Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Christ is Risen!

Congratulations with the feasts of the Resurrection of the Lord and of the Myrrh-bearing Women!

Last evening at the All-Night Vigil we read the third resurrectional Gospel reading. Remember that there are eleven Gospel excerpts that narrate for us the events of the resurrection of our Saviour or those events that happened after the resurrection. These excerpts are read on Saturday evenings. Yesterday we heard the last lines from the Gospel according to Mark (Mark 16: 9 - 20). In them we briefly heard about how the Lord, after His resurrection, appeared first to Mary Magdalene, then to two apostles who were going to the country, and finally to the other disciples while they were at a meal. Christ reproached them for not believing those that had earlier seen Him risen from the dead. Later we heard how the Saviour sent them out to preach the Gospel. He noted that the faithful will perform various miracles and signs. After such instructions, we read that Jesus Christ ascended to heaven, while the apostles set out to preach.

According to the words of the Saviour, one of the signs which the faithful must do is to “take up serpents,” that is, to take into their hands poisonous snakes and suffer no ill effects from such actions. Of course, when we hear this we remember that truly these prophetic words were fulfilled in the person of the Holy Apostle Paul (chapter 28 of Acts). Remember that when Paul was making his way to Rome, his ship was wrecked and he and the other prisoners found themselves on the island of Melita (Malta), where he was bitten by a snake. This event caused no harm to the apostle, and the native inhabitants, having seen such a wonder, came to the conclusion that Paul must be a god.

These word can be understood not only literally, but also allegorically. Blessed Theophylact explains that to take up serpents means “destroying… spiritual serpents.” We are given power to do battle with the devil, with passions, with temptations. Each one of us meets a great many such serpents throughout one’s spiritual life. We fight with our passions and, with God’s help, sometimes decisively destroy this or that passion. Unfortunately, some of our passions give us no peace, and we are forced to combat them for many years or sometimes for our entire life. This of course could lead some people to despair, because we have no desire to sin, we pray fervently for the Lord to remove our passions far from us, with all our heart we worry about this, but the thoughts that push us towards sin still do not abandon us. The words of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ from yesterday’s Gospel reading give each of us hope, for we can take that passion, that snake, into our hands and it do us no harm, if only we have faith in the risen Christ. Therefore, let’s continue our struggle with the passions, and if we are bitten by this or that snake, let’s not fall into despair, but instead let us rise up, take the prescribed anti-venom, i. e. come to confession and Communion, so as to be healed, and once again take up the serpent in our hands until we finally defeat it.

Let us pray that today’s wonderful saints, the Myrrh-Bearing Women, who never feared anything but were always bravely serving our Lord, help us in this task.

priest Alexis