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Eloi, Eloi, lama Sabachtani! /‘Father, Father, why have You

abandoned me?’ In the depths of His suffering the perfect Humancried out to the Father in despair,in solitude and anguish, Eloi, Eloi,

lama Sabachtani! For those of us‘crippled’ Christians who walk these days leading to Holy Easter with hope that we too will besaved some day, what comforthave these words to give us? If Christ despaired on the Cross,

what hope do we have, and yet, the promise of the Resurrection cannot be accomplished without thePassion.

The event of the Resurrectionwhich the Orthodox Churchcelebrates each year is thehighlight of Orthodoxy and the joywhich the Church feasts bydressing herself in white; lightingcandles in the midst of the night

and chanting Χριστς νέστη κ νεκρ ν θανάτω θάνατον πατήσαςκα το ς ν το ς µνήµασι ζω νχαρισάµενος / ‘Christ is risen fromthe dead, trampling down death bydeath, and upon those in the tombs

bestowing life!’ But all this joyand celebration is meaningless if the Passion had not taken place; itwas a necessary event having beenforetold by the prophets of the Old

Testament. The mission of Christ asMessiah on earth was never meantto be a peaceful event. Christ did

not come to earth for a cup of teaand a quick ‘hello’. Perhaps it mayhave been like that if humanity hadunderstood at the outset what itsrelationship to God and the rest of humanity entailed. However,having embraced the earthly as the

only reality we alienated ourselvesfrom God. The plan for salvationtherefore lay in God Himself, Hecame by sending His Son, HisWord to fulfil our destiny in Him.He paid the price for our sins byHis suffering, why then should we

be amazed by the words, Eloi,

Eloi, lama Sabachtani! All that Hesuffered, he suffered in Hishumanity, which felt the pain, the

thirst, the humiliation and the fear of the annihilation of the soul tothe Unknown. Christ suffered andfor this reason Eloi, Eloi, lama

Sabachtani! should not intrigue us, but humble us, maybe even bringtears to our eyes! Why not? It wasnot anybody who assumed mysins, our sins, but God Himself, the‘I AM’.

Eloi, Eloi, lama Sabachtani! are

words that we all exclaim at one point at least in our lives, and yetthe God who transcends nature,who is known to man by all thatHe is not, does not forsake us. StGregory of Nyssa tells us in The

Life of Moses that when we least believe or know God, that is whenHe is standing next to us, carryingour burden. Moses came closest toHim in the darkness of a cloud;

when things no longer made senseto Moses was when God wasclosest to Him.

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y e a r X X X I

M a y - J u n e 2 0 0 6

Rejoice! Christ, oureternal joy, is risen!Presbytera Eisodia Menis

RESURRECTIONby Vicki Petrakis

The Athonite Gerontikon in-cludes a story of a simple elder called Father Thomas. In 1935,after the Liturgy of the Resurrec-tion, Fr Thomas was asked by his

Abbott to go to the ossuary togreet the (dead) fathers with the

paschal declaration: “Christ isRisen!” He duly obeyed withoutsecond thought. Astonishingly, therelics moved, replied “Truly theLord is Risen” and returned totheir silence. The brotherhoodcelebrated a unique Pascha thatyear with their praises to God re-doubled.

Being deeply moved, they sang ahymn from the Matins of the Res-urrection:

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Your Resurrection, Christ Sav-

iour, Angels sing in heaven; grant

that we too, who are on earth,

may with pure hearts give glory to

you.

There are similar stories inother monastic anthologies. Inthis bright time of the paschal sea-

son the story is enriching. Seeingthe words of the monks’ song, Ireturned to the Matins to readthem once again in their context.

May we with pure hearts, theysay, give glory to our Lord .

Again the Matins of the Resur-rection teaches us:

Let us purify our senses, and in

the unapproachable light of the

resurrection we shall see Christ

shining forth, and we shall clearlyhear him saying ‘Rejoice!’, as we

sing the triumphal song.

Rejoice... page 1

Ce Ńie nu-Ńi place,altuia nu-i face!

What you dislike,do not do to somebody else!

This represents one of the mostsimple and efficient moral princi-

ples.Acesta reprezintă unul din cele maisimple şi eficiente principii morale.

Tensions between people comefrom a lack of balance in their be-haviour.Tensiunile dintre oameni vin dintr-o lipsă de echilibru încomportamentul lor.

The imbalance consists in the factthat all people think exclusively totheir own interests while almost

nobody think to others’ needs.Dezechilibrul constă în faptul cătoŃi oamenii se gândesc exclusiv lainteresele lor, în timp ce aproapenimeni nu se gândeşte la nevoilealtora.

If we do and give to people whatwe expect for ourselves, this im-

balance disappears.

Dacă facem şi le dăm oamenilor ceea ce aşteptăm pentru noi înşine,acest dezechilibru dispare.

For instance, we have to forgivethe others if we want to be for-given.De exemplu, trebuie să-i iertăm pealŃii dacă dorim să fim iertaŃi.

This principle is inspired by the

prayer Our Father . There it is told: And forgive us our sins,

As we forgive those who sin

against us.

Acest principiu este inspirat derugăciunea Tatăl nostru. Acolo sespune:Şi ne iartă greşelile,

Precum şi noi îi iertăm pe cei care

greşesc faŃă de noi.

The principle is almost literallytaken from Luke 6:31:

Do to others as you would have

them do to you. Acest principiu este luat aproapeliteral din Luca 6:31:Ce vreŃi să vă facă vouă alŃii, faceŃişi voi la fel pentru ei.

The Resurrection is the hopethat we all have as Christians, nomatter how much we avoid thisglorious occasion by the lives welive. First do we fully understandabout our personal resurrection inthis life and in the next? I for oneam certainly perplexed by the

former and amazed by the latter; perhaps revealing my personalreaction to Christ’s words, Eloi,

Eloi, lama Sabachtani! Onceagain this Pascha, as I approachthe joy of the Resurrection, Icannot help but wonder:

what is this Resurrection Lord that

in Your perfect humanity You

make a mockery of death; You

transgress the laws of nature and come back to life and not to this

one that I am familiar with but to

another….a place of the

spirit….that mystery of movement

unintelligible to the senses for You

have no taste other than your

sweet manna; You have no smell

other than Your myron; You have

no visibility other than the eyes

You sent me; and to touch You is

to feel the gentle breeze of the

wind telling me Your spirit is

close; ah but to hear You that is

my longing; to hear You Lord, tounderstand You, to concur with

Your will so that we may live in

peace together.

As I approach Your resurrection

Lord, the mind is no longer moved

by thoughts but numbed by the

mystery of You….all around me is

You as I recall Your own words to

me… personally, “Love God and

love your fellow man”. Who areYou Lord that I should want to

know You?

Resurrection... page 1

Sunday School / Şcoala de duminică7 May / mai 2006

Romanian Christian WisdomÎnŃelepciune Creştină Românească

Revd / Preot Doru Costache

8/14/2019 03 May-Jun 06



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PASCHAL MYSTERY 1Christ is risen! The night of the Holy Pascha isone among the many beginnings which compose the liturgicalyear. It represents the Christianversion of the Jewish Simhat To-rah, a festival of ending and start-ing again the reading of the Torahin the Synagogue during a year.

In a similar way, the EasternChristian Pascha represents themoment when the annual circuitof the readings from the New Tes-tament begins.The indicated readings for this

period are the Gospel accordingto St John and the Acts of theApostles. The first celebrates and

proclaims the ecclesial vision of Christ , while the second pro-

claims and celebrates the new life,as experienced by the Church of Christ.The feeling is similar. DuringSimhat Torah, the Synagoguechants our Torah is a Tree of Life

for everyone. In the night of theHoly Pascha, the Church chantsthe joy of the new life in Christ,the latter being the Tree of Life

PASCHAL MYSTERY 2Christ is risen! At the end of the first paschal oc-tave (i.e. the first week of eightdays), the two readings end byspeaking of life. this repre-sents the most appropriate exege-sis of the paschal mystery.Acts 5:19-20: during the night anangel of the Lord opened thedoors of the jail and brought themout. “Go, stand in the templecourts,” he said, “and tell the

people the full message of thisnew life”

John 20:31: Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presenceof his disciples, which are not re-corded in this book. But these arewritten that you may believe that

Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing youmay have life in his name At the end of the larger paschal octave (i.e. the eighth Sunday of

the Holy Pascha), we receive theHoly Spirit, the shared Life of theLife. The paschal mystery is the

proclamation and celebration of the eighth day of creation, whichis the mystery of plentiful life

PASCHAL MYSTERY 3Christ is risen! Why the day of the resurrection isthe day of the Pascha?

It is because this daywe celebrate the resurrectedChrist, who truly is the Pascha(Passover). It is the celebration of a person, not just of an event in-volving that person. The person isthe key of our sur-vival (living ina superior way, not just survivingan unfortunate event): he is theladder (cf. John 1:51), he is theway, the truth and the life (cf.John 14:6), he is the mediator be-tween us and God (cf. 1 Timothy2:5), he is our participation in thedivine life (cf. 2 Peter 1:4). Theevent is just the manifestation of all these…Christ is the new Pascha, we re-cite, like summarising the open-ing strophe of the canon:The day of the resurrection! Re-

joice, people! Pascha of the Lord, Pascha! Christ our God passed us from death to life and fromearth to heavens, those who chant the hymn of victory

Christ is the/our passing fromslavery to freedom, from sinful-ness to virtue (cf. Romans 6 – anexplanation for the reason why,during the ancient times, baptismswere performed in the night of thePascha), from darkness to light(cf. 1 Peter 2:9). It is not bychance that during the paschalliturgy we hear: the light shines in

the darkness, and the darknesshas not overcome it (John 1:5)

PASCHAL MYSTERY 4Christ is risen! The liturgy of the resurrectionreveals simultaneously the iden-tity and the outcome of the Paschathe identity: In the beginning wasthe Word, and the Word was withGod, and the Word was God. He

was with God in the beginning.Through him all things weremade; without him nothing wasmade that has been made (John1:1-3). The Word became fleshand made his dwelling among us.We have seen his glory, the gloryof the Only-Begotten of the Fa-ther, full of grace and truth (John1:14).The outcome: all who received

him, those who believed in hisname, he gave the power to be-come children of God—childrenborn not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband'swill, but born of God (John 1:12-13). From the fullness of his

grace we have all received one grace after another (John1:16).The Son of God became the Sonof Man that the sons of man be-come sons of God

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Discerning the Paschal Mysteryby Revd Dr Doru Costache

http://revdcostache.livejournal.com/

8/14/2019 03 May-Jun 06



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PASCHAL MYSTERY 5All the time, everyday, St Sera-

phim of Sarov greeted everybodywith: Christ, my joy, has risen!

PASCHAL MYSTERY 6Christ is risen! The Holy Pascha represents the

feast of the body. It celebrates thesalvation of the body, not from the

body. Many have thought thatsalvation is the escape of the soulfrom the body. Some went too far with this philosophy... LucianBlaga jokes in a poem on a monk who mocked so much his body,than it became impossible for himto find his body atthe eschatological resurrection of all...The facts are this: the Logos took upon himself a body; he lived inthis body what belongs to humanlife; he transfigured and resur-rected this body, with all thatrepresents human life.The Holy Pascha celebrates the

passing of the body into a newexistential dimensiondeified, but still a body nonethe-less

PASCHAL MYSTERY 7Christ is risen! Trampling down death by death:the only hope for a resurrection is

by assuming the defeat. But this

is just one side of reality. The su- perficial, though not necessarilylacking heroism. From another

perspective, one has to kill his/her own prejudices in order to acquirea wider horizon and a more realis-tic understanding. For instance,we all are desperate to live. Andthis precisely is the cause of our inexorable death.Jesus understood this and went

glorious towards death, killingstep by step his fears. Eventually,when he breathed for the lasttime, not the life was defeated – it

was the death itself, acknowl-edged and experienced as nothing

PASCHAL MYSTERY 8Christ is risen!John 1:14: we have seen his

glory

1 John 1:1-4: that which was from the beginning, which wehave heard, which we have seenwith our eyes, which we havelooked at and our hands havetouched—this we proclaim con-cerning the Word of life. The lifeappeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to

you the eternal life, which waswith the Father and has appeared to us. We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that

you also may have communionwith us. And our communion iswith the Father and with his Son,

Jesus Christ. We write this tomake our joy completeCelebrating Holy Pascha is toopen our eyes – to see the unseen.The Resurrected opened the eyesof his disciples (cf. Luke 24:30-31 & 45).Adam and Eve closed their mind-eye and unwisely opened the sen-sible, allowing themselves to getdrunk with the beauty of theworld. Only this beauty is ephem-eral, and existentially neuter. Onecannot become a better person by

just seeing beautiful things…Celebrating Holy Pascha is to

keep open the sensible eye, andmore – to open again the mind-eye. This may provide us with theopportunity of seeing more, of seeing beyond, of getting trans-formed into what we see. Andthen, of transforming everythingelse we see.To those unable to experience thisalchemy, nothing could be bright,luminous.

Rejoice! The light shines in thedarkness, but the darkness hasnot overcome it.

Discerning... page 3

editor:Rev. Doru Costache, PhD

layout design:Ion Nedelcu (Bucharest)

address:64 Linthorn Ave,

Croydon Park,NSW 2133.phone: (02) 9642 02 60

www.geocities.com/sfmaria_sydney

03 may-jun 06

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