In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and
of the Holy Spirit. that could console you and
help you during these days. I pretty much gave
up with finding the right words and hoped only
that God would send me some kind of inspiration
through prayer. Well, some inspiration came,
but it wasn't exactly through prayer. It was
like everything else these days. It was through
the Internet. I received an email from our dear
friend, the former Vincent Rossignol monk, Maximus,
and he said that he was going to be giving a
sermon at a local church, but couldn't do it
because he couldn't go, obviously. So I said
that I would be happy to quote some of the words
that he gave us. And the first thing I want to
say is, like him, I see that, as he says here
in his homily, a couple of weeks ago, Lent would
have seemed like a very long slog, a very difficult,
weary, painful, endless trial. But now we're
at the fifth week, the last Sunday of the fast.
And we're honoring this wonderful, sublime, incredible
woman. Mary of Egypt. We've read her life this
week. We pondered in hymnography words about
her in the Canon of St. Andrew, in which she's
mentioned prominently at the end of almost every
ode. And Lent is almost over. One more week and
it will be Palm Sunday. The time went quickly
in some ways. And I'm hit. as he says here, with
the realization that I have not accomplished
or fulfilled anything spiritually that I had
hoped I would at the beginning of Lent. Of course,
if we could plan ahead, maybe things would have
been different at the beginning of Lent, considering
the circumstances, but probably not. I'm not
anywhere near where I should be in my journey
towards union with God. And this thought is stinging
when faced with this woman here. Her memory and
the gospel we just read about the woman that
comes and is weeping at Jesus' feet. Weeping
because she knows that he loves her. And can
forgive her sins. Take that burden away. And
she pours ointment. Expensive ointment. And apparently
she was a prostitute. Like Mary. And she poured
it on his feet. And she wiped his feet. This
is what our Lenten journey should have been like.
That kind of love for God. But it wasn't. I take
some consolation. In the fact. Not just because.
I'm thoughtless and lazy and prideful and think
that, well, God will forgive me anyway. It's
okay. I probably do think that. No, I take consolation
also in the fact that hearing this gospel about
the disciples following Jesus, they're not walking
ahead of him as would have been customary. They
were following him and they were going, he had
set his face toward Jerusalem. This gospel isn't
just there to tell us, oh, next. The week after
is going to be Holy Week. You know, we should
get to church. Obviously, we can't. This gospel
is there to tell us that the cross is the center
of our life. This cross is to tell us that our
Lenten journey now is over. Now we're journeying
with Christ, and we're going to live these days
in a very different way. We started with being
cast out of paradise, and now here we are, almost
at Golgotha. A horrible place to be. But a place
in which absolute despair, suffering, pain, loss,
being crushed is turned into victory because
that's how God uses things. God never works out
of power and strength, said Metropolitan Anthony,
but only out of weakness. Because that's the
way we are. So I take some consolation. that
although I have failed in the fast, God has patience
with us. He knows our circumstances, our situation.
I also take some consolation in the fact that
the two of the closest disciples, James and John,
who had been with Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration,
which I see up there in the corner, the height
of the church. along with Peter, come to Jesus
with the most inappropriate question. Peter had
already tried that. Get behind me, Satan. Peter
tried to tell Jesus, the Romans crucify Messiah
pretenders all the time, Lord. You're not the
pretender. You are the Son of God, the Christ,
the King of Israel. So no, you can't be crucified.
Peter tried that. James and John didn't seem
to learn. So I take consolation that though I
am clueless too with my Christian life, those
that had seen miracles, that had seen Jesus transfigured
in glory, still did not understand. So we don't
understand either until we live it. Two more
things I want to say, not just about, oh. The
difficulty of keeping the Lenten fast, that's
self -evident. But in that difficulty is the
very answer we need. Is the way God has planned
for us. What do I mean by that? James and John
asked Jesus a question. And Jesus is patient.
He knows what they're going to ask. Just like
a parent knows when a child's going to ask something
very stupid. He already knows. But we're patient,
and it's okay. They ask, can we sit on the right
hand and the left? When you are in glory. After
we marched into Jerusalem. After the Romans have
been crushed. After you're enthroned as the king.
We want to be on your right hand. because we're
close to you. They even had their mother come
to ask him that. Little did they know that Jesus'
throne outside the gates of Jerusalem would not
be one of marble and gold with a crown of gems.
His throne would be the cross, and on his right
hand and left hand would be two other crosses.
That's the road we're on now. The road of difficulty.
The road of self -denial. But the road in which
God's grace is always present. God's strength
is changing our weakness into something else.
His grace is manifest in our weakness. We know
that all this can be taken away from us. In Russia,
in 1910, holy Russia, nobody would have thought,
except maybe Lenin and Stalin and their madness
and Trotsky, that in 10 years, bishops, priests
would be taken away and shot, sent to gulags.
The faithful people sent to work camp in gulags.
Churches shut and blown up. 10 years. Could it
happen here? God only knows. But all this could
be taken away from us. And so we live the way
of the cross, the way outside of Jerusalem right
now. Here's what our dear friend, Father Maximus,
says. He says, what is it that we need to learn
today about St. Mary of Egypt in the desert and
St. Zosimas in the desert and the cross and the
weight of the cross? That Jesus tells us today.
And also. I don't have time to preach about it.
But Jesus' final words in this gospel. Without
which we can't understand any of it. To be first
or last. We have to be the servant of all. As
Jesus is. Who gave his life as a ransom to many.
Then we understand this. That our Lenten effort.
Our life effort. What we should be busy. doing
as Christians is to acquire union with God in
love, in spirit, and in truth. That's the final
destiny for each one of us, because we've been
created in the image of God, unless we forgot
the lesson of Sunday of Orthodoxy already. And
above all, says Father Maximus, Our orthodoxy,
our right belief, our right worship, our right
practice, our right glorification must be grounded
in the inner realization and not merely held
up by our external habits and practices, which
are good and which are inspired by God and which
are given to us for our salvation, but we spend
too much time on the external, looking around.
For whatever is external to ourselves, whatever
is material, can be taken away. The right to
assemble in church can be denied us. Our very
bodies can be destroyed. But Jesus has warned
us to fear not them that kill the body, for they
are not able to kill the soul, but are not able
to kill the soul. But rather, fear him which
is able to destroy. both soul and body, in hell.
Our orthodoxy, our devotion to Christ, which
is lived out most perfectly in the Divine Liturgy
and the Holy Eucharist, yes. But what we bring
to it is that brokenness and that weakness and
the love of that woman that was in the Gospel,
not the foolishness of James and John. An interior
orthodoxy of warmth of the heart. Which is the
center of our being. When we memorize something,
a psalm. Many people are trying to memorize Psalm
15 right now, I understand. When you have it
memorized, what do you say? I've learned it by
heart. You don't say I've learned it by mind.
The heart is the center. The depth of our being.
it's there that our Orthodox practice has to
be well -grounded, well -planted, and watered
with the teachings of the Church, the moral life
of the Church, the grace of God which comes from
that. So, to finish, Fr. Maximus says, let's
fight the temptation, and it will be. So fight
it with all your heart, the temptation to be
discouraged or anxious or angry about what is
happening today or distracted from the one thing
needful. We must not succumb to fear or to false
knowledge. We must fight the temptation to brood
or fixate on the social upheaval that we are
going through. We must resist the temptation
to take our attention, our mind's eye, of the
center, capital C, of our spiritual life. Capital
C, Christ crucified, Christ resurrected, Christ
victorious over all the powers and principalities,
Christ in St. Zosimas, Christ in St. Mary of
Egypt, who through the ministries and incarnate
ministries of the Theotokos led her not only
to the expunging of all sins, but to the ascension,
the raising up to the angelic life while on earth,
showing us that we can be transfigured. The possibilities
of the image of God in which we are made, being
made very clear. For ye have not received the
spirit of bondage to fear, but ye have received
the spirit of adoption whereby we cry. Abba,
Father. In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit, be all glory, honor, and worship.