O Glorious Day!

O Glorious Day! Although nothing I have to say can add or even compare to what has already been said, I cannot pass this season without writing something. At long last the winter of Lent is over, and Spring has come! True joy of all glorious joys: Christ is Risen!

For many of us, Lent is a time of fasting, toil, intense prayer, and often accompanied by many other, sometimes heavy, trials besides. I find every year at the end of Lent during the Paschal liturgy, hungry and wearied with fasting and many hours of prayer, my thoughts tend to stray to the feast awaiting us in the hall. I can hardly wait and it is difficult at times to focus on the services in the excitement of anticipation. Each has prepared the most delectable dish, and my mouth waters as my mind wanders to the tables laden with meats and cheeses and rich foods of every kind. Yet, when the services are over and the feast begins, I find that it isn’t quite what I have been craving all Lent. Though inevitably tired of seven weeks of beans and rice, the feast is not what I had imagined it to be. It provides no joy and though it may restore some physical strength, it utterly fails to satisfy.

Although this first shock of disappointment never hinders the following seven weeks of feasting, it speaks of a significant reality. Human beings are forgetful creatures, of which there is ample evidence in the Old Testament. It is full of stories and the history of God’s people forever running after and worshipping foreign gods and forgetting He Who made them and formed them. Modern day human beings are no different. We tend to get distracted and wander off to whatever catches our fancy, forgetting the real road that we are supposed to be on, our real end, and our real purpose. Throughout the OT, we see how God constantly pursues His people and strives to remind them of the Truth: “I am the Lord your God, thou shalt have no other Gods before me.” In His desire to bring His people back to Him, the Lord even allowed such drastic measures as plagues, war, persecution, and exile, for one reason alone: He loves us.

We were created by God out of love, and in the image and likeness of God Who is Love. Therefore the deepest need of every human is Love. Each of us has a hunger to be filled, a need for goodness, love, and beauty. It is true that this earth and that the things of this earth are good, God said so Himself (Gen 1). They are beautiful because they reflect God, but they pale in comparison with their Creator Who is Goodness and Beauty itself. Even the love of another human, though good and beautiful, is still weak and insufficient. God loves us and loves to give gifts to His beloved children and so He created all these good things, not only to satisfy our needs while we are here on earth, but to bring us enjoyment. However, these earthly things are finite and temporary and of themselves will not truly satisfy the deep yearning of the human heart for the infinite and eternal. God is our Creator who Loves us as we yearn to be loved, and we will find no true happiness, no true joy, no fulfillment apart from Him. Yet, being the forgetful creatures that we are, it is so easy to get distracted and run after, trying to fill the hole and dull the ache within us, with what is tangible, whether it be food, clothes, or pleasures, fun, or beautiful things of every kind: our little gods. And that is why we fast.

Knowing our weakness and forgetfulness, the Church in her wisdom prescribed various seasons of fasting throughout the year (not a practice unique to Catholics, or even Christians and Jews), Lent being the most intense. Fasting and extra prayer, along with the God-given trials, serve to not only remind us, as God reminded the Israelites, that we belong to Him alone, but to also practice this utter dependence on Him who alone will satisfy. By temporarily depriving ourselves of something that is good and necessary (we do, after all need to eat, just not in the quantities that most of us are accustomed to), we experience our weakness and emptiness in a very real way and therefore have no choice but turn to the One Who will fill us, strengthen us and Who provides all that we need. In practicing this, we learn more and more every year, not only to let go of our attachment to the things of this earth, but to let go of sin: through prayer and fasting and the grace God gives us through relying on Him, we are healed, purified, and sanctified. Sin is conquered in us! That is the grace of the Resurrection. Jesus’ Resurrection is the ultimate victory over sin and death, but He could not rise from the dead unless He first suffered and died. By it we are healed and set free. That is the real purpose and victory of Lent: if we are to experience the grace of the Resurrection in our own lives, we too must suffer and “die,” become emptied of sin so that there may be room for God. In Him, we will be satisfied and our joy is made full!

To me, Lent makes real one of my favorite quotes of Charles de Foucald:“Quand on a Dieu, rien ne manqué.” “When one has God, nothing lacks.” And I think that that is why, at the end of every Lent, I experience such an acute disappointment in things that are good. After spending so many weeks of relying on God in my human weakness, I find that in turning to something so much lower, it seems like dust. It is, I think, for this same reason that on this most Glorious of Feasts (which we continue to celebrate), I felt as if I already had one foot in eternity.

Today is the day of VICTORY!! Indeed, if Christ is not risen our faith is in vain! Christ said He came that our joy might be full, and it is on this day that our joy is made full! I will proclaim to all the world:“O Death, where is thy sting? O Hell, where is thy victory?” (Paschal homily of St John Chrysostom). There is no fear, for today we are set free from the fetters of misery and sin! We are no longer slaves of death, but FREE!!

Though I forgot my Pascha basket; lost a piece of plastic spatula in the cheese Pascha and overcooked the Pascha bread, both of which I brought to church; caught someone’s hair on fire; and wondered why they don’t do things in my new parish the way they do back home, for me this was indeed a joyful and glorious day! Christ is Risen! God’s joy to you all!


But let me quote the victorious and joyful Paschal homily of St. John Chrysostom, proclaimed in every Eastern Christian Church on this day:

“Let all pious men and all lovers of God rejoice in the splendor of this feast. Let the wise servants blissfully enter into the joy of their Lord. Let those who have borne the burden of Lent now receive their pay, and those who have toiled since the first hour, let them now receive their due reward. Let any who came after the third hour be grateful to join in the feast, and the last even as the first. He gives rest to him who comes on the eleventh hour as well as to him who has toiled since the first: yes, He has pity on the last and serves the first; He rewards the one and is generous to the other; he repays the deed and praises the effort. Come you all; enter into the joy of your Lord. You the first and you last, receive alike your reward; you rich and you poor, dance together. You sober and you weaklings, celebrate the day. You who have kept the fast and you who have not, rejoice today. The table is richly loaded: enjoy its royal banquet. The calf is fatted: let no one go away hungry. All of you enjoy the banquet of faith; all of you receive the riches of His goodness. Let no one grieve over his poverty, for the universal kingdom has been revealed. Let no one weep over his sins, for pardon has shone from the grave. Let no one fear death, for the death of our Savior has set us free: He has destroyed it by enduring it. He has despoiled Hades by going down into its kingdom, He has angered it by allowing it to taste His flesh. When Isaiah foresaw all this he cried out: “O Hades, you have been angered by encountering Him in the nether world.” Hades is angered because it is frustrated, it is angered because it has been mocked, it is angered because it has been destroyed, it is angered because it has been reduced to naught, it is angered because it is now captive. It seized a body, and lo! It discovered God It seized earth, and behold! It encountered heave. It seized the visible, and was overcome by the invisible. O death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory? Christ is risen and you are abolished! Christ is risen and the demons are cast down! Christ is risen and the angels rejoice! Christ is risen and life is freed! Christ is risen and the tomb is emptied of the dead! For Christ, being risen from the dead, has become the Leader and Reviver of those who had fallen asleep. To Him be glory and power for ever and ever. Amen.