By Father Augustine
Translated by Elias Pantelaros
April 16, 2020
"Behold, the Bridegroom is coming."
This beautiful phrase, which is heard in the Orthros of the first days of the Holy Week, reflects the best way our Church describes the relationship of God with man. This relationship is based on the idea of marriage, where Christ is the bridegroom of every soul, and every soul is invited to enter the bridal chamber, the Church, to taste the joy of the change, the salvation, and the love which our Lord offers lavishly!
We believe that faith in God is something of a magical certainty, which responds to our need to overcome our insecurity for the afterlife. We believe God can help us in our difficult times, in particular when our health is shaken, but also in times of crises such as today. Some feel that faith results in the transfiguration of man; religion helps the man to become better, to respond to social ideals and standards. Others, follow faith as a tradition; because "so we learned," while the younger ones feel somewhat the pressure of the elders for at least a typical presence in the Church, and especially during these days!
Our faith depends in the proposal of marriage. “I believe in God” means that I want to have a personal relationship with Him. I want to respond to His love. I want to imitate the example of his sacrifice and his offering to the mankind, which He has shown to us. I follow the freedom that his commandments announce. I fight against my evil, which does not allow me to enjoy happiness. I don’t live only for the daily bread, but from my love to Him and my fellow men, for whatever it entails, and I don’t remain in my own world, which forces me to be hard, egotistical, rationalist, selfish...
"And I do not have clothes so that I may join him." In front of Christ’s perfect love for me, I feel that the clothes of my soul are very soiled by my sin and infidelity towards Him.
An old man said: “we would see a lot of surprises in heaven”.
Christ is unpredictable in his love, full of surprises... He had friends, who we wouldn't have: Thieves, tax collectors, unjust people, bandits and prostitutes; People who are crumpled, helpless, and unhappy. People who, yes, we can't stand, but God's love can stand them. Christ challenged us, because he sat together with outcasts and sinners, ate and talked to them. He challenged us, because he neither kicked them out, nor judged them, but instead embraced them and helped them to avoid sin.
The Kassiani hymn, we have heard, describes such a woman, a sinner, a whore, a socially and psychologically damaged human being. Let us think about that moment when she comes in humiliation in front of Christ, that moment that she offers him myrrh and aromas. Silently she smears the feet of Christ with myrrh, washes them with tears, and wipes them with her hair, showing her true repentance. And the Lord does not ask... does not judge... He doesn't kick her out. But instead, he embraces her with his love; he accepts her!
Tears, myrrh, and humiliation are mixed with the feeling of love. She doesn't talk to him, she just washes his feet. And she does not shout that she loves him, only offers the myrrh. And she declares to Him that she is sinful by crying and crying and crying, in repentance.
She doesn’t fear "what the world will say," only forgiveness and the grace of God matters to her.
She realizes that from now on, she has an unbearable debt... that she owes gratitude, love, and praise to God for the rest of her life!
Our Christ, Brethren, will not react in the same way that we people do, but He rejoices the return of the sinner!
Each one of us who feel the need to find a meaning again in our lives, we must bring our own myrrh before Christ! We need to deny evil and to offer love, to deny cruelty and to offer alms to the aching fellow man, to deny the ego and to offer humiliation, to deny the passions and to offer the will of our heart for communication with Christ, to deny anything fake we love and silently, request Christ, to transform us, to give us new meaning in life!
Let us march to Christ!
Let us not disapprove of our Master, like his disciples did at the sight of the whore. Let us not drive him out of our lives, like the Pharisees did. Let us not betray him, like Judas did.
Even more so, let us not become like those people who shouted "Hosanna, let the coming be blessed" and later, savages shouted “crucify him.”
The presence of Christ was and is disturbing to some.
This historical reality, my brothers and sisters, must trouble us. We're a few days before Easter. Many of us will be in pain and sad that we can't celebrate Easter together. But do we understand the deeper meaning of Passion, Crucifixion, and Resurrection?
I wish, my brethren, the candles, we will light these days... to illuminate inside us the darkness of our own life and soul. At the bountiful tables that we will enjoy the goods of God, together with our families, we must feel the need to sit down and eat with Christ, at His spiritual Table.
My dears, the Holy Week, that has already begun, asks us to reconcile first with ourselves, and then with the others. If we don't, then maybe we'll still lose a spiritual opportunity. It is an opportunity for all of us to prove that this Easter will be different from the previous ones. Let it be a passage into our spiritual life. Let us accept the crosses and burdens of our lives and let us beg Christ with the same trust, which this sinful woman has shown. Allow Him to cleanse us, to transform us and to resurrect us.
To understand that, a Christian is not the one who needs the “fear of hell” to exist in society, but one who believes in the Joy of Resurrection, so to live like as if in heaven.