Midweek Morning Meditation

Source: saintgregorythetheologian.org

 On the Death and Resurrection of Christ

Yesterday, I was crucified with Him; today I am glorified with Him.

Yesterday, I died with Him today I am made alive with Him.

Yesterday, I was buried with Him, today I am raised up with Him.

Let us offer to Him Who suffered and rose again for us ... ourselves, the possession most precious to God and most proper.

Let us become like Christ, since Christ became like us.

Let us become Divine for His sake, since for us He became Man.

He assumed the worse that He might give us the better.

He became poor that by His poverty we might become rich.

He accepted the form of a servant  that we might win back our freedom.

He came down that we might be lifted up.

He was tempted that through Him we might conquer.

He was dishonored that He might glorify us.

He died that He might save us.

He ascended that He might draw to Himself us, who were thrown down through the fall of sin.

Let us give all, offer all, to Him who gave Himself a Ransom and Reconciliation for us.

We needed an incarnate God, a God put to death, that we might live.

We were put to death together with Him that we might be cleansed.

We rose again with Him because we were put to death with Him.

We were glorified with Him because we rose again with Him.

A few drops of Blood recreate the whole of creation!

   -- St. Gregory the Theologian, Easter Orations

Coffee with Sister Vassa: The Power of our Wounds

 

THE POWER OF OUR WOUNDS 

Why does the risen Lord still have His wounds, which Thomas is able to see and touch, so he believes it is none other than Christ, his King and his God? Because He wants still to have His wounds, as one of us, who also have our wounds. He shows us how to be wounded and yet free; and yet even joyous, and empowered to testify to others, also wounded, how to walk forward and to testify to the power of God in our lives. We don’t have to be perfect, either physically or otherwise, to be vessels of God’s unifying light, hope and all-forgiving love, in our world.

But oftentimes we might be ashamed of our wounds, or bitter about them, or resentful of others or ourselves, who inflicted the wounds. But our new life in Christ is not erasing our wounds, sometimes visible and sometimes invisible ones. Whether we have gone through a painful divorce, or lost our jobs or our homes, or were slandered or somehow betrayed by a loved one, or we ourselves have betrayed our loved ones, or have struggled with an addiction, or struggle with some other disease, - when we allow ourselves to follow our risen-and-still-wounded Lord, and embrace the new life and new hope with which He wants to embrace us, His imperfect and wounded followers, we find a new Way to move forward. And to return into communion with Him and others, if our wounds have been leading us to self-isolation, resentment or self-centered fear.

I was also thinking, on this Thomas Sunday, about the fact that Thomas and most of the other disciples abandoned our Lord, when His wounds were being inflicted on Him. And then they didn’t believe the women, that He is risen, although He told them repeatedly that He would be killed but would rise again. Yet He re-enters into their midst, despite their closed doors, and says, Peace, Shalom. He does admonish them for a lack of faith, but no apologies are demanded or made, not even in Peter’s case. What He does is He eats with them, and communion is restored. Thank You, Lord, for challenging us to unity, even as we struggle with our wounds. Let us not be ashamed of them, but testify to them as did You, as we walk forward into Your new freedom and new happiness.

Fragments for Friday

Source: oca.org

 CHRIST IS RISEN!  INDEED HE IS RISEN!

Having beheld the Resurrection of Christ, let us worship the holy Lord Jesus, the only sinless One ...

It is already Bright Friday, but I would like to look back at Holy Week and Pascha - just celebrated last week! Thus, we have so recently completed our annual celebration of Holy Week and Pascha after the forty days of Great Lent. I have now served this, the "Feast of Feasts," here in the parish from 1990-2025. That would include our "Covid Pascha" of 2020, during in which only three of us - Presvytera Deborah, Ralph Sidway, and I - served the entire Holy Week and Pascha alone when Covid restrictions were at their peek. That is now thirty-five years, and it remains a joy to be able to continue serving this great annual feast on behalf of, and with all of the faithful of our parish. 

There is always the danger that each annual celebration can simply become indistinguishable from all the others, as they are the same in terms of structure and content. But each year is unique and it is that uniqueness that fills us with the energy and effort to make the Pascha we are serving as fresh and enlivening as possible. Or rather, it is the presence of Christ that accomplishes that on our behalf.

The Feast of Pascha is meant for the entire parish community: the clergy, the servers, the choir and the congregation of the faithful. Each person has his/her ministry within the parish. Truly a communal effort as we assemble together as the local Body of Christ to praise the crucified and risen Lord Jesus Christ. There are different levels of reality, but at the apex of those levels is Christ crucified and risen. Only the paschal mystery brings meaning to the rest of our lives and to our final destiny of life with God. 

The holy doors on the iconostasis have remained open all during Bright Week, to visually express the reality of the Kingdom of God, "open" to us all and in our midst. Those holy doors will be closed on Saturday right before we begin Great Vespers as we bid farewell to Bright Week and as a bit of the light of the Resurrection begins to dim as we move away from the "night brighter than the day." So, we most always translate the visible to the invisible interior of our minds and hearts; and the outward to the inward. That leads us to examine our faith and ask ourselves where the treasure of our heart is.

As the incomparable Canon of Pascha announces to us:

Let us purify our senses and we shall see Christ shining in the unapproachable light of His resurrection. We shall clearly hear Him say: Rejoice, as we sing the song of victory.

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

Monday Morning Meditation

Source: legacyicons.com

Anyone who participates in the Services of Holy Week, starting with PalmSunday, will experience in a real way the events of the Passion and Crucifixion of Christ? He/she will enter into the pain and sorrow of the Virgin Mary as she beholds her son on the Cross, as she carries away His dead body to burial, and as the tomb is sealed.

Then, gathered in the middle of the night, we will experience the joy and triumph of God over death as we watch the light break through the darkness, spreading to every corner of the church, bringing joy to our hearts. As we hear the angels in the Gospel announcing the Resurrection of the Lord to the women at the tomb, and the priest triumphantly crying out, “Christ is Risen!” we will joyfully shout back, “Truly He is Risen!” and begin to sing the Paean of Pascha: “Christ is Risen from the dead, by death trampling down upon death and to those in the tombs He has granted life!”

Come join us, brothers and sisters. Here is the place and time when the greatest miracle of our God takes place for our salvation. Here is where our hearts and minds are transformed by His Power and Love for us!

Let us give God a chance this year to reach into our hearts and heal our wounds. Let us approach Him humbly and prayerfully. Let us offer ourselves to Him in Faith and Trust during this Holy Week so that the miracle of the Resurrection might happen in us, as well. Let us enter and be transformed!

In Christ’s Love,

Fr. Panayiotis Papageorgiou