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In the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.
We are now on our journey from the land of dereliction to the glorious
land, where we meet the Loving God as children of His Kingdom. This
church at this moment is an apt image of the situation in which we are;
we are in twilight, and we see the sanctuary of God, God's own realm in
all the glory of light. And yet we know that Christ has brought light
into the world, that He is the Light, and that we are children of Light.
It is from darkness to twilight, and from the twilight into the full
glory of the uncreated Light of God that we are now moving. As in every
journey, when one leaves the place of one's habitual abode, one is still
full of feelings and memories and impressions; and then gradually they
fade away until in the end nothing is left but the expectation of the
end of our journey.
This is why, in the course of this first week of Lent, the penitential
canon of St Andrew of Crete is read. For the last time we think of
ourselves; for the last time we shake off the dust from our feet; for
the last time we remember the wrongs of the past years, and before we
proceed further to the Triumph of Orthodoxy, to the day when we remember
that God has conquered, that He has come and brought the truth into the
world, and life abundant, and joy, and love, we can turn a last time to
ourselves and one another to ask one another for forgiveness: Free me
from the fetters which my unworthiness has made and which tie me down;
fetters which are made of sins of commission and sins of omission, of
what was done by us to one another, and what was left undone that could
have brought so much joy, so much hope, that would have been evidence to
each of us that we are worthy of God's faith in us.
And so, in the course of this week let us for the last time look at
ourselves and look at one another and make our peace. Making peace,
reconciliation, does not mean that all problems are over. Christ came
into the world to reconcile the world with Himself and in Him with God;
we know what it cost Him: He gave Himself, helpless, vulnerable,
unprotected, gave Himself to us, saying: Do with Me what you want, and
when you will have done your worst — see that My love has never
faltered, and that it could be joy and it could be searing pain, but it
was nothing but love...
And this is an example which we can, which we must follow if we want to
be Christ's own people. Forgiveness comes at the moment when we say to
one another: I recognise your frailty, I see how deeply you wound me,
and because I am wounded, because I am a victim — at times guilty, and
at times innocent — I can turn to God, and from the depth of pain and of
agony, of shame, and at times of despair, I can say to the Lord: Lord —
forgive! He does not know what he is doing! If he only knew how deeply
wounding his words are, if he only knew how destructive he is for me in
my life, he would not do it. But he is blind, he is immature, he is
frail; and I accept his frailty, and I will carry him, or her, as a good
shepherd carries the lost sheep; because we are all lost sheep of the
fold of Christ. Or else, if necessary, I will carry him, or her, or them
as Christ carried His cross — to the point of death, to the point of
love crucified, to the point when all power of forgiveness is given if
we only have accepted to forgive whatever was done to us.
And so let us enter into this Lent, as one moves from darkness into
twilight, and from twilight into light: with joy and light in our
hearts, shaking off our feet the dust of the earth, shaking off all the
fetters that make us prisoners — prisoners of greed, of envy, of fear,
of hatred, of jealousy, prisoners of our lack of mutual understanding,
prisoners of our self-centredness because we live like prisoners within
ourselves and we are called by God to be free. Then we will see how step
after step we move as though it were across the vast sea, away from the
earth of darkness and twilight towards the divine Light, we will meet
the Crucifix, and we will meet one day at the end of it, Love Divine
revealed to us in its tragic perfection before it reaches us as an
unutterable glory and joy. First — Passion Week, first the Cross; and
then the wonder of Resurrection. We must enter into both, enter into the
Passion of Christ together with Him, and enter together with Him in the
great peace and in the shining light of the Resurrection.
For myself, I will ask forgiveness of you for all that I have not done
that should have been done, for the awkward way in which I do things,
and for the many, many things that should be done and are never done.
But let us now support one another on this journey by mutual
forgiveness, by love, remembering that very often on a hard journey it
is the people from whom we expect nothing good that at a moment of
crisis will stretch out a supportive hand — people whom we thought were
alien to us, or inimical, who suddenly will see our need and meet it.
So, let us open our hearts, our minds and eyes and be ready to see and
to respond.
Let us now begin by going to the icon of Christ, our God and our
Saviour, who paid a heavy cost to have power to forgive; let us turn to
Mother of God Who has given Her only-begotten Son for out salvation; if
She can forgive — who would refuse forgiveness to us? And then turn to
one another. While we come we will hear no longer songs of repentance,
but as though they were coming from afar
off, the hymns of the Resurrection that will grow stronger halfway when
we reach the Feast of the Cross, and will fill this church and indeed
the world in the night when Christ was risen and His victory won. Amen. |
