Archpriest
Andrew Lemeshonok, the spiritual father of St. Elisabeth Convent, answers
various questions of the parishioners.
How would you describe the joy that a priest
feels when the person who comes for confession repents genuinely?
When a
person opens his heart for God, grace of the Holy Spirit who cleanses the
person’s soul of sin enters that person’s heart. This grace touches the priest
who is a witness and a participant of this Sacrament, too. The joy that the
priest feels resembles the joy after communion.
The
Sacrament happens and people are visibly transformed, even their appearance
changes. Their eyes start to radiate light. It can’t leave the priest
indifferent.
The
Sacrament of Reconciliation is not merely a discourse, an argument, or a
counselling session, where a priest gives advice — no matter how good and wise
that advice might be. This Sacrament is an act of God.
Why is it that every year the Great Lent
feels different?
God
always has everything new. He never repeats or copies himself. The cycle of
divine services helps one’s soul to see God in a new light. You can never get
accustomed to it.
That is
why when we participate in a holiday, when we go through a certain
ecclesiastical season, like the Lent, we change and our perception of God and
understanding of his grace also changes. We discover new depths of prayer and
chants — the innermost beauty that a Lenten service possesses. Perhaps, we will
never fully comprehend this beauty but we do improve and grow spiritually. Some
of the words that we have heard many times now acquire a new meaning. This is a
source of great happiness when we explore the majesty of Orthodox worship and
God’s love towards us sinners.
The Psalter is read many times during the
Great Lent. There are a lot of Psalms that call for God’s wrath upon sinners.
How should we interpret that?
It
doesn’t show personal relationships, where people must forgive and love. It
illustrates spiritual relationships where a sin is always evil. You have to
struggle against evil.
The Old
Testament gives us prototypes and indicates what we have to be aware of in
order to understand what people before Christ were like and what kind of life
and mentality they had. Their mentality was entirely different. That was why
David could not preach love like Jesus did. Christ came to the earth when
people had already been prepared by the Old Testament to accept God and his
love. The Old Testament way of dealing with other people is eye for eye, tooth
for tooth. The dreadful moments of bloodshed, curses, and brutal retaliation
must not be viewed literally from the height of our contemporary morals. Look
at it with the eyes of Old Testament people.
At the
same time, we see in the Psalter the magnificent poetry of the Spirit. Enemies
are a personification of the devil. They are the sin that we have to combat and
to dash it against the rocks. Christ is our Rock. You must not negotiate and
try to find compromise with sin. You must cut it off resolutely. Christ said
that He had brought us a sword. The Gospel also says, If thy hand offend thee,
cut it off (Mark 9:43). Sounds cruel, doesn’t it?
Your
personal enemies and your relationships where you have to humble yourself down
are one thing. The enemies of the Church or the Homeland who conspire to
conquer your land and destroy its holy places are a different thing. You have
the blessing to defend your Church and country. You mustn’t just sit around
watching your enemies destroy and slaughter.
That is
why we must not take everything literally. We should try to interpret the
God-inspired words of Psalms as a battle cry calling us to fight the sin and
the devil who does whatever he can to separate man from God completely.
March 28, 2018
St.
Elisabeth Convent
CONVERSATION