Just another Pascha?

Once again we anticipate that amazing weekend: the Lamentations sung at the tomb, Ivan’s baptism, the sea of burning candles at midnight, the growing excitement; so many of us will be there, in the midst of a service of radiant joy, whose entire content is one exultant hymn: “Now all is filled with light, heaven and earth and the lower regions. Let all creation celebrate the rising of Christ. In Him we are established.” What joyful, victorious words! Everything united: heaven, earth, even what was the dominion of death. The whole creation participates in this victory, and in Christ’s resurrection everything in life miraculously discovers its own meaning.

But it will pass, the night will be over, Bright Week will end, and we reenter the normal, everyday, sober reality of our life. And what do we find? All too often it seems that nothing, absolutely nothing has any connection to the songs we hear in Church (If we even still come to church as regularly as we did during Lent.) The problem has been around for a long time, and this year still again I’d like to share the advice given by a saintly bishop just a generation ago:

You ask, “How can one keep the joy received on the feast of Holy Pascha?” Well…there are some things we have to do and some things we cannot do. In general, we have to ask God continually to allow us to be collected in our thoughts, not scattered; and we also have to ask God to give us the desire and strength not to give way to anything which might wound this feeling of joy. Each of us knows from bitter experience, what those things might be. Ultimately, however, the abiding presence within us of this joy depends not upon us but upon the Cause of this joy – the Lord Himself. It is God who uplifts us and it is God who humbles us down, when and in whatever way He deems necessary and beneficial for us. The Lord uplifts us when we are humble, and humbles us when we exalt ourselves.

— Sofia, 1931 (from the letters of Archbishop Theophan of Poltava)