Tag Archives: Holy Week

Weak and Fallen Before Easter

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We need to recognise that as Christians, if we are truly following Christ, not just abandoning him at the Cross, denying him or God forbid betraying Him, we will receive the same insults. Even Pilate would not remove that charge which he pinned to the Cross, Jesus of Nazareth King of the Jews, though the crowd protested.

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 May we all be blessed!

 

In a few hours, I’ll arrive at The Orthodox Christian Parish of the Holy and Life ­Giving Cross at Lancaster (United Kingdom), accompanying the Byzantine St Anysia Choir from Thessaloniki for Pascha; this choir also visited last year to help with the worship, particularly  the long, demanding  Holy Week services. We will also bring with us a hand crafted Icon, a comb and a prayer rope, all by St Paisios of Mount Athos, a Reliquary for containing these holy relics, and a handwritten Icon of his. We will also bring on loan  for Holy Week a piece of St. Paisios’ clothing, his undershirt, from another Monastery in Greece.

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 I am deeply moved by the fact that I am ‘carrying’ my patron Saint, Saint Paisios, though the truth is that the Saints carry us! This is the nearest that people will get to venerating Saint Paisios since his body is not to be disturbed in Souroti.

 

I am still packing, since so many monasteries in Greece have overwhelmed us with their generosity, and there are so many blessings, candles, incense, icons, secondary relics etc. to bring to the UK!

 

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The hectic days to follow at the Holy Cross parish will take away from me all phone connections and internet, but they will give me in return a precious chance to shut the world away and lock myself in the heavy, crushing silence of the Holy Week.

Before I do that, I want to wish you with all my heart to enjoy a Blessed, Life-Changing Holy Week and Easter!

 

I must admit that I am very tired. I feel tired, vulnerable and afraid, with no control over anything. I am so exhausted! Indeed,  “Lent is a horrid period. Year by year, Lent is when some force within me pushes me out of my comfort zones, and I find myself in a lions’ den, face to face with the beasts, utterly unprepared to fight, totally helpless, fully aware that the only possible outcome is to be slaughtered.”

Slaughtered indeed! This is exactly what I feel! A corpse!

“This is nothing new. This happens every year. Yet, I somehow survive, because the same Force that pushes me out of my self-created kingdoms, out of my self-created games – that same Force saves me from those wild beasts at the last moment.”

And this changes everything.

And yet, every time, I forget all about this, and I experience such despair and death, just before God intervenes! As if He has utterly forsaken me!

 

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Now I understand why one focus of the Resurrection icon is Christ’s hands, pulling Adam and Eve! I desperately need this Hand to pull me out of this Hell!Weak and Fallen! In such a desperate need of healing, repentance, an intervention, a meeting with my spiritual father, a literal falling into his arms, the Sacrament of Confession! Is this who I really am? How can just 40 days reduce me to this? Is this  the real starting point of my change, repentance and redemption?

 

Deep in my heart, I bitterly realise that no healing is possible. No repentance is possible. No prayer is possible, until the heart that heals, repents and prays is my sinful, fallen, yet beating heart. False images do not have hearts. False images do not love. Most painful than all, false images will never reflect Christ, because there is nothing false in Christ, nothing common between Life and void. Prayer begins with pain at one’s fallen nature; it grows out of this pain, and its flowers bloom out of it.The taste of ashes in my mouth. Am I, fallen and depraved and sinful that I am, still the image of the Immortal God?

 

I need to hold on, just a little bit more, to the Living God, and may His immortal image remain within me. It may then reflect on me,  bless me and I may grow into it. Day by day, year by year, I may grow into this image, and be more Christ-like. Then His Life will be mine, His Resurrection will be mine.

So many miles to go before I sleep!

 

 

If you have ever experienced such confusion and fallenness, have courage and pray for me. Let us all fight in our body and spirit. His Resurrection is real, and it is coming. In His Resurrection we shall all be one!

Stopped by Some Force

 

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But when I trod on the doorstep which everyone passed, I was stopped by some force which prevented by entering. Meanwhile I was brushed aside by the crowd …

 

If we were in that mood we would, when we come to the doors of the church, be, however little, like Mary of Egypt. We would stop and say, ‘How can I come in?’ And if we did that with our whole heart, broken-heartedly, with a sense of horror of the fact that we are so distant from God, so alien, so unfaithful to Him, then the doors would open and we would see that we are not simply in a big space surrounded with walls but we are in a space which is God’s Heaven come to earth.
 Let us ask ourselves freely today how do we resemble, or not, Mary of Egypt

Mary of Egypt went through a tragedy before she met Christ. She was a sinner. She was a harlot. She was unfaithful to God in her soul and in her body. She had no reverence for this body which God had created and this soul. And yet she was tragically confronted with the fact that there was no way for her into the temple of God unless she rejected evil and chose purity, repentance, newness of life.

… Let us ask ourselves freely today how do we resemble, or not, Mary of Egypt – Mary who had lived her life according to her own ways and desires, followed all temptations of her body and soul; and one day realised that as she was, she could not enter the temple of God.

So easily do we enter the divine temple, forgetting so easily that the church into which we come is a small part of a world that has chosen to be alien to God, that has rejected God, lost interest in Him; and that the few believers have created for God a place of refuge – yes, the church is the fullness of Heaven, and at the same time a tragic place of refuge, the only place where God has a right to be because He is wanted. And when we come here, we enter into the divine realm. We should come into it with a sense of awe, not just walk into it as into a space but walk into it as a space which is already the divine Kingdom.

Holy Week: How Can I Prepare Worthily For Easter?

If we were in that mood we would, when we come to the doors of the church, be, however little, like Mary of Egypt. We would stop and say, ‘How can I come in?’ And if we did that with our whole heart, broken-heartedly, with a sense of horror of the fact that we are so distant from God, so alien, so unfaithful to Him, then the doors would open and we would see that we are not simply in a big space surrounded with walls but we are in a space which is God’s Heaven come to earth.

Let us therefore learn from this experience what it means to go step by step towards the Resurrection, because in order to reach the Resurrection we must go through Calvary, we must go through the tragedy of Holy Week and make it our own, partaking with Christ and His disciples and the crowds around in the horror, the terror of it; and also experience it as a scorching fire that will burn in us all that is unworthy of God and make us clean. And perhaps one day, when the fire will have burnt everything which is not worthy of God, each of us may become an image of the burning bush, aflame with divine fire and not consumed, because only that which could survive the fire of God would have remained is us. Amen.

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A Sermon on St. Mary of Egypt by METROPOLITAN ANTHONY OF SOUROZH

Holy Week: How Can I Prepare Worthily For Easter?