(Big week calendar 'deliriums'
of a BAD old man… from the Holy Mountain of the GOOD old men)
Athonite wilderness… Spring beauty… April flowers… Myrrh-bearing breaths… Water-stream murmurs… Monumental leaf rustlings… Provocative spiritual stirrings… Prayerful heart-rending chants… Hymnological welcomes of Holy Week…
On the threshold of Holy Week, a fragrant 'hymnological bouquet' welcomes Christ's worshippers to the 'theater' of the sacred Passions of the God-Man, exuding intoxicating aromas of sublime emotions... and motivating the mind to be vigilantly participatory...
Good Monday…
“… Having come, believers, to the saving Passion of Christ our God, let us glorify His ineffable long-suffering… as His Compassion has awakened us, dead to sin, as He is good and loving”! (From the Hymnology of Great Monday)
INTERPRETATION: Having been honored to reach the sacred Passion of our God and Savior Christ, let us glorify His indescribable long-suffering... so that, with His Mercy, He may resurrect us too, as the Good and Philanthropist that He is, from the death of sin into which we have fallen...
If the forty days of Great Lent are a HIGHER spiritual 'school' in which the Manna-Church delivers high 'lessons' of Psychotherapeutic Education... and Salvation, then the seven days of Holy Week can be considered as a HIGHER fast-paced spiritual 'Tuition Center' that oversees the consolidation of the acquired 'Knowledge' and its, henceforth, soteriological utilization...!
“…Let us also come with purified minds, let us accompany Him and be crucified, and let us die for Him to the pleasures of life, so that we may live with Him…!” (From the Hymnology of Great Monday)
INTERPRETATION: Let us also go forward, with purified and clear consciences, and walk with Him… and let us be crucified with Him, and let us die for His sake, as to sinful pleasures [ 1 ], so that we may live eternally with Him, in His Heavenly Kingdom…!
Holy Tuesday…
How naive and foolish I am, if I think it is possible to 'pierce' unnoticed and participate 'unconditionally' in the supramundane Joy! My self-conscious verdict, however, has realistic awareness...
“I see Your Bridegroom, my Savior, adorned… and I have no garment to enter into it! Brighten the garment of my soul, Giver of Light, and save me…”! (From the Hymnology of Holy Week)
INTERPRETATION: With my mental eyes I see the Wedding adornment of Your Kingdom, my Savior, and with shame I realize that I do not have the appropriate spiritual attire to enter into joy. Grant, therefore, with Your forgiveness, the Bright Garment of a purified soul, my Light-Giver, and save me…
My soul's (my) secret desire is to "enter the Bridegroom"... but without elementary conditions of spiritual decency... this is impossible! How can the... ragged and unwashed 'beggar' soul (my) be allowed to enter the Palace of the King... and sit down as a fellow diner, among glorious souls, at the Wedding Supper of His Kingdom...?!
Holy Wednesday…
My soul, "fallen in many sins," falls today with "tears of adoration" at the immaculate feet of the all-pure Lover and Beloved Bridegroom of the Church, kissing them reverently and humbly asking for the forgiveness of its enormous spiritual debts...!
“Accept for me the springs of tears… Bow down to the sighs of my heart… The multitudes of my sins and the abysses of my crimes… Who will you search out, my soul-saving Savior?!” (From the Hymnology of Holy Wednesday)
INTERPRETATION: Accept, Lord, the sources of my tears… Bend down and listen with sympathy to the sighs of my heart… Who else, except You alone, will ever be able to identify and forgive the multitudes of my sins and the abysses of my crimes, my soul-saving Savior?!
The desire of (my) impure soul - a former 'prostitute' who has just begun to repent and purify herself! - is burning "to enter the Nymph", but let me not be naive! Without the conditions of purity (i.e. heartbreak... tears of repentance... and Divine forgiveness...), this is completely impossible... no matter how much (I) desire it!
Maundy Thursday…
Horror and awe… My God-Man Maker, girded with a lentio (footcloth), humbly washes the feet of His disciples (including the traitor Judas!), handing over to my arrogance the greatest Lesson of His Salvation Teaching…
“The one who wills in you is first… even though he be last of all and servant of all…” (Mark 9:33)
INTERPRETATION: Whoever wants to be first among you... must be last of all and servant of all!...
Good Friday…
“And your life shall hang before your eyes…” (Deut. 28:66)
INTERPRETATION: And your life will be hanging in front of your eyes…!
Gazing today at the Crucified, incarnate Life-Self-Life [ 2 ] voluntarily and condescendingly nailed to the most dishonorable symbol of condemnation of all centuries, having the Immaculate Conception XHer arms stretched dislocatingly from end to end of the Cross, so that they 'embrace' and lovingly and forgivingly unite all of creation (including the crucified!), I think that... there is no more captivating in beauty and alluring Bridegroom - no matter how horrible this may sound or be read! - than a God-Man... slaughtered and nailed like a carcass on the Cross!...
Facing the Crucified All-Love - the only precious Love of every God-thirsty heart! - I hum the 'ballad' of my soul towards Him... delirious incomprehensibly in my Christ-thirsty fever... and measuring the potential margins of a life... WITHOUT Life, Which "today hangs on a tree"...!
How can I live… without Life?! How can I survive… without the life-giving, within me, energy of It…?! How can I exist… cut off from the substance-creating Cause of my lowly existence?!
How can I give meaning to my life… which automatically and completely becomes meaningless when it is cut off… separated and foolishly 'autonomized' from the Christ-named Autozoia…?!
How and with what 'equal' substitute of this world, can I 'fill' the hopeless inner void of the depressing Christ-absence...?! How can I 'fill' a Void... that is equivalent to my absolute psycho-mental degradation and marks my existential downfall... if I have 'emptied' of the only Property (of His Grace) that could ever enrich, with His Presence, my sad poverty...?!
Awkward silence and tearful crushing of the mind, at the horrific sight of a blood-soaked… God! My poor mind, unable to 'logically' understand the Mystery at hand, and having been miserably betrayed at this moment by its (whatever) intelligence, turns to my heart, in agonizing expectation of explanations…
Why was the Only Begotten Son and Word of God crucified, as a man?! How was Life put to death…?! How was Love slaughtered…?! Was it, supposedly, a criminal 'feat' of the evil will of inhumans…?! Or was it perhaps a philanthropic condescension of the merciless Omnipotence of God, for the Salvation of the world and the lifting of humanity from the dark depths of eternal perdition…?!
The Orthodox heart (of mine) experiences miraculously… but quietly and doxologically - without being too much contemplatively engaged - the Mystery of the incomprehensible divine Economy…! However, the ever-restless mind (of mine), anxiously wandering, refuses to humbly surrender to the painless carelessness of the obvious and self-evident answers of the heart! Instead, it insists on contemplatively exhausting the entire breadth and depth of this greatest 'Scandal' of human logic: the Sacrifice on the Cross of the God-Man…
Why was it deemed 'necessary' to Slaughter... and in such a horrific way, the Only Begotten Son and Word of God?! Couldn't our all-wise and all-powerful Creator have invented another Redemptive solution for the tragic fate of mankind, without the 'need' of sacrificing and slaughtering His incarnated Son?!
Is, then, the Salvation of men such a serious matter… that the wasteful shedding of the divine Blood on the Cross is deemed inescapably necessary?! And if this wasteful shedding of the Blood of the King of kings shows the grave importance of human Salvation… could a possible failure to observe this divine sacrifice possibly hold extreme dangers of unimaginable metabiological consequences, for my ingratitude, hardness of heart and impenitence…?! [ 2]
The one who 'wears' the Light as... a garment, "The one who puts off the Light as a garment", bloodied, naked and breathless... in front of the awkwardly surprised mind (of mine): "How shall I bury You... my God?!"!
The removal of the theandric Body from the Cross scaffold… and His burial, with a silent epitaphic lament: Life… in the grave! Inconceivable paradox of an incomprehensible Mystery: How could the inexhaustible and inexhaustible 'Crate of Life' that animates the universes, dry up…?! How could the “incomprehensible One” ‘enter’ the funeral tomb…?! The scents of the flowers of the flower-adorned Epitaph, mixed with burning incense of Paschalia… sweetly soothe, in the evening silence of the Athonite wilderness, the fever of (my) agonizing reflections…
Reverently descending from the Cross… and burying in the flower-adorned tomb the “King of kings” and “Lord of lords” and “Judge of judges”, I fear… along with the holy psalmist: “How shall I bury You… my God?!” I will sprinkle the torn flesh of the Slaughtered All-Love with flower water… and I will mourn silently within myself! All night long I will keep vigil next to the Crucified Love, praising Her divine Burial: “Oh, my sweet Ear… where did I give You beauty…?!”, where Your Beauty reigned… “Bride, you are more beautiful… than all men”?!
Holy Saturday…
Life…in the grave! Inconceivable…completely! How can His All-Holy Theo-Human Body remain buried in the bowels of the earth…?! How can the Soul of our souls… the Life of our lives…?! How can the eternal and never-flowing Fountain of Universal beauty and harmony…, the ever-flowing “Source of Zoarchy”…?!
"Today Hades cries out: Bring me the one born of Mary, I will not receive him. For when he came upon me, my power was loosed... May souls possess what they had before, God raised them from the dead!..." (From the Hymnology of Holy Saturday)
INTERPRETATION: Today Hades, groaning, speaks in a monologue: It was better for me not to have accepted into my dark kingdom the One whom Mary gave birth to. For, coming to me, He destroyed my power and resurrected as God the souls that I had held captive for centuries…!
Here, then, is why the God-Man Christ HAD to descend into Hades! In order to proclaim Salvation to the countless multitudes of souls who were imprisoned and hopeless there, having passed away in the darkness of ignorance, throughout all the previous centuries (before Christ)! They too had to be given the same opportunity-possibility, if they want to choose salvation or perdition…! And the all-good God offered it to them, remaining for three days in Hades, and teaching the Gospel of Salvation…!
Great Sunday…
Tonight, my soul, like a 'puppy beaten' by the pain of the heart... perches mute and sad at the roots of the Cross of my Athonite promontory. It awaits a 'vaguely' promised 'Resurrection'... which is far beyond and above human reason! However, it hopes and waits...
As Easter dawned... the all-luminous and unfading Sun of Justice wished to shine revelatory in all worlds and in all the supermundane, even in the dark abysses of Hades...
“Now everything is filled with Light, both heaven and earth and the underworld…” (From the Hymnology of the Resurrection)!
INTERPRETATION: Everything is overflowing with Light… Heaven and earth and the underworld…
Singing insatiably "Christ is Risen", my formerly restless soul, now at peace, welcomes with all its senses the rising Light... My weary mind, from its agonizing thoughts, calms down carelessly. My heart, intoxicated by the flood of the intelligible and the sensible Light, insatiably breathes in its Christ-named oxygen... and my soul is sweetly at peace, attesting to the certainty: that LIFE (resurrected from the Tomb...) triumphed over death, illuminating its gloomy and horrible nightmares endlessly...
Let us receive Light from the eternal Light…
and let us glorify Christ, the Risen from the dead!
REFERENCES-FOOTNOTES
[ 1 ] The passionate attachments of our mind, heart and senses to ephemeral and decadent 'loves' (personal or real) consciously work our mental, cardiac and sensory freedom, to dark 'forces of possession' that dominate our existence! This captivity does not occur immediately. It begins to take shape... when we choose our disconnection and alienation from the Relationship of Love that unites us with our Creator God! After our voluntary removal from His Fatherly Love, the plotters of our salvation - the unclean spirits! - having 'free rein' from the removal of Divine protection... they try to throw us into passionate 'addictions'... which place us under their absolute power and dependence! They psychosomatically addict us to three powerful 'drugs': Philedonia (i.e. the insane love for carnal pleasures...), Ambition (i.e. the insane love for temporary glory...) and Avarice (i.e. the insane love for wealth...), which 'represent' all the other individual sins...
[ 2 ] “I am the Resurrection and the Life…” (John 11:25).
