†Anastasios
Archbishop of Tirana, Durrës, and All Albania
Easter 2023
Overcome pain – Paschal joy
«Rejoice!» (Mat.28:9)
Pascha! With joy let us embrace one another.
Pascha, the ransom from sorrow! (Stichera of Pascha)
Pascha this year invites us to a difficult exercise. These past years and especially the recent months have accumulated multifaceted grief around us and in our hearts: unspeakable pain from the railway calamity and the multitude of victims from the earthquake in our region, indescribable distress from the merciless war in Ukraine. Simultaneously, various personal and social trials increase the rays of suffering. However, the Church, with her superb hymnology of Pascha, calls us to a decisive transcendence: “Pascha! With joy let us embrace one another. Pascha, the ransom from sorrow!”
Grief and joy coexist in human life. This truth is emphasized vividly in the events experienced during Holy Week. Before the Passion, Christ during the Mystical Supper clarified to His disciples: “Therefore you now have sorrow; but I will see you again and your heart will rejoice, and your joy no one will take from you” (John 16:22).
Pain agitates us in the days of the Passion, but it is ultimately overcome in the light of the triumph of the Resurrection. The first decisive word and exhortation of the Risen Lord to the devoted Myrrh-bearing women who rushed to His tomb was: “Rejoice!” (Mat. 28.9). When the Risen Christ first appeared to the disciples, the evangelist John notes that “they where glad when they saw the Lord” (John 20:20). The joy of Pascha springs from the polymorphous pain that preceded it: betrayal, disapproval, contempt, death on the Cross. The cross-resurrectional Pascha redeems every sorrow. The resurrection of Christ certifies the victory of truth over falsehood, love over hate, and the triumph of life over death. The risen Christ dispels every shadow of Hades. He demolishes the dominion of death, which brings violence, arrogance, mania for wealth, exploitation, injustice.
The intermingling of pain and joy surprises us. However, this harmonization of opposites remains a characteristic of the life in Christ. The Apostle Paul emphasizes this extraordinary experience: “in much tribulation, with joy of the Holy Spirit” (1 Thess. 1:6). This is an amazing harmonization, a paradoxical counterpoint. He describes it expressively in another of his letters: “We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed” (2 Cor. 4:8-10). And elsewhere: “as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things” (2 Cor. 6:6-11). Again, in the last book of the Holy Bible, the Revelation of John, the union of sorrow and the final victory of the crucified and resurrected Christ is summarized with astonishing symbolic images and the sequence of opposites.
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The harmonization of sorrow with the joy of the Holy Spirit which we are referring to initially appears impossible. Nevertheless, as the Apostle to the Gentiles confirms to us “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Phil. 4:13). This union seems unfeasible, but a close relationship with the suffering and Risen Lord makes it possible. We experience this communion with the Incarnate Word of God by being incorporated in the Church, which is His mystical Body. The Holy Spirit, by this communion, acts in our existence, strengthens and delights our whole being. The resurrection is the foretaste of the ultimate victory of the God of love in the eschaton.
The resurrectional joy is based upon unshakable foundations. First, upon Christ’s assurance that “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth” (Matt. 28:18). Over the centuries, many appeared as rulers of the universe. But the One who has the final authority over what happens in the heavens and on earth is our Lord Jesus Christ. The second unshakeable foundation is the assurance of the Risen One that: “lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Mat. 28:20). Our Lord is not a distant and indifferent spectator of what is occurring. He continues to be “with us” in all the phases and difficult moments of our life. And upon a third foundation: The Paschal joy which increases when it offers love where hate abounds, where despair ravages.
Pascha! With joy let us embrace one another.
Pascha, the ransom from sorrow!
Sadness and joy alternate in our lives. Unexpected excruciating situations are not absent from our journey, disasters that exceed our strength and defeat us. We feel uneasy to face them and frequently we are overwhelmed by fear. Nonetheless, let not our will remain inert. As much as it depends upon us, let us allow the light of the Resurrection to illuminate our life and let the Holy Spirit grant us endurance, patience, and hope. The cross-resurrectional joy is a distinct characteristic of life in Christ. For this reason, the preeminent Apostle insists: “rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice” (Phil. 4:4, 1 Thess. 5:16).
Therefore, let the joy of the Resurrection illuminate our lives, redeeming us from sorrow and gloom. Let the resurrectional certainty, the resurrectional phronema, support and suffuse our everyday lives with joy.
Christ is Risen!
