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We touch the miraculous and the impossible every day, and take it for granted; that’s our problem. Besides, we don’t believe that God can do the impossible, and we sit in the midst of that disbelief.
Why don’t we have joy? This is Paschal time! Are we filled with joy that we are living in the resurrected Christ, now, this moment?
Are we cognizant, aware? Do we wake up in the morning and say, “Christ is risen; truly he is risen. It is true! It is true! It is true!”? Are we filled with this joy?
I don’t think we fully realize what it is to live in the resurrected Christ. We realize, much or little, how to live in the living Christ, that is to say, we know how to imitate him as he was human, weep at his passion, and so on.
But I think that the truth of the resurrected Christ has not yet penetrated. We are still doubting Thomases.
I just returned from a gruelling visitation to one of our mission houses, but I am exuberant with joy. This is probably due to the background that I come from, because in Eastern spirituality the whole year is like an expectation of Easter.
I received a pamphlet, in Russian, of the Easter letter from the pastor of St. Nicholas’ Cathedral—the Russian Church in New York. One senses in it the exaltation that this priest feels as he addresses his parishioners.
He uses words that probably would seem exaggerated to you, to try to explain what a glorious night, an extraordinary night, is that of Christ’s resurrection; that it is the hope of our lives, that we are living in the resurrection. He goes on and just bubbles with joy.
From childhood we Easterners have been given this understanding and a great longing for the parousia, the second coming of Christ.
Once when I was a little girl and had done something wrong, my younger brother said, “The way you behave, the parousia isn’t coming very soon.”
Even as a child, he was worried, because we have the idea that our behaviour affects the coming of the parousia: the more we show Christ in our actions, the quicker he will return in glory.
So my little brother wasn’t pleased about the way I was behaving; the parousia was going to stay away a little while longer.
In Russia this Easter week that is so humdrum in the West was really the high point of the year. For instance, during this whole Easter week we didn’t work.
Grocery stores and pharmacies were open for only a few hours, and of course hospital workers, firemen and others in essential services continued as needed. But all other shops were closed.
When you walked down the street—I don’t care if you were 100 years old, a pretty girl, an ugly man, or if you had a skin disease—people walked up to you, even ones who didn’t know you, and said, “Christ is risen, truly he is risen,” and you returned the greeting and then embraced and kissed each other on the cheek three times.
Nobody cared if you had a skin disease or if you were old or young. There was this joy; they just had to kiss each other, on the street and all over the place, and nobody refused to kiss anybody. It was a kiss of great peace and joy.
The whole place literally throbbed with this joy; I mean the whole country.
People walked very many miles to be at a certain place, such as a monastery, just to be more joyous, in a sense.
Because we had fasted so rigorously during Lent, (the Irish used to call it the “black fast”), during this most festive week everyone feasted on the special Easter foods. Even the very poor were either given some or had saved something for that day and week.
The koolitch and paska (special Easter bread and a special Easter confection) had lots of sugar in them because we didn’t eat sugar during Lent.
In them everybody would partake of “the sweetness of Christ” and of the Easter meal. So our agape (feast) of food continues the agape of the vigil liturgy of the resurrection.
I sometimes think we completely fail to express the joy of Easter, of Christ’s resurrection. But if it isn’t in the mores of a country, there is no exuberant celebration of Easter week.
I’m not speaking only of multi–religious countries like Canada and America, but even in Catholic ones, there isn’t too exceeding a joy—except maybe a few fiestas and the like.
In Catholic countries in the West, Christmas seems to be a much bigger feast, whereas in Russia Christmas is for the children, so to speak.
We prepare for it, have a day off, and so on; but this feast of the Incarnation of Christ will lead to Easter. Christmas is thought of more that way—that it will lead to Easter.
I have a whole lifetime experience to know why I am joyous. Yesterday I was joyous during our visitation because the presence of the resurrected Christ was deeply felt.
I was so very cognizant of the time of year: the liturgical season of Easter. Since Christ is resurrected, whatever problem there is in a given house, even a problem impossible to solve, is possible to solve.
We live in the resurrected Lord: hence this joy. Just thinking about God delights me.
When we are recollected in this fantastic, incredible Paschal time that is renewed symbolically and historically each year, it touches us to our very core. We begin to know what love is.
If our heart is open, Christ comes and mysteriously visits each one of us. What can the world give me when I have Christ?
I can give something to the world. I can give it God!
Excerpted from Season of Mercy, (1996), pp. 119-121, available from MH Publications in the 2011 edition.
