This has been a particularly difficult Great Fast. I have been ill for the entirety of it, unable to fast, and even more, unable to attend Liturgy. Being home bound for around two months meant that the bleak Canadian winter has been severely heavy. We have not seen the sun in weeks at a time. On the social side, we have received so many sad news of family and friends struggling with unthinkable things.
As Holy Week approached, I started thinking of St. John Chrysostom's homily on Pascha. I would have loved to say "it gave me hope and strength", and end the Musing here. Quite the opposite, it made me very frustrated and bitter. Even though I would have been one to post it in previous years, especially on Melkite Musings, I was now frustrated with all the passages that were going to start popping up on social media around Saturday and Easter Sunday. Many of us know those specific lines: "those who have toiled since the first hour, let them now receive their due reward; let any who came after the third hour be grateful to join in the feast, and those who may have come after the sixth, let them not be afraid of being too late..."
Bitterness towards St John Chrysostom is not a healthy indicator, so I wanted to understand why I was feeling that way. As I dug into my own emotions, I realised it wasn't about the first or third hour. It wasn't even about the Pharisee and the Publican. In previous Lents, I had been either, but I was one of them. This Lent, I was neither. I had no hour in which I joined. I could NOT, medically, join. The Pharisee boasted at the forefront of the temple, the Publican wept at the back. I couldn't even make it to the temple, to either boast or weep. I had nothing, absolutely nothing, to work with this Lent. In fact, I feel like I'm five years back in the spiritual life too.
In one of our classes on the Icons of the Great Fast, we learn that some versions of the Icon of the Entrance of Christ Into Jerusalem (Palm Sunday) includes a child removing a thorn from another child's foot. It is meant to symbolise that spiritual maturity and purity (becoming like children) is not acquired with ease, but rather with immense pain. In other words, to climb the ladder of Divine Ascent, one must climb each step barefoot on thorns.
Who can endure such a feat, I wondered? How did the saints survive years of darkness, and I am barely enduring such a relatively lighter burden and darkness? How could I ever climb even one step, and I feel like I slid down ten of them this Fast?
Of course, nobody knows darkness like St. Therese of Lisieux. While thinking of those thorns, this saying came up: "Don't be troubled about feeling no consolation in your Communions; this is a trial that you must bear with love. Don't lose any of the thorns you are meeting every day; with one of them you can save a soul."
It made me understand that God not only uses our good deeds or even sins. That was quite clear. He can use all things for the ultimate good. What I understood more with this barren fast, was that God also uses our emptiness, the absence of our actions, the void we encounter. All things begin and end with Him, what should it matter if I did not make it to the temple to boast or weep? He uses the temple, but He is not bound by it. He does not NEED either my sinful boasting or my virtuous tears to work.
We think often of the faithfulness of Our Lady at the Cross, or the longing of the Apostles running to see the empty tomb. However, the greatest action, the harrowing of Hell and the Resurrection, occurred at the darkest hour, the one that seemed most void of hope and activity. It is then, and only then, that true faith can begin to be tested. Indeed, let us not lose any of the thorns we encounter every day. Christ is Risen!
Beautiful reflection- perhaps a far more fruitful Lent than what you imagine!