Mid-Pentecost: 'Glistening with splendor!'

 

Dear Parish Faithful,

CHRIST IS RISEN!  INDEED HE IS RISEN!

Admittedly, this is an older meditation that I have sent out more than once since initially writing it. But, we always have new members in the parish; and our liturgical cycle remains, of course, unchanged. So, hopefully there are some reflections found here that may seem to be worthwhile. As we have reached the midpoint between Pascha and Pentecost, we realize it all goes by rather quickly.

As Orthodox, we are "Paschal" and "Pentecostal" Christians. At least in theory. It is up to each and every one of us to also be so in practice.

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'Glistening with splendor!'

Today finds us at the exact midpoint of the sacred 50-day period between the Feasts of Pascha and Pentecost. So, this 25th day is called, simply, Midfeast or Mid-Pentecost.

Pentecost (from the Greek pentecosti) is, of course, the name of the great Feast on the 50th day after Pascha, but the term is also used to cover the entire 50-day period linking the two feasts, thus expressing their profound inner unity. Our emphasis on the greatness of Pascha—the “Feast of Feasts”— may at times come at the expense of Pentecost, but in an essential manner Pascha is dependent upon Pentecost for its ultimate fulfillment.  

As Prof. Veselin Kesich wrote:

“Because of Pentecost the resurrection of Christ is a present reality, not just an event that belongs to the past.” Metropolitan Kallistos Ware stated that “we do not say merely, ‘Christ rose,’ but ‘Christ is risen’—He lives now, for me and in me. This immediacy and personal directness in our relationship with Jesus is precisely the work of the Spirit. Any transformation of human life is testimony to the resurrection of Christ and the descent of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost. God constantly creates new things and glorifies Himself in His saints, in order to make it known that the Word of God became flesh, experiences death on the cross, and was raised up that we might receive the Spirit” (The First Day of the New Creation,p. 173).

Be that as it may, there is a wonderful hymn from the Vespers of the Midfeast that reveals this profound inner connection:

“The middle of the fifty days has come, beginning with the Savior’s resurrection, and sealed by the Holy Pentecost. The first and the last glisten with splendor. We rejoice in the union of both feasts, as we draw near to the Lord’s ascension—the sign of our coming glorification.”(Vespers of the Midfeast)

 

Pascha and Pentecost “glisten with splendor” – what a wonderful expression! Yet, this very expression which is indicative of the festal life of the Church, may also sound embarrassingly archaic to our ears today. This is not exactly an everyday expression that comes readily to mind, even when we encounter something above the ordinary!

However, that could also be saying something about ourselves and not simply serve as a reproach to the Church’s less-than-contemporary vocabulary. Perhaps the drab conformity of our environment; the de-sacralized nature of the world around us, together with its prosaic concerns and uninspiring goals; and even the reduction of religion to morality and vague “values,” make us more than a little skeptical/cynical about anything whatsoever “glistening with splendor!” How can Pascha and Pentecost “glisten with splendor” if Pascha is “already” (though, only 25 days ago!) a forgotten experience of the past, and if the upcoming feasts of Ascension and Pentecost fail to fill us with the least bit of expectation or anticipation? 

To inwardly "see" how Pascha and Pentecost "glisten with splendor" then our hearts must "burn within us" as did the hearts of the two disciples who spoke with the Risen Lord on the road to Emmaus (LK. 24:32). At the empty tomb, the "two men ... in dazzling apparel" told the myrrh-bearing women to "remember" the things that the Lord had spoken to them while He was still in Galilee (LK. 24:6).

Only if we "remember" the recently-celebrated Holy Week and Pascha can any "burning of heart" that grants us the vision of the great Feasts of Pascha and Pentecost "glistening with splendor" possibly occur. With an ecclesial remembrance, only prosaic and drab events - or those that are superficially experienced - are quickly forgotten. 

The Lord is risen, and we await the coming of the Comforter, the “Spirit of Truth.” These are two awesome claims!

The Apostle Paul exhorts us, “Set your minds on the things that are above, not on things that are on earth” (Colossians 3:2). This exhortation from the Apostle is a great challenge, for experience teaches us that “the things that are on earth” can be very compelling, immediate and deeply attractive, while “the things that are above” can seem abstract and rather distant; or that they are reserved for the end of our life as we know it “on earth.”

The Apostle Paul is exhorting us to a radical reorientation of our approach to life—what we may call our “vision of life”—and again, this is difficult, even for believing Christians! Yet, I would like to believe that with our minds lifted up on high and our hearts turned inward where God is – deep within our hearts – not only will the feasts themselves “glisten with splendor,” but so will our souls. Then, what the world believes to be unattainable, will be precisely the experience that makes us “not of the world.”

May the days to come somehow, by the grace of God, “glisten with splendor!” As it is written:

“The abundant outpouring of divine gifts is drawing near. The chosen day of the Spirit is halfway come. The faithful promise to the disciples after the death, burial and resurrection of Christ heralds the coming of the Comforter!”(Vespers of the Midfeast)

'Lent after Lent' and 'Life after Pascha'

Dear Parish Faithful & Friends in Christ,

Christ is Risen!

The meditation below is another old one that has been reissued with some regularity. However, since human nature hasn't changed much since then; and since we face the same temptations and challenges this year, as we did last year, I decided to re-issue it for everyone's consideration.

 

'Lent after Lent' and 'Life after Pascha'

I believe that a meaningful question that can be posed to any contemporary Orthodox parish is: Is there life after Pascha?

Another question has formed in my mind this morning: Is there Lent after Lent? 

Before proceeding any further, I need to offer a brief point of clarification: I apologize if I just happened to unsettle anyone with the frightening prospect of another immediate lenten period, because contrary to any possible misperceptions, I am not a “lent freak!” My purpose in asking “Is there Lent after Lent?” is meant to pose a challenge. 

Is there anything spiritually fruitful that we began to do – or anything spiritually unfruitful that we ceased to do – during Great Lent that we can carry over with us into the paschal season and beyond? Are we able to establish some genuine consistency in our ecclesial lives? Surely this is one of the most important elements in nurturing a holistic approach to our Faith. 

If I am not mistaken, a real temptation that exists once Great Lent is over is to return to “life as usual,” as if Great Lent is at best a pious interlude during which we act more “religiously;” and at worst a period of specific rules that are meant to be more-or-less mechanically observed out of a sense of obligation. This undermines the whole reality of repentance at its core, and drives us back into the dubious practice of the religious compartmentalization of our lives. Great Lent is over – now what?

I am not even sure just how healthy it is to assess and analyze our Lenten efforts. Great Lent is a “school of repentance,” but this does not mean that we are to grade ourselves upon its completion. However, there are a number of things we can ask ourselves by way of a healthy assessment.

• Did I practice prayer, charity and fasting in a more responsible, regular, and consistent manner? 

• Did I make a point of reading the Scriptures with the same care and consistency? 

• Did I participate in the liturgical services with greater regularity? 

• Did I watch over my language and gestures, or my words and actions, on an over-all basis with greater vigilance? 

• Did I make a breakthrough in overcoming any specific “passions” or other manifestations of sinful living? 

• Did I work on healing any broken relationships? 

• Did I simply give more of myself to Christ? 

• Did I come to love Christ even more as I prostrated myself in faith before His life-giving Cross and tomb?

If these points, or at least some of them were part of your lenten effort, then why not continue? Not to continue is to somehow fail to actualize in our lives the renewal and restoration of our human nature that definitively occurred through the Cross and Resurrection. Appropriating the fruits of Christ’s redemptive Death and life-giving Resurrection is essential for our self-designation as Christians.

In other words, can we carry the “spirit” of Lent (and some of its practices) with us outside of Lent? In this way, we are no longer “keeping Lent” but simply practicing our Faith with the vigilance it requires. We still must fast (on the appropriate days), pray and give alms. We still need to nourish ourselves with the Holy Scriptures. We must continue to wage “warfare against the passions” that are always threatening to engulf us. We need to deepen our love for Christ so that it surpasses any other commitment based on love in our lives. 

Or, have we doomed ourselves to being intense in the practice of our Faith for a short, predetermined length of time, and then pay “lip service” to, or offer token observance of, the Christian life until next year? In a rather unfortunate twist, Great Lent can work against us when we reduce it to such a limited purpose. Great Lent is the designated time of year meant to get us “back on track” so as to live more consciously Christian lives because certain circumstances and our weaknesses often work against us. It is the “example” rather than the “exception” if properly understood. In other areas of life, do we simply abandon good practices – in matters of health, let us say – because a designated period of testing or observing these good practices has come to an end?

Today may be a good day to reawaken to the glorious gift of life offered to us in the Church. In less than week from today - next Wednesday, May 4 - we will return to our usual pattern of fasting on Wednesdays and Fridays, as the initial glow of Pascha slowly recedes. I would suggest that this may be one of the most difficult days of fasting in the entire year. It is very hard to reestablish a discipline temporarily suspended with the paschal celebration. Yes, in many ways, we are returning to “life as usual,” even in the Church, but that is a “way of life” directed by the wisdom of the Church toward our salvation and as a witness to the world. Let us take the “best of Lent” and continue with it throughout the days of our lives.

“Lent after Lent” means that there is “Life after Pascha.”

'The Angel speaks worthily of the Crucified One...'

 

Dear Parish Faithful,

CHRIST IS RISEN!  INDEED HE IS RISEN!

Paschal Meditation - Day Nineteen

"The angel mentions the name of Jesus, alludes to his cross, speaks about his Passion and refers to his death. He then proclaims his resurrection and confessed his lordship. After all the punishment and after the sepulcher, the angel heralds the Lord, speaks of his subjection and sees that the full offense of the Passion has been transmuted into the glory of the resurrection. How could anyone judge that God was lessened by becoming human? Or believe that his power was demeaned by the Passion? Or think that his sovereignty was diminished by his servanthood? The angel speaks worthily of the crucified one. He shows the very place where the Lord's body was laid, lest someone else and not he is believed to have risen from the dead."

- Peter Chrysologos (+c. 450)

 

'The apparent failure of Jesus has been reversed...'

 

Dear Parish Faithful,

Christ is Risen!  Indeed He is Risen!

Pascha - Day Eighteen

"The question asked of God by Jesus from the cross, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (14:34) has been answered. Jesus has not been forsaken. Unconditionally obedient to the will of God (see 14:36), Jesus has accepted the cup of suffering. On the cross he is Messiah, King of Israel, and Son of God (see 15:32, 39). God's never-failing presence to his obedient Son leads to the definitive action of God: he has been raised! The apparent failure of Jesus has been reversed by the action of God, who has raised Jesus from death. The women are told to look at the place where they laid him: The opponents of Jesus crucified him, and they place his body in a tomb ("look at the place where they laid him"). It could appear that they have had their victory, but they have been thwarted. He has been raised, and the existence of the Gospel indicates that there is a community of believers whose coming into being depends upon God's action. Jesus' prophecy that the rejected stone would become the foundation stone of a new Temple God has proven true (see 12:11-12; 14:58; 15:29)."

From The Resurrection of the Messiah by Francis J.Moloney
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This passage is excerpted from a fine work of biblical exegesis by the scholar Francis J. Moloney. The vindication of the messianic claims of Jesus is here stressed in the reversal of the cross and death manifested in the glory of the Resurrection. No wonder the myrrhbearing women were filled with a feeling of "trembling and astonishment!"

 

The Myrrh bearing Women: 'Witnesses of these things'

 

Dear Parish Faithful,

CHRIST IS RISEN!

     INDEED HE IS RISEN!

During the week following Sunday’s commemoration of the Myrrhbearing Women, the Vespers and Matins hymns focus on these extraordinary women and their role as apostolic witnesses, implying their role as “apostles to the apostles.” Their eyewitness testimony of both the empty tomb and the Risen Lord continues to amaze me, and I can only imagine the excitement and intense response with which this testimony must have been greeted when they shared their experience with the other members of the earliest Christian communities. Their timeless witness is with us until “the end of the world.” And they remind us today of the extraordinary role that women could have played throughout the subsequent centuries, but were unable to do for a variety of complex social and cultural reasons.

As the New Testament scholar, Richard Baukham writes, 

These women, I think we can say, acted as apostolic eyewitness guarantors of the traditions about Jesus, especially his resurrection but no doubt also in other respects. As we have seen, that their witness acquires textual form in the Gospels implies that it can never have been regarded as superseded or unimportant. For as long as these women were alive their witness, ‘We have seen the Lord,’ carried the authority of those the Lord himself commissioned to witness to his resurrection… They were well-known figures and there were a large number of them. They surely continued to be active traditioners whose recognized eyewitness authority could act as a touchstone to guarantee the traditions as others relayed them and to protect the traditions from inauthentic developments [Gospel Women, p. 295].

If “fear and trembling seized them” when they departed from the empty tomb [Mark 16:8], perhaps in our more focused moments we, too, can experience that same “fear and trembling” when we again read or listen to Saint Mark’s account in the Gospel. There is something unforgettable and awe-inspiring about that ever-memorable morning when the sun was just rising and the stone to the tomb had been rolled away, followed then by the appearance of the “young man” dressed in “white robes” announcing: “Do not be amazed; you seek Jesus of Nazareth, Who was crucified. He has risen, He is not here; see the place where they laid Him” [Mark 16:8]. The angel understood their amazement, because the women sensed the presence of God filling that empty tomb with an other-worldly reality. Their own disorientation at this unexpected turn of events when they left the tomb is probably behind their initial silence. (This does not mean that the women failed to fulfill the command of the angel to tell the disciples that they would see Jesus in Galilee. It probably means that they did not share this news with others until the time the risen Christ appeared to His disciples confirming the proclamation of the angel that He had indeed risen). We, in turn, must always guard against over-familiarity dulling our response to the Good News of Christ’s Resurrection from the dead. This is not a message to be nonchalant about! The Resurrection has changed the world and certainly changes the lives of Christian believers. And we, too, are “witnesses of these things” [Luke 24:48].

The role of the Myrrhbearing Women has always been treated with great respect and recognition within the Church. In one of our most beloved Paschal hymns, “Let God Arise,” two of the stanzas are dedicated to the Myrrhbearers and their witness. These hymns build upon the scriptural accounts of their visit to and discovery of the empty tomb, poetically developing those terse scriptural verses in a more embellished manner that weaves together a host of scriptural messianic images together with the Gospel accounts:

Come from that scene, O women, bearers of glad tidings,
And say to Zion: Receive from us the glad tidings of joy of Christ’s resurrection.
Exult and be glad, and rejoice, O Jerusalem, seeing Christ the King,
Who comes forth from the tomb like a bridegroom in procession.

The Myrrhbearing Women, at the break of dawn,
Drew near to the tomb of the Life-giver.
There they found an angel sitting upon the stone.
He greeted them with these words:
“Why do you seek the living among the dead?
Why do you mourn the incorrupt amid corruption?
Go, proclaim the glad tidings to His disciples.”

As an aside of sorts, when listening to Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Russian Easter Overture,” I always feel that he musically captures the excitement and energy of the Myrrhbearers discovering the empty tomb.

The Myrrhbearing Women did not mysteriously disappear following the Resurrection of Christ. There were many of them, and we have the names or a reference to at least the following: Mary Magdalene (always mentioned first), Mary the mother of Joseph the Little and Jose, Salome, Mary of Clopas, Mary and Martha of Bethany, the sisters of Lazarus, Susanna, and the mother of the sons of Zebedee, and Joanna, the wife of Chuza, who was Herod's steward. And, of course, the “mother of Jesus,” as she is referred to by the Evangelist John [19:25], was at the foot of the Cross. They must have shared their experience innumerable times, and their credibility is what lies behind their inclusion in the Gospels. They must have therefore been very prominent figures in the apostolic era of the Church. I would again stress their presence in the liturgical services of Pascha. Their presence permeates these services as the empty tomb is always an object of pious and reverential celebration:

Before the dawn, Mary and the women came
And found the stone rolled away from the tomb.
They heard the angelic voice:
“Why do you seek among the dead as a man the One Who is everlasting light?
Behold the clothes in the grave.
Go and proclaim to the world: “The Lord is risen. He has slain death,
As He is the Son of God, saving the race of men” (Hypakoe).

To again include a fine summary by the New Testament scholar, Richard Baukham:

As prominent members of the early communities, probably traveling around the communities, they were doubtless active in telling the stories themselves. They may not usually like the male apostles, have done so in public contexts, because of the social restrictions on women in public space. But this is no reason to deny them the role of authoritative apostolic witnesses and shapers of Gospel traditions, since there need not have been such restrictions in Christian meetings and since they could witness even to outsiders in women-only contexts such as the women’s quarters of houses [Gospel Women, p. 302-303].

Jesus turned things upside down by proclaiming joy to the world through the Cross. Overcoming social prejudices, He raised to great prominence these humble women who would otherwise be unknown to the world. He granted them an integral role in proclaiming the Good News to the world that the sting of death has been overcome through His rising from the dead. As long as the Gospel is proclaimed, we will venerate and celebrate the memory of the Myrrh- bearing Women and rejoice with them.