IRINEJ
BY THE GRACE OF GOD
 THE SERBIAN ORTHODOX
BISHOP OF AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND
Our dear spiritual children:
CHRIST IS RISEN!
They asked each other, “were not our hearts burning within us while He talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?” (Luke 24:32)
Addressing you, beloved monastics, clergy, all sons and daughters, children of Saint Sava, the spiritual children of our Holy Church, with a heart burning and rejoicing in the victory of light over darkness, and life over death, We wholeheartedly greet all of you on this great and victory-bearing Feast of Feasts – The Resurrection of Christ, with the most joyful greeting:
CHRIST IS RISEN!
May that joyful, Paschal burning of the heart which the Holy Apostles Luke and Cleopas experienced on the road to Emmaus, in like manner fill also all of your hearts with the living presence of the Risen Lord Himself. And that He might “open the eyes” of our hearts, we must in our everyday lives free ourselves from all prejudice and every blindness. And in so doing to enable ourselves to remove every hurdle of a “slow heart”, it is necessary for us to overcome ourselves and all our imperfections and allow Him, Who is the Life and Resurrection, to realise for us our own personal resurrection.
Yet, despite the Resurrection of Christ, sorrow and sighing still continue to exist in this world. Why? Because we refuse to accept that victory of His as our own, we do not give ourselves over wholeheartedly to Christ. Often we do not see how the dark deeds of this world weigh upon our spiritual and even physical ruin. Is it not clear to us that many among us have become participants in that contemporary heresy of secularism? Have we likened ourselves to those who would that the Church, the Body of Christ, be transformed into corporations and associations, and by such to tear asunder our unity in Christ? Have we allowed ourselves to blind the eyes of our hearts, to the point that we are no longer able to discern truth from lies? Do we not see how much that sin of ours lures us to our moral ruin? If we do not believe the same, let us ask ourselves – does not our youth suffer distancing from the Church, becoming so vulnerable to the temptations of this world? That is, beloved in the Risen Lord, the direct result of secularism! If we do not open our eyes and confront reality, will we not, knowingly or unknowingly, become the sons and daughters of damnation instead of the light! God forbid!
However, where Christ the Victor is, there also is our hope. For, truly Christ’s victory over “the last enemy” is indeed a complete and final victory. Although, it is up to us to accept and to apply this with our own free will to our daily lives. For us, as persons who are still subject to death and sin, that victory opens the doors of heaven, restores us to our human dignity and to our integrity. However, that same victory requires of us a wholehearted and sincere transfiguration which arises from our Christian effort, endurance and stamina, and mostly, from love – and that is precisely the burning of the heart! For, according to the words of the Holy Apostle Paul, “if I speak in the tongues of peoples and angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging symbol” (I Cor.13:1). And the beginning of every human transfiguration must begin within, with our own soul and mind that is to say, with the heart and reason. According to the teachings of the Elder Paisius of the Holy Mountain, “one pure, good thought has greater might that any other (spiritual) effort”.
So that we can realise our own personal resurrection, sincere repentance and cleansing, turning to God through spiritual renewal and moral regeneration is necessary for all of us. Precisely, it is up to us to transform every disaster and to transfigure every temptation, for according to the words of St. Gregory Palamas, “temptation cleanses the soul, becomes the cause for humble and very useful prayers”. Otherwise, if all of that is omitted, we will, sadly, never have a future, neither in the times that follow nor in the eternity of the Kingdom of God. Our present is our future! Only a life in Christ represents an alternative to disunity and division, disfigurement and corruption, immorality and all that is sinful and bears death, both spiritual and physical. However in spite of everything that befalls us from the Evil One be it through others, or even more frequently through us ourselves, because of everything that the Resurrection brings us from the Crucified and Risen Lord, rejoice and be glad, always and from the fullness of the heart which burns with the victorious words:
CHRIST IS RISEN!
TRULY, HE IS RISEN!
Given in Sydney, at Pascha in the Year 2008
Your fervent intercessor before the Risen Christ,
+IRINEJ Bishop of Australia and New Zealand
Administrator of the Diocese for Australia and New Zealand
New Gracanica Metropolitanate |
