On April 10, 2022, the Fifth Sunday of Great Lent, His Eminence Metropolitan Nicolae made a pastoral visit to Saint Dimitrios the New Monastery in Middletown, NY. Together with V. Rev. Fr. Abbot Ieremia, His Eminence celebrated the Divine Liturgy, followed by a Memorial Service. A group of youth chanted the responses. The church was filled with many faithful from New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia, and Boston.
His Eminence delivered the first half of his sermon immediately after the Gospel reading (Mark 10, 32-45). In the Gospel pericope, Christ foreshadows His impending death and Resurrection to His disciples, followed by the imprudent request of the sons of Zebedee to sit at His right and left in the Kingdom of Heaven. His Eminence began by teaching, in accordance with the Holy Fathers, that the cup and baptism to which the Savior refers are the cup of suffering and the baptism of death. Afterwards, he commented on the importance of concelebration in the Church:
“We are all servants in the Church. We serve in the altar, sing the litanies and read prayers, while you are replying with ‘Lord, have mercy’ and ‘Amen.’ We are all praying together in the Church and we are all servants. This concelebration is according to our Lord’s commandment to serve each other with love. And it also has an even deeper meaning: that we are working out our salvation together. We cannot be saved just for serving in the altar. You cannot be saved just by being present in the church. But, by serving together, we have to work out our salvation together and this will be our answer before the awesome judgment seat of Christ in His Kingdom.”
At the end of the Divine Liturgy, His Eminence continued his sermon by recounting the life of Saint Mary of Egypt, also commemorated on this Sunday. He highlighted that, as the sinful woman in the second Gospel reading who anointed Christ’s feet with myrrh (Luke 7, 36-50), the strength of St. Mary to endure a harsh life for 47 years in the desert came precisely from her endless love for God. This love made her prayer so powerful that Elder Zosimas saw her bathed in light. Afterwards, His Eminence offered several reflections on the purpose of fasting:
“The purpose of the Fast is not found in an exertion of the stomach, the body, or the knees alone, without any spiritual benefit; but rather the purpose of the Fast is so that through these exertions, we might encounter God, feel His love, and grow closer to Him. If we don’t feel these things now during Lent, our fasting remains merely an external form without warming our soul, without offering us any deeper spiritual experience.”
Even more concretely, HE emphasized that just as in the life of Saint Mary, our fasting must be crowned by receiving Holy Communion: “She encountered the hieromonk Zosimas, to whom she recounted her life and whom she requested that he return to commune her in one year’s time. She didn’t depart this life before receiving Holy Communion. Her prolonged asceticism was truly fulfilled through the Eucharist. Therefore, during the Fast we also can discover this fact, the fact that our struggle need not be fulfilled only at the end of the Fast, but we have Liturgies on Saturdays and Sundays, we have the Presanctified Liturgy during the week when we should not be eating anything until the evening, and thus to discover this rhythm of the Church, of the preparation that is fulfilled in Communion. The Venerable Mother Mary spent her long life of repentance, seeking forgiveness of sins and preparing for her passage into the Kingdom of God. This passage cannot be planned. We should not consider that we will eventually have time to repent. No one knows when God will call us to Himself. For this reason, the lesson of repentance that Saint Mary of Egypt gives us is a very serios impetus to reflect upon our Christian lives, how we spend our time, how we feel God to be present in our life, because God is waiting for us as a loving Father.”
At the conclusion of the Divine Liturgy, His Eminence celebrated a Memorial Service, after which all those present were invited to the agape meal. We thank God for granting us yet another Sunday full of grace and communion. All the faithful left with their hearts full of spiritual fragrance, in joyful anticipation of Holy Week and the holy feast of Pascha.
Written by
Bogdan Manga
