As you know, the
third Sunday after Easter is the Sunday of the Myrrhbearing women, or the
Sunday of the faithful women, keepers of Christian family. You should be joyful
that you partake of this special honor from our Resurrected Lord. And through
our most pure Mother Theotokos and the Holy Myrrh-bearing women, you have a
Sunday a year when you are especially honored. May the Lord multiply in you the
grace and gifts of the Holy Spirit and may the gift of Christian love abide
truly in you, in order that you may become maintainers of Christian’ warmth and harmony in your family. For many
families today are met with disaster… as you know better than me, so I will not
speak about it.
And those of you (faithful women) who come to
church and pray to the Lord – here and in your home – if you pray attentively
with love, humility and perseverance,
you’ll receive help from God and be comforted in your troubles.
As we preach today on the Sunday of the Holy
Myrrhbearing women, let not forget that all of you – Orthodox Christian women
and your daughters – are called to be the Holy Myrrhbearing women
of the Orthodox Church today and forever.
The Christian
mothers will offer our Master their most precious mirth, which is the birth,
raising and education of children in the fear of God. But also the older mothers, the grandmothers
and widows that are always present in the holy churches of God, may bring their
ointment of tears and prayers as they piously keep the Orthodox faith and
legacy passed on by our ancestors.
Behold, all daughters of the Orthodox Church,
today you are the offspring of the Holy Myrrhbearing women – when you hold in
your heart the good fragrance of faith, prayer and Christian love. If you’ll
only run with devotion to church along with your children, as the Holy
Myrrhbearing women once ran to the Holy Tomb of our Saviour.
On the Holy Myrrhbearing women I can also
tell you that there were times in the life of our Saviour Jesus Christ when
they were more courageous than the Apostles. Such, when our Lord was taken-up
by the Jews in the Garden of Gethsemane, when all the Apostles – with the
exception of St. John the Evangelist – left Him, and Peter betrayed Him by
swearing three times that he does not know Him. But the women followed Him both
to the council (of Pilate) and on the road to Calvary. They accompanied Him
when He fell under the heaviness of the Cross, and Veronica with her veil wiped
his tears, and her veil became the first icon bearing the image of Christ.
Even after the crucifixion of Jesus, when the
Apostles were hidden for fear of the Jews, these women in that very early
morning approached the Holy Sepulchre
(Tomb) to anoint our Lord’s body as it was customary in the Hebrew tradition.
And just when they reached the tomb seeking our Lord’s body, they found it
opened and empty and an angel of the Lord announced them that „Christ had risen
from the dead”, showing them the empty shroud.
Mary of Magdalene, this brave women from whom
Jesus exorcised seven demons, had become the greatest witnesses of Christ’
Resurrection; she remained weeping at the grave while other women had
left. She was still seeking for our
Lord’s body, but the tomb was empty. Then she met someone at the grave and
thought to be the gardener. So she asked: “Sir, if you have carried Him away,
tell me where you have laid Him, and I will take Him away.” (John 20, 15).
And „the gardener”
Christ Himself, called her by name: Mary! His emphasis and tone of voice, made
Mary recognize HIM. Although Jesus Christ was the same in flesh and blood, as
He revealed Himself later to the Apostles, there was something changed in Him.
It was undoubtedly His divine appearance, His transfigured flesh. And He was
only recognized by those with a pure heart, that had their eyes enlightened.
When Mary recognized Him, she sought to
approach Him. But Jesus said: „Do not hold me, for I have not yet ascended to
the Father; but go to my brethren and say to them, I am ascending to my Father
and your Father, to my God and your God.” (John 20, 17).
Not long after this event, our Saviour
appeared to His disciples in Galilee on Mount Eleon. There, Jesus was to meet
His Apostles gathered in one house.
So we see how these holy women were in
company of the Risen Christ – Who appeared from time to time, in order to get
them accustomed with his resurrected body, because it was a great miracle,
since no one had seen a resurrected body before. (…)
During these forty days, He entrusted the
Apostles and the Myrrhbearing women by appearing to them and to many others.
Christ’ Resurrection is a guarantee of our
resurrection and, as Jesus Christ rose from the dead, as St. Paul says, we will
also rise (…) and we’ll be standing before the judgment
seat of Christ with all our good or evil
deeds, and we’ll be spending eternity
accounting the way we lived our lives in this world.
CONVERSATION