him life once again. This is the victory: the dead are given life. The tomb is no longer a forsaken, lifeless place. By his death Christ tramples down death.

—Protopresbyter Alexander Schmemann, Great and Holy Saturday

Great & Holy Friday Mediation -- It is Finished (τετελεσται)

 

Source: oca.org

With his death, all that was involved in his earthly ministry was complete: becoming incarnate, growing from infancy to adulthood, the calling of disciples, the constant teaching, preaching and healing of thousands, his instruction to the Twelve, patiently enduring the debates, arguments, opposition, and accusations of the religious authorities, his institution of the Eucharist, the betrayal, the arrest, the trials, the beatings, the scourging, the mocking, the humiliation, and lastly the excruciating pain of the crucifixion itself. It was over. It was accomplished. His work was done, complete to perfection, exactly according to plan. He had achieved his goal:Tetelestai.

Eugenia Constantinou, The Crucifixion of the King of Glory, p. 284

Great & Holy Friday Meditation -- The Tearing of the Veil

 

Source: goarch.org

Hebrews 10 explains that since Christ has offered himself as a sacrifice, we now have confidence to enter the sanctuary,"by the new and living way which he opened for us through the curtain (katapetasma), that is, through his flesh" (Heb. 10:20). In that verse, Hebrews is telling us that the curtain is the flesh of Christ, through which we enter the sanctuary - the place of intimate encounter with God. It is this flesh, which he assumed as God for our salvation, that was torn and hanging on the cross. Through the breaking of the body of Christ, the tearing of the veil of his flesh, the sacred, the divine, is opened to us. This happened, not because someone had to pay for sin but because God loved the world and chose the cross to graphically demonstrate that his love is without limits. We directly participate in the life of God, because Christ was incarnate, and through the sacrament of Holy Communion we physically commune and dwell with him and he in us.The depth of meaning is profound and inexpressible.

Eugenia Constantinou, The Crucifixion of the King of Glory

Great & Holy Friday Meditation

Source: legacyicons.com

Today our Lord Jesus Christ is on the cross, and we celebrate the festival, so that you may learn that the cross is a festival and a spiritual celebration. For previously the cross was a name of condemnation, but now it has become a thing of honor; previously a sign of sentencing, but now the basis of salvation. …

Not from the cross alone, but also from the very sayings on the cross can one see His unspeakable love of humanity. For even while He was nailed, made into a joke, and ridiculed, at the time He said: Father, forgive them the sin, for they do not know what they are doing. Even while being crucified He prays for those who crucified. … 

Hence, so that we also may enjoy His love of humanity, let us not be ashamed to confess our own sins fully. … For behold this person also confessed fully, and he found paradise opened. 

Whence, tell me, O bandit, were you reminded of a kingdom? … Nails and cross are visible, and accusations of jests and insults. “Yes,” he says, “for the cross itself seems to me to be a sign of a kingdom. For this reason I call Him king, because I see Him crucified. For it belongs to a king to die on behalf of those ruled. … Therefore, because He has laid down His soul, for this reason I call Him king: Remember me, Lord, when You come into Your kingdom.”

—St. John Chrysostom, On the Cross and the Bandit, as found in Behold the Thief with the Eyes of Faith

Great & Friday Mediation from Sister Vassa -- MY GOD, MY GOD, WHY…?

“And when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, ‘Elo-i, Elo-i, lama sabachthani?’ which means, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ And some of the bystanders hearing it said, ‘Behold, he is calling Elijah.’ And one ran and, filling a sponge full of vinegar, put it on a reed and gave it to him to drink, saying, ‘Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to take him down.’ And Jesus uttered a loud cry, and breathed his last. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. And when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that he thus breathed his last, he said, ‘Truly this man was the Son of God!’” (Mk 15: 33-39)

Centuries before the events of this Holy and Great Friday, when the All-powerful became powerless, and the Life-Giver died, the Prophet Isaiah explained that “we” were the ones “ in trouble,” and not Him, even while those who had Him crucified believed He was disrupting “ our peace.” But He took our “trouble” and false “peace” upon Himself, in order to expose it, and vanquish it, in Him: “ He bears our sins,” Isaiah proclaims, “ and is pained for us: yet we accounted him to be in trouble, and in suffering, and in affliction. But he was wounded on account of our sins, and was bruised because of our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace(παιδεία εἰρήνης ἡμῶν) was upon him; and by his wounds we were healed.” (Is 53: 4-5)

As I weep today, with the Church, beholding the crucifixion, abandonment, and death of our Lord many Fridays ago, I remember that He takes all our darkness upon Himself wilfully, in order to bring us out of it into new Life and new Light, with Him and in Him. He takes on our derision, anger, cruelty, despair, and injustice, – so we no longer need to unleash those things on one another, nor upon ourselves. “ For God so loved the world.” (Jn 3: 16) Glory be to Him.

Holy Week Meditation -- Great and Holy Thursday

 

Source: oca.org

He said, “Do this in remembrance of Me” (Lk. 22:19). We are blessed today to keep that commandment and to do this in remembrance of Him. …

In this Divine Liturgy, we will remember and proclaim the entire plan of God—all of the marvelous, wonderful works of God for the sake of our salvation. …

So we remember, we proclaim, and we celebrate that we have been given the honor of living in paradise, enjoying God’s blessings forever. These blessings are nothing less than the very qualities of God Himself. Our delight—and our paradise—is to live within the communion of the Holy Trinity of the uncreated Godhead, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and to enjoy these unending blessings by keeping His commandments.

—Protopresbyter Thomas Hopko, “Remember Me, O Lord,” in Holy Week: A Series of Meditations

Coffee With Sister Vassa -- JUDAS & THE ‘SINFUL’ WOMAN WHO ANOINTED CHRIST

“O the damnation of Judas! Seeing the harlot kissing the feet, he plotted the deception of the kiss of betrayal. She let down/freed her hair, while he bound himself through anger, carrying, instead of myrrh, his ill-smelling malice, for envy does not appreciate preferring that which is beneficial. O the damnation of Judas! Deliver our souls from it, O God!” (Byzantine hymn of Holy & Great Wednesday)

It’s interesting that, on this Holy and Great Wednesday, just before our Lord’s passion, the betrayal of Judas is compared, specifically, to a woman ‘who was a sinner,’ who anointed the feet of our Lord in the house of Simon the Pharisee in Luke 7. This is interesting, because this is not one of the anointings of Christ by a woman (either Mary the sister of Lazarus or another, unnamed woman) that happen shortly before His passion, in the house of Simon the Leper at Bethany. The anointing by the ‘sinful’ woman happened long before these, and not on Bethany but probably up in Galilee.

What is the point of this comparison? It seems that our tradition is at pains, just before the final days of this week, to present us with two examples: 1. of a religious man, - one of the 12 Apostles, no less, - behaving badly; and 2. of a not-so-religious woman, - a harlot, no less, - behaving beautifully. It’s reminiscent of the story of the priest-monk Zosimas and St. Mary of Egypt, in which the religious man, Zosimas, begins to pride himself in his ascetic accomplishments, while the woman with a sinful past, Mary, outshines him in that regard. The point is, I think, to reassure us, as we approach the celebration of our Lord’s passion and resurrection, to assure us thateveryonecan approach and accompany our Lord at this time. And that no religious, ecclesial, or marital or other status (or lack thereof) excludes us from the possibility of being ‘in’ or ‘out’ of communion with our Lord crucified-and-risen. We could, potentially, be in sinful and ill-smelling bondage, as was one the twelve Apostles, Judas, if we bind ourselves (as did he) with his own ambitions and plans, rather than trusting the Lord’s. And we could, potentially, - even if we have been bound with ill-smelling addictions or habits (as had been the sinful woman), “let down our hair” and let ourselves be received and freed from our pain by our loving and forgiving Lord. Glory be to Him, and have a blessed Holy and Great Wednesday, dear friends!

Coffee With Sister Vassa -- I HAVE NO GARMENT

“I see Your bridal chamber adorned, O my Saviour, and I have not the garment, to enter therein; O Giver of Light, make radiant the vesture of my soul, and save me.” (Exaposteilarion-Hymn of “ Bridegroom Matins” on Holy Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday)

Some of us have not fasted enough, or prayed enough, to be well-prepared for the upcoming celebration of Pascha. But in fact the hymns of this Holy and Great Week, like the one quoted above, speak of and for all of us, as ill-prepared for the ”bridal chamber” that is the upcoming celebration. – Like the man in the Parable of the Wedding Banquet, who is found to have no “ wedding garment,” and is thrown out for his impropriety (Mt 22: 1-14).

But today let me let go of any preoccupation with my “ill-preparedness” and join the celebration, handing over “the vesture of my soul” to the Giver of Light. Because I have a Bridegroom Who has overcome my sinful state of affairs by taking them on, having been stripped naked, crucified, and vanquishing all that, in His death and resurrection. O Lord, as You head toward Your cross for my sake, please do for me what I can’t do for myself: “Make radiant the vesture of my soul, and save me.”

Monday Morning Meditation: Golgotha is Alive

Source: omhksea.org

 We accompany Christ to Golgotha during Holy Week:

As the Lord was going to His voluntary passion,He said to the Apostles on the way,"Behold, we go up to Jerusalem,and the Son of Man shall be delivered up, as it is written of Him."Come, therefore, let us also go with Him, purified in mind ...

(Praises of Holy Monday)

We make this journey to Golgotha in our liturgical Holy Week services and in the relative safety of our lives here in America. But we can rest assured that the people of Ukraine - and other people around the world (as "wars and rumors of wars" continue to proliferate) - are experiencing a genuine "Golgotha reality," as they continue to be mercilessly assaulted by bombs and drones on a daily basis. In Ukraine, making a decision to leave one's home for a Holy Week church service can be a dangerous one. While Ukraine has proposed an "Easter truce" for next weekend, Russia has intensified its bombing of civilian targets, recently killing six civilians and wounding 40 others. President Zelensky has called this an "Easter escalation." We have yet to discover what Russia will agree to for next weekend - the "Orthodox Easter" as the press describes it. None of this killing is being tempered by a Christian consciousness, apparently. 

It must be stressed that the bombing of civilian infrastructure targets is against international laws and norms, and is essentially a war crime. This is true for any country that makes the fatal and illegal decision to bomb another country's civilian targets. We all know that "war is hell;" so to further destroy innocent civilians is to violate every norm of a civilized state. These are crimes against humanity, and no amount of misguided Christian rhetoric can hide that ugly truth. 

Holy Week reveals the great truth of divine "power" through powerlessness. That is the way of Christ, as He "empties Himself" on the road to Golgotha. That is the way that we embrace when we leave our homes and drive to the church to immerse ourselves in the intense services of Holy Week. As we chanted yesterday evening: "Let your order be contrary to that of the Gentiles ..." It is important that we remain consistent in our Christian confession of faith in Christ. What we encounter and hear in the church through the services of Holy Week, needs to taken with us into our daily lives as a vision of life that is worthy of the great name of "Christian." 

As I have written before, as we pray for peace and wait on God, apparently God is waiting on us to come to our senses and "turn" and become decent human beings. Yet, with God, "all things are possible.:

Lazarus Saturday Meditation

Source: oca.org

With epic simplicity the Gospel records that, on the coming to the scene of the horrible end of His friend, “Jesus wept” (Jn. 11:35). At this moment Lazarus, the friend of Christ, stands for all men, and Bethany is the mystical center of the world. Jesus wept as He saw the “very good” creation and its king, man, “made through Him” (Jn. 1:3) to be filled with joy, life, and light, now a burial ground in which man is sealed up in a tomb outside the city, removed from the fullness of life for which he was created, and decomposing in darkness, despair, and death. …

The time of fulfillment was at hand. Christ’s raising of Lazarus points to the destruction of death and the joy of resurrection which will be accessible to all through His own death and resurrection.

—Archpriest Paul Lazor, from the Introduction to The Feast of Palms: The Services of Lazarus Saturday and Palm Sunday

Fragments for Friday -- Turning towards the Ultimate Reality

 

Source: legacyicons.com

Later today, Great Lent will be over for this Year of the Lord 2026. We are on the eve of Lazarus Saturday and Palm Sunday. We will celebrate both of these great Feast Days over the course of the next two days. 

Then, of course, Holy Week will begin with the Bridegroom Matins on Sunday evening. Fr. Sergius Bulgakov once described Holy Week as a "mystic torrent"that carries us along toward the paschal mystery of the Lord's death and resurrection. 
Everything around us in our lives is "real" - sometimes "all too real" - but in my mind what occurs in the church during the Holy Week services is somehow "more real." Or, at least as revealing the ultimate realities of life if Jesus is indeed the Christ, the Son of the living God; and if His death is the death of God on our behalf and for our salvation. Everyone must make their choices as to what extent they are willing or able to participate in this ultimate Reality.

At the same time, with a glance back at the last forty days, we may want to make an assessment of our "lenten efforts." Did I "redeem the time;" or did it slip away despite my intentions and actions? 

As one way of making such an assessment, I am re-sending a text that I often share at the beginning of Great Lent. St. Theodore the Studite (+826) really gets to the deeper meaning of the Fast, far beyond my eating or viewing habits (yet not to be shrugged at, considering our level of dependence in this area). 

 Although a rather severe ascetic from the Byzantine era of the Church, St. Theodore is refreshingly  "holistic" in his approach to Great Lent as he emphasizes the lenten struggle as no less than aimed at "purity of heart," only achieved by a wide-ranging practice of the virtues.

What is this struggle? Not to walk according to one's own will. This is better than the other works of zeal and is a crown of martyrdom; except that for you there is also change of diet, multiplication of prostrations and increase in psalmody are in accord with the established tradition of old.

And so I ask, let us welcome gladly the gift of the fast, not making ourselves miserable, as we are taught, but let us advance with cheerfulness of heart, innocent, not slandering, not angry, not evil, not envying; rather peaceable toward each other, and loving, fair, compliant, full of mercy and good fruits; breathing in seasonable stillness, since hubbub is damaging in a community; speaking suitable words, since too unreasonable stillness is profitless; yet above all vigilantly keeping watch over our thoughts, not giving place to the devil.

We are lords of ourselves; let us not open our door to the devil; rather let us keep guard over our soul as a bride of Christ, unwounded by the arrows of the thoughts; for thus we are able to become a dwelling of God in Spirit. Thus we may be made worthy to hear, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God."

Quite simply, whatever is true, whatever noble, whatever just, whatever pure, whatever lovely, whatever of good report, if there is anything virtuous, if there is anything praiseworthy, to speak like the Apostle, do it; and the God of peace will be with you all.

Coffee With Sister Vassa -- CHRIST’S FINAL WORD

 

“Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha… So the sisters (of Lazarus) sent to him, saying, ‘Lord, he whom you love is ill.’ But when Jesus heard it he said, ‘This illness is not unto death; it is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified by means of it.’ Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So when he heard that he was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.” (Jn 11: 1, 3-5) 

Jesus “loved” Lazarus and his two sisters, these simple people, not extolled for any special virtue in the Gospels. Just as He loves all of us, for whom He died on the Cross “ while we were still sinners” (Rom 5: 8). But when our Lord heard about Lazarus’s deadly illness, which was so dire that Martha and Mary sent Him word of it, He “ stayed two days longer in the place” where He was, not rushing over to Bethany to heal His good friend. The Son of God knew that Lazarus would die from this illness, but that his illness would, nonetheless, not be “ unto death.” Because death would not have the final word, concerning Lazarus. The “final word” was that of the life-giving Word of God, Jesus Christ, Who was to raise His beloved friend from the dead several days later, saying, “ Lazarus, come out!” 

Nor does death have “ the final word” concerning all of us, in the love of Christ. Because Christ has embraced us all, with His hands outstretched in His own “illness” on the Cross. But Christ’s suffering was “ not unto death,” just as Lazarus’s wasn’t, even though both Christ and Lazarus truly died a physical death. And so are our illnesses and suffering “ not unto death,” when we embrace His word, in love. Even “ while we are still sinners,” in our imperfections. 

So let me look death in the face today, and recognize that it no longer has “ the final word” in my life. It has been vanquished by the love and friendship of my Lord Jesus Christ, Who grants me His life-giving word, making me capable of the Resurrection of Life. O Lord, may Your word be my “ final word” today, that my “illness” not be unto death, even in my imperfections. Amen!  
____ 

With a recent death in our parish, very timely words from Sister Vassa.

Lenten Meditation -- Sixth Wednesday of Great Lent

Source: smtbethpage.org/

To be sure, the extended fasts during Great Lent … are a time for turning inward through self-discipline and repentance to soften our heart, opening it for the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit. … But we do not and cannot refashion our own lives in relation to God apart from our relationships with other people. On the very first Monday of Great Lent, we are enjoined by Isaiah (1:16–17): “Cease to do evil; learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; defend the fatherless, plead for the widow.” This injunction and warning is repeated in Isaiah 58:6–7, which is read on the Wednesday of the sixth week of Great Lent: “Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of wickedness … to let the oppressed go free, to share bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house?”...

Great Lent, then, is a time in which we respond with humility and gratitude towards the compassion God shows to us and also aim to express that compassion in our dealings with others.

—Priest John D. Jones, Moved by Compassion: Exploring the Core of Orthodox Christian Life

Lenten Meditation -- Sixth Tuesday of Great Lent

 

Source: uncutmountainsupply.com

“We know that the greater the love, the greater the sufferings of the soul,” said Staretz Silouan. The man to whom it has been given to feel Christ-like love is aware that such love moves the heart to wish everyone well, without exception. Such love is a life-giving fire. It is uncreated Light, and streams of energy beneficial for all mankind pour forth from him who possesses it. When it penetrates us it makes us Christ-like, and as it were naturally includes us in the sufferings of His love, which cannot bear to see man deprived of the highest good.

—St. Sophrony, On Prayer: Reflections of a Modern Saint

____

These words of St. Sophrony are very valuable and timely today. We are currently being subjected - at least in "public discourse" - to a very aggressive and intolerant form of "Christianity," that does not "wish everyone well, without exception."  Rather, it detects "enemies" everywhere. When that happens there is a real shortage of compassion for the "other," and not the slighest care for those "deprived of the highest good." 

St. Sophrony is outlining the "Orthodox Way," and that is a "way" that can cause "the sufferings to the soul." It is a "way" that can only be cultivated through prayer, fasting and almsgiving, practiced with humility and our sense of being sinners redeemed by Christ on the Cross.

Coffee With Sister Vassa -- I AM THE DOOR

 

“I am the door; if any one enters by me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. He who is a hireling and not a shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees; and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. He flees because he is a hireling and cares nothing for the sheep. I am the good shepherd; I know my own and my own know me, as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep. And I have other sheep, that are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will heed my voice. So there shall be one flock, one shepherd.” (Jn 10: 9-16)

We all need to “belong.” Why? Because we were made that way, to share in, and be part of, God’s Oneness and God’s “abundant” Life. It is both spiritually and psychologically tormenting for us, to feel shut out from Life, like puzzle-pieces that just don’t fit anywhere. Many people go through life feeling that way, or have felt that way, at some time or another.

Christ, the One Shepherd, is the “door” through Whom we, who were once outsiders and misfits, “enter” true Life, and become proper citizens of God’s world. Other, merely-human community-builders might offer us some sense of belonging, – like the high priests of the Internet, or our political party, or clan, or some social circle, etc. But none of these “hirelings” can “save” us, that is to say, make us “whole” within ourselves and with God’s world. Outside communion with Christ, we will find ourselves “scattered,” at the end of the day. Thank You, Lord, for laying Your life down for us, and claiming us as Your own, and nobody else’s. This Tuesday I hear Your voice, and take Your door, embracing the positive change with which you challenge me in this Lenten season, when you say: “ Repent! (Metanoeite! – in Greek, meaning “ Change your mind/your focus!“) For the kingdom of heaven is at hand.“ (Mt 4: 17)

Lenten Meditation -- St. Mary of Egypt

Source: uocofusa.org

In describing His coming Passion, Christ uses words which allude to the basis of our life in the Church right now: the cup which He is to drink and the baptism with which He is to be baptized.

Jesus promises that His disciples will also drink of His cup and be baptized with His baptism, showing us the full significance of accepting baptism and participating in communion. These are not merely things we do when we come to Church. They should be the basic fabric of our lives, making our whole life a continual martyria—a witness to Christ in the service of others.

As an example of this, we have before us today St. Mary of Egypt, who, through her encounter with the Cross, totally changed her way of life by living in total repentance and penitence, until she also partook of the cup of salvation.

Let us pray that we also have the strength to respond to Christ, not to try and avoid His Cross, aspiring after whatever we hold to be glorious, but rather recognize it as the source of our life in Him.

—Archpriest John Behr, excerpt from sermon for the Sunday of St. Mary of Egypt in The Cross Stands While the World Turns

Lenten Meditation -- Saturday of the Akathist to the Most-holy Theotokos

 

Source: legacyicons.com

Death is far closer to us than we imagine—not just a distant event at the conclusion of our earthly existence, but a present reality that is going on continually around us and within us. … All living is a kind of dying: we are dying all the time. But in this daily experience of dying, each death is followed by a new birth: all dying is also a kind of living. Life and death are not opposites, mutually exclusive, but they are intertwined. The whole of our human existence is a mixture of mortality and resurrection: dying, and behold we live (1 Cor. 6:9). …

Yet if at any point we decline to accept the need for a dying, we cannot develop into real persons. … It is precisely the death of the old that makes possible the emergence of fresh growth within ourselves, and without the death there would be no new life.

—Metropolitan Kallistos Ware, “Go Joyfully: The Mystery of Death and Resurrection,” as found in The Inner Kingdom, Vol. 1.

Coffee With Sister Vassa -- REMEMBERING DEATH

My soul, my soul, arise! Why are you sleeping? The end is drawing near, and you will be confounded. Awake, then, and be watchful, that Christ our God may spare you, Who is everywhere present and fills all things.” (Kontakion-hymn, Great Canon of St. Andrew)

Whether we like it or not, our mortality, or the fact that we will all, indeed, die a physical death, is something with which we are confronted more and more as we age. This fact really begins to “ hit home” for many of us when we lose a parent, or notice our parents ageing. Psychologists observe that such reminders of our own mortality often cause depression, existential angst, and various unhealthy behaviors in middle- aged people.

But there is nothing morbid or dark in “ remembering death,” as we are taught to do regularly in our beautiful Tradition. Here’s the paradoxical thing about remembering death, in the light of our faith in the risen Lord: It makes me more “watchful” and “awake” to life, as I’m called to do in the above-quoted hymn. I learn to pay attention more, to the presence of God in my here and now; in the people, places, and situations I am given today from Him, “ Who is everywhere present and fills all things.” I learn not to miss out on what I am called to do in the today, in usefulness to myself and others, rather than let life pass by and just “happen,” as John Lennon said, “ when you’re not paying attention.”

Let me “ awake, then, and be watchful,” on this sunny Friday. “ I shall not die, but live, and I shall tell of the works of the Lord.” (Ps 117/118: 17)

Lenten Meditation -- Fifth Thursday of Great Lent

 

Source: uncutmountainsupply.com

Do not define the good derived from fasting only in terms of abstaining from food. For true fasting is being a stranger to vice. Loose every bond of wickedness. Let your neighbor grieve you; forgive him his debts. Do not fast only to quarrel and fight. You do not devour meat, but you devour your brother. You abstain from wine, but you have not mastered your arrogance. You wait until evening to partake of food, but you spend your day judging others. Woe to those who are drunk, but not with wine! Anger is a drunken state of the soul because, like wine, it robs the soul of sense. Sadness, too, is a drunken state because it drowns the mind. Fear is another drunken state, when things happen that should not happen. For it says: deliver my soul from fear of the enemy. Generally speaking, since each of the passions disturbs the mind, each can rightly be called a drunken state of the mind. …

Drunkenness leads to licentiousness, sobriety to fasting. The athlete prepares by training, the one who fasts by practicing self-control.

—St. Basil the Great, First Homily on Fasting, as found in On Fasting and Feasts

Midweek Morning Meditation -- The Announcement of the Incarnation

Source: annunciationsac.org

"Behold the handmaiden of the Lord, be it unto me according to your will." (Lk. 1:38)

Today, March 25, is the Feast of the Annunciation to the Most Holy Theotokos. This great feast always falls during Great Lent, and when it falls on a weekday, it is the only instance of having the full eucharistic Liturgy served for its commemoration (the Vesperal Liturgy will be served this evening at 6:00 p.m). Clearly a sign of the feast’s significance. Thus, the Annunciation is something of a festal interlude that punctuates the eucharistic austerity of the lenten season. Yet, because it does occur during Great Lent, this magnificent feast appears and disappears rather abruptly. It seems as if we have just changed the lenten colors in church to the blue characteristic of feasts dedicated to the Theotokos, when they are immediately changed back again! This is so because the Leavetaking of the Annunciation is on March 26. If we are not alert, it can pass swiftly by undetected by our “spiritual radar” which needs to be operative on a daily basis.

This Feast has its roots in the biblical passage in St. Luke’s Gospel, wherein the evangelist narrates that incredibly refined dialogue between the angel Gabriel and the Virgin Mary (LK. 1:26-38). The angel Gabriel will “announce” the joyful news of the impending birth of the Messiah, and hence our English name of “Annunciation” for the Feast. However, the Greek title of Evangelismos is even richer in that it captures the truth that the Gospel – evangelion – is being “announced” in the encounter between God’s messenger and the young maiden destined to be the Mother of God. Her “overshadowing” by the Holy Spirit is “Good News” for her and for the entire world! Even though the Feast of the Lord’s Nativity in the flesh dominates our ecclesial and cultural consciousness, it is this Feast of the Annunciation that reveals the Incarnation, or the “becoming flesh” of the eternal Word of God. It is the Word’s conception in the womb of the Virgin Mary that is the “moment” of the Word’s enfleshment. Hence, the Church’s insistence that a new human being begins to exist at the moment of conception. The Word made flesh – our Lord Jesus Christ – will be born nine months later on December 25 according to our liturgical calendar; but again, His very conception is the beginning of His human life as God-made-man. The troparion of the Feast captures this well:

Today is the beginning of our salvation; the revelation of the eternal Mystery! 
The Son of God becomes the Son of the Virgin as Gabriel announces the coming of Grace.
Together with him let us cry to the Theotokos: Rejoice, O Full of Grace, the Lord is with you.

Was the Virgin Mary randomly chosen for this awesome role? Was she compelled to fulfill the will of God regardless of her spiritual relationship with God? Was she a mere instrument overwhelmed or even “used” by God for the sake of God’s eternal purpose? That the Virgin Mary was “hailed” as one “highly favored” or “full of grace” (Gk. kecharitōmenē) when the angel Gabriel first descended to her, points us well beyond any such utilitarian role for her. On the contrary, the Annunciation to the Virgin Mary is understood and presented by the Church as the supreme example of synergy in the Holy Scriptures. The word synergy denotes the harmonious combination and balance between divine grace and human freedom that can occur between God and human beings. God does not compel, but seeks our free cooperation to be a “co-worker” with God in the process of salvation and deification. In this way, God respects our human self-determination, or what we refer to as our freedom or “free will.” It is the Virgin Mary’s free assent to accept the unique vocation that was chosen for her from all eternity that allows her to become the Theotokos, or God-bearer. This is, of course, found in her response to the angel Gabriel’s announcement, and following her own perplexity:  “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” This teaching on synergy finds its classical expression in a justifiably famous passage from St. Nicholas Cabasilas’ Homily on the Annunciation. The passage itself is often cited as an excellent and eloquent expression of the Orthodox understanding of synergy: 

The incarnation of the Word was not only the work of the Father, Son and Spirit – the first consenting, the second descending, and third overshadowing – but it was also the work of the will and faith of the Virgin. Without the three divine persons this design could not have been set in motion; but likewise the plan could not have been carried into effect without the consent and faith of the all-pure Virgin. Only after teaching and persuading her does God make her his Mother and receive from her the flesh which she consciously wills to offer him. Just as he was conceived by his own free choice, so in the same way she became his Mother voluntarily and with her free consent.

We praise the Virgin Mary as representing our longing for God and for fulfilling her destiny so that we may receive the gift of salvation from our Lord who “came down from heaven and was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and became man” (Nicene Creed):

Hail, thou who art full of grace: the Lord is with thee.

Hail, O pure Virgin;

Hail, O Bride unwedded

Hail, Mother of life: blessed is the fruit of thy womb.

(Dogmatikon, Vespers of the Annunciation)

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We have a remarkably rich resource page for this Feast on our parish website. It is a veritable feast in itself of homilies - from the Fathers or contemporary Orthodox theologians - that bring to mind the riches of the Annunciation. As we are home most of the time, please avail yourselves of some of this rich material.

https://www.christthesavioroca.org/annunciation

Coffee With Sister Vassa -- THE INTRIGUING NUMBER 17

 

The number 17 has special meaning in the Bible and in certain Lives of the Saints, like Mary of Egypt and Alexios the Man of God. It consists of the number 10, signifying perfect order (and it’s easiest to order or count things in groups of 10, not only because we have ten fingers on our hands), and the number 7, signifying completion (of something either bad or good) and/or complete victory. Thus, Joseph was 17 years old when he was sold into slavery in Egypt, completing the childhood years he had spent at home; The Great Flood in Noah’s time began on the 17th day of the second month, putting an end to the wickedness of the rest of humanity; Noah’s Ark rested on the mountains of Ararat on the 17th day of the seventh month; and Jesus Christ is often interpreted to have resurrected from the Tomb on 17 Nisan, completing His victory over death.

In the Life of St. Mary of Egypt: 1. She spends 17 years as a sex-addict in Alexandria (and on that 17th year, she goes to Jerusalem and experiences conversion); and 2. She then spends 17 years in the desert ‘ in constant danger,’ battling her passions, until she attains peace, after which she lives for another 30 years in the desert until Zosimas discovers her there. I also noticed recently that another saint, Alexios the Man of God, celebrated on March 17 on the Orthodox church-calendar and on July 17 on the Roman Catholic church-calendar, also has other significant 17’s in his story: 1. Alexios spent 17 years in fasting & prayer in Edessa in Syria, after he secretly left home; and 2. He then returned home and spent a further 17 years under the stairs of his parents’ home, until his death.

All-of-the-above helps to read and interpret the little symbolic details of traditioned texts, like the Lives of the Saints. The 17-year periods in the abovementioned lives are the periods in which something in them was brought to completion; was overcome. And then came the next 17-year phase, when something else still needed to be worked on, either in themselves or in others, or both. In the case of Alexios the Man of God it is most intriguing, because one wonders, why in the world he returned home, specifically to his childhood home. But the number 17 does give us a clue, that he needed to work on something unresolved, un-healed, between him and his family, to which he ministered, in a way, during the time he was under the stairs. They didn’t have the eyes to ‘see’ or recognize him for who he was, until he died, probably because they could only see him in the role they expected of him, to be their son or (in the case of his wife) her husband. But they did nourish him from their table, as a beggar, which was a strange way in which they did share a certain kind of communion, and extended their hearts to a beggar, in ways that they could not to their son/husband, insofar as he was not meeting their expectations.

Anyway, Happy Tuesday of the Fifth Week! ❤

Lenten Meditation -- Fifth Monday of Great Lent

Source: uncutmountainsupply.com

 How Shall We Escape, If We Neglect So Great a Salvation? (Hebrews 2.3)

Who will give us back this present time if we waste it? ...We are not yet perfect, but at least we desire to be so, and this is the beginning of our salvation...someone wanting to acquire the spiritual craft must not interest himself in anything else but, day and night, attend to it...unless a man drives himself and fights against his evil inclinations he readily falls away and diverges from the path of virtues.

—St Dorotheos of Gaza, Discourses, X: On Traveling the Way of God, as found inThe Bible and the Holy Fathers for Orthodox

Coffee With Sister Vassa -- WHY “FEAR” GOD?

 “In the fear of the Lord is strong confidence: and he leaves his children a support. The commandment of the Lord is a fountain of life; and it causes men to turn aside from the snare of death.” (Prov 14: 26-27, Septuagint-translation)

“Fear” is a life-giving, God-given gift, essential for survival. It is an evolved capacity in the human being, so science tells us. But like other God-given gifts and drives, which I inherently have as a human being, fear becomes harmful to me when it is divorced from God; when it is not “ of God” and takes on a life of its own. Inherent, human fear in a life not God-focused is crippling, existential anxiety in the face of the many uncertainties and ambivalences that are part-and-parcel of any human life.

“ In the fear of the Lord,” I am reminded as I begin the fifth week of Lent, “is strong confidence.” I “fear” losing my connection with Him and focus on Him, the Source of love, wisdom, and forgiveness of my sins, and this “ fear of the Lord” liberates me from merely-human fears, of financial insecurity, of human opinion, of loneliness, and so on. “ I walk the line” He sets out before me today, in the situations, work, and relationships I am given in my particular vocation, or “ commandment of the Lord.” So let me do the next right thing today, according to His call, – that is, according to my immediate responsibilities. Let my vocation be what it is meant to betoday, “ a fountain of life,” which causes me “ to turn aside from the snare of death.”

Lenten Meditation -- Fourth Sunday of Great Lent, St. John Climacus

 

Source: legacyicons.com

He who has lost sensibility is … a self-contradictory windbag, a blind man who teaches others to see. He talks about healing a wound, and does not stop irritating it. He complains of sickness, and does not stop eating what is harmful. … He philosophizes about death, but he behaves as if he were immortal. … He talks of temperance and self-control, but he lives for gluttony. … He reads about vainglory, and is vainglorious while actually reading it. He repeats what he has learnt about vigil, and drops asleep on the spot. He praises prayer, but runs from it as from the plague. He blesses obedience, but he is the first to disobey. He praises detachment, but he is not ashamed to be spiteful and to fight for a rag. When angered, he gets bitter. … He looks people in the face with passion, and talks about chastity. … All the time he is his own accuser, and he does not want to come to his senses–I will not say cannot.

—St. John Climacus, Ladder of Divine Ascent, as found in The Bible and the Holy Fathers for Orthodox

Lenten Meditation -- Fourth Friday of Great Lent

Source: stjohngoc.org

The thing about Confession is that it is natural. That is, it is Real. Almost everything else we do with our sin is false and unnatural. We punish ourselves, justify our actions, and hide. Yet, in Confession—in opening ourselves to God the Light—we expose the hypocrisy of our double life. In truth, we’ve been living a lie. Without Confession, Absolution, and Reconciliation we live a lie before God and Man as if it were Reality. In reality, no one is fooled—not our neighbor, not ourselves. And—let’s be real—certainly not God.

—Fr. Joseph David Huneycutt, Defeating Sin

Thursday's Theological Thoughts -- The Cross: 'To Refresh Our Souls and Encourage Us'

 

Source: pixnio.com

“Before Thy Cross, we bow down in worship, O Master, and Thy Holy Resurrection, we glorify.”

This hymn – together with the accompanying rite of venerating the Cross – replaces the usual Trisagion hymn during the Divine Liturgy on the Third Sunday of Great Lent. According to The Synaxarion of the Lenten Triodion and Pentecostarion, the full title of this mid-lenten commemoration is “The Sunday of the Veneration of the Precious and Life-Giving Cross.” Notice, that though our concentration is on the Cross of our Lord, the hymn culminates with the Resurrection. This is in full agreement with the Gospel passages in which Christ reveals to His disciples that He is bound for Jerusalem and death on the Cross and that He will rise on the third day. (MK. 8:31; 9:31; 10:34) In a wonderful commentary, The Synaxarion sets before our spiritual sight the meaning of this particular commemoration and its timing: 

The precious and Life-Giving Cross is now placed before us to refresh our souls and encourage us who may be filled with a sense of bitterness, resentment, and depression. The Cross reminds us of the Passion of our Lord, and by presenting to us His example, it encourages us to follow Him in struggle and sacrifice, being refreshed, assured and comforted. [p. 78]

Hopefully, the first three weeks of the Fast – even if we have truly “crucified the flesh with its passions and desires” [Galatians 5:24] – have not led us to experience “bitterness, resentment and depression!” However, we could be suffering from precisely those spiritual wounds for other reasons and diverse circumstances in our lives, both external and internal. My own pastoral experience tells me that this is probably – if not assuredly – the case. And there is no better time than Great Lent to acknowledge this. Such acknowledgment could lead to genuine healing if pursued in a patient and humble manner.

How, then, can we be healed? Perhaps the Sunday of the Cross reveals our basic starting point. The Cross of our Lord, placed before our vision, can release us from our bondage to these passions when we realize that Christ transformed this instrument of pain, suffering and death into an “emblem of victory.” Christ has absorbed and taken our sins upon Himself, nailing them to the Cross. In the process, “He disarmed the principalities and powers and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in Him" -- or, in some variations, “in it,” meaning the Cross [Colossians 2:15]. These “principalities and powers” continue to harass us to this day, but if we are “in Christ,” then we can actualize His victory over them and reveal their actual powerlessness. Our lenten journey is leading us to the foot of the Cross and to the empty and life-giving tomb, and the Third Sunday of Great Lent anticipates our final goal so as to encourage us. Again, from The Synaxarion:

As they who walk on a long and hard way are bowed down by fatigue find great relief and strengthening under the cool shade of a leafy tree, so do we find comfort, refreshment, and rejuvenation under the Life-Giving Cross, which our Holy Fathers 'planted' on this Sunday. Thus, we are fortified and enabled to continue our Lenten journey with a light way, rested and encouraged. [p. 79]

Certainly none of the above is meant to deflect our attention away from the “scandal of the Cross” by poeticizing this scandal away in pious rhetoric. We must never lose sight of the sufferings of our Lord on the Cross, and the “price” He paid to release us from bondage to sin and death. The world in its indifference will never come to understand the enormity of Christ’s sacrifice. So as not to lose sight of the utter horror of crucifixion as a form of capital punishment, I would like to include a passage from Martin Hengel’s book Crucifixion:

Crucifixion satisfied the primitive lust for revenge and the sadistic cruelty of individual rulers and of the masses. It was usually associated with other forms of torture, including at least flogging. At relatively small expense and to great public effect the criminal could be tortured to death for days in an unspeakable way. Crucifixion is thus a specific expression of the inhumanity dormant within men which these days is expressed, for example, in the call for the death penalty, for popular justice and for harsher treatment of criminals, as an expression of retribution. It is a manifestation of trans-subjective evil, a form of execution which manifests the demonic character of human cruelty and bestiality. [p. 87]

So much for the “noble simplicity and greatness” of the ancient world - and the contemporary world, for that matter! But there is “nothing new under the sun,” and fallen human nature is just as cruel and evil today. Again, Christ absorbed all of that human cruelty and bestiality on the Cross. This was a scandal, for the Son of God died the death of a slave on the Cross [Philippians 2:8]. Now, as a “new creation” in Christ, we must of course manifest our freedom from precisely that dark and demonic abyss into which human beings can plunge, and manifest the transfiguration of our human “energy” into the virtues that are so wonderfully revealed in the lives of the saints. This was the prayer of the Apostle Paul when the light of the crucified and risen Lord began to shine in a world of darkness: 

May you be strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us [or you] to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the dominion of darkness and transferred us to the Kingdom of His beloved Son, in Whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. [Colossians 1:14]

The Church understands and will put before our gaze the sufferings of the Lord during Holy Week. But it is also from within the Church that we come to know the victory of Christ achieved through His death on the Cross and fully revealed in His Resurrection. Thus the marvelous paradox of venerating a “Life-Giving Cross!” The rhetoric of the Church’s language is thereby not empty but revelatory of a mystery that has been accomplished in our midst.  The Synaxarion concludes its section on “The Sunday of the Veneration of the Precious and Life-Giving Cross” with the following prayer, a fitting way, I hope, to conclude this meditation: 

O Christ our God, through the power of the Holy Cross, deliver us from the influence of our crafty enemy and count us worthy to pass with courage through the course of the forty days and to venerate Thy divine Passion and Thy Life-Giving Resurrection. Be merciful to us, for Thou alone art good and full of love for mankind. Amen.