REFLECTIONS ON HOLY WEEK AND PASCHA

REFLECTIONS ON

HOLY WEEK AND PASCHA

LIVE HIS PASSION AND ARISE WITH HIS RESURRECTION

Having reached the age of ninety, I am grateful for every day the Lord gives me, but my single  though undeserved hope, is that I may inherit everlasting life.  I have urged many to pursue this course for over sixty years, both in person and by this present blog.  May none of us lose this precious crown, on the day of judgment!  In this present treatise I will reflect on this most sacred season of Holy Week and Pascha, with a few memories, as how I began Church life. 

   In 1931, at the age of 8, I was excited as I would go to Church, for the first time at night.  Church was part of our life as we went to Church and Holy Communion since infancy.  At that young  age, we never went out at night. This  was a big event, going to Church in the dark, for the evening service of the Epitaphios or tomb with its beautiful hymns. However, my desire remained  unfulfilled  that Friday due to an incident, for a 22 cal. bullet exploded near me causing the loss of sight in my left eye. Instead of the beautiful services I ended up in Memorial Hospital in Worcester MA., and though I was not sick, I was there four weeks. My regret was not losing half my sight, but missing Church that night. I sadly sang hymns to  myself which I had learned from my father, and which I hoped to hear that night in Church. Like, ‘E-yen-e e pa a a se, hym non ti ta fee Sou . . .” (Every generation sings praises at your tomb). I realized in later years, this was a small arousal in my soul of  faith, hope and love. I always bless my father who taught us not only the hymns, but the perfect truths of our Orthodox Faith, and the errors and heresies which fight against it. My father lived that faith, showing us by both teaching and  example that there is nothing in the entire world of greater value than Holy Orthodoxy. 

THE GENERAL RESURRECTION

THE GENERAL RESURRECTION

 “The general resurrection, you confirmed before your Passion, by raising Lazarus from the dead, O Christ God.  Therefore as did the children, carrying symbols of victory, we cry out to you, the Conqueror of death: Hosanna in the highest, blessed is He that comes in the name of the Lord.”

Apolytikion of Lazarus Saturday and Sunday of the Palms

LAZARUS SATURDAY

   The day of the general resurrection, confirmed before His Passion, is the day anticipated by the faithful with great hope for the object of their faith and love– Jesus Christ the Savior, who will come in glory to judge the living and the dead, and fulfill His promise of  everlasting life in the  joy of His Kingdom. “Come blessed of my Father, enter into the Kingdom prepared for you.”  On the day of the general resurrection the faithful will be rewarded according to  their deeds accomplished through faith in Christ and their love for Him expressed by keeping His commandments. 

     For unrepentant sinners will be filled with fear on this dreaded day, not because God is going to punish them and send them into eternal fire.  The fear that will arise in their miserable souls when their sin filled life is displayed before them, and the punishment sure to come, for they never believed and repented to wash away those sins. God is good and the lover of  mankind, nor does His love change into hatred and bitterness, causing Him to exact revenge.  No one is excluded from God’s love which extends to the just and unjust, saints and sinners, for God is love and rejoices in His created works. He loves the unrepentant sinner and He loves the holy martyrs who surrendered their lives out of love for Him, for God cannot change.