Holy Monday - The Bottomless Depths of Love

Dear Parish Faithful,


HOLY AND GREAT MONDAY

"Because of the ontological unity of Christ with the whole human race (i.e. on the level of being), the sacrifice was a bloody crucifixion. United with us in being and in love, Christ took on Himself all the hatred, rebellion, derision, despair - 'My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?' - all the murders, all the suicides, all the tortures, all the agonies of all humanity throughout all time and all space. In all these, Christ bled, suffered, and cried out in anguish and in desolation. But as He suffered in a human way, so was He trustful in a human way: 'Father into thy hands I commit my spirit.' At that moment death is swallowed up in life, the abyss of hatred is lost in the bottomless depths of love."

Roots of Christian Mysticism - Olivier Clement

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If you go to the official webpage of the OCA, you will find a brief but helpful article by Fr. Thomas Hopko about the meaning of the sequence of services and their principle themes for Holy Week.

Fr. Steven

The 39th Day: A Sacrifice of Love

Dear Parish Faithful,

GREAT LENT - The Thirty Ninth Day

"On the cross, everything is ended, all is accomplished: the Lord reigns, the prince of the world is thrown out, the kingdom of Satan is abolished. Voracious Hades devours the Master of life but is unable to contain Him, for nothing in Jesus belongs to hell by right: no mark of shadow or of sin. The full and pure light of love illuminates hell and swallows up the source of all suffering. Let us not be afraid to speak of the death of Jesus - and of His resurrection - as a sacrifice because the sacrifice is an essential aspect of the love of the Father and the Son. The Father required no sacrifice to appease His wrath - this image of The Father's anger is secondary in the Bible. Rather, this is a sacrifice of offering, of descent and then of ascent, in search of the lost sheep. It is a sacrifice of consecration, of the exorcising of human nature corrupted by sin, of the healing of humanity sick through sin, and of the consolation of humanity bewildered in loneliness, far from the sources of living water. Jesus reaches and heals the intimate depths of humanity. This is a sacrifice of reintegration by which all of creation is brought back to the Father."

From "The Lamb of God Takes upon Himself Human Suffering," by Boris Bobrinskoy

The 38th Day: A Love Stronger than Death

Dear Parish Faithful,

GREAT LENT: The Thirty Eighth Day

"But as the antidote to sin, the death of Jesus Christ has broken its momentum. Christ has consumed its infernal roots and extracted its sting. The seed of justice sprouts in our humanity, which Christ bears. In loving obedience to the Father, Jesus in His humanity suffered to the end. He took on the anguish, deadly sadness, lonely agony, judgment, and the passion. Jesus also confronted suffering - not as a mythological hero or a stoic, impassible under the blows, but by anticipating, accepting, and refusing to hide from them, in 'a love as strong as death', as the Song of Songs says (8:6), or rather, in a love that is stronger than death."

From "The Compassion of the Father," by Boris Bobrinskoy

The 37th Day - In Reverse Order

Dear Parish Faithful,


GREAT LENT: The Thirty Seventh Day


"The return of humanity to the house of the Father, the ascent after the condescension, will occur in reverse order: death will be vanquished by the death of Christ and its sting pulled out; sin will be destroyed in its very roots, in the heart of man, by one Man who had not known sin; and humanity will be reconciled, filled with the divine Spirit, by the one who recapitulates in Himself all humans."

- From "The Lamb of God Takes Upon Himself Human Suffering," by Boris Bobrinskoy

The Life of St Mary of Egypt

Dear Parish Faithful and Friends in Christ,

GREAT LENT: The Thirty Third Day

The Great Canon of St. Andrew is chanted on the first four days of Great Lent. But it is prescribed to be chanted in its entirety on the Fifth Thursday of Great Lent also. Since the Canon has about 260 troparia, each to be accompanied by bows (prostrations in monasteries!), that is more than a bit challenging. 

During the Canon chanted on the Fifth Thursday, the Life of St. Mary of Egypt is also prescribed to be read in its entirety. This Life was written by St. Sophronius, the Patriarch of Jerusalem in the 7th c. 

Yesterday evening, I selected the fourth part of the Canon to be chanted and then broke up the Life of St. Mary of Egypt into three parts, read after the third, sixth, and ninth odes of the Canon. St. Mary of Egypt is a living icon of repentance, and her entire life is a startling revelation of the mercy and grace of God that forgives all sin that is genuinely repented of.

In his book Great Lent, Fr. Alexander Schmemann explains the return to the Great Canon of St. Andrew in the fifth week in the following manner:

If at the beginning of Lent this Canon was like a door leading us into repentance, now at the end of Lent it sounds like a "summary" of repentance and its fulfillment. If at the beginning we merely listened to it, now hopefully its words have become our words, our lamentation, our hope and repentance, and also an evaluation of our lenten effort: how much of all this has truly been made ours? How far have we come along the path of this repentance?

The beautifully written and compunctionate Life of St. Mary of Egypt is meant to edify those who hear it in faith. As Panagiotis Nellas writes:

The Life of St. Mary of Egypt is read, so that the intellect and will of the believer may be detached from love of the world and, following in the footsteps of the saint, may be guided into the heart of the desert, into the heart of the mystery of repentance. (Deification in Christ, p. 164)

Yet, there is even a deeper purpose behind reading this Life in a liturgical setting. Panagiotis Nellas further writes:

Thus the liturgical reading of the Life of St. Mary makes the saint present in the assembly of the faithful in a sacramental manner, so that she can accompany them and struggle with them in the contest of repentance of prayer. For this reason, at the end of each canticle of the Great Canon there are two troparia in which the faithful address themselves to her:

God Whom you loved and for Whom you longed, Whose path you followed, O Mother, found you. Pray, therefore, that we may be freed from sin and adversity. (Ibid, p. 167)

Hearing St. Mary's wonderful Life in this setting then brought to life one of the refrains at the end of many of the Canon's odes, of "O Venerable Mother Mary of Egypt, pray unto God for us." Her life is the very flesh and blood embodiment of the Canon's entire purpose: to lead sinners to repentance. Thus, with God "all things are possible."

I will try and bring out other aspects of her Life in Sunday's homily.

You may read the complete 'Life of St Mary of Egypt' here.


Fr. Steven