The following homily was given by Fr. Christopher Hill following the evening Presanctified Liturgy on Wednesday, March 18, in the side-chapel of St. Nicholas at St. Catherine’s Church, the representation church of the Orthodox Church in America in Moscow.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
As we make our way through Great Lent, the book of Genesis is read at the services every day. And in the book of Genesis we see how God visits His creation—the human person, the human race—in various ways. He visits Adam and Eve with great joys, and yet after the Fall, He visits Adam and Eve with calamities, or what we perceive as calamities. From our human perspective, these calamities are not always easy to endure. We do not always see the meaning behind them, because we live in a fallen world where our perception of things is limited and prejudiced.
And yet, behind all things, behind joys and affliction, we hear the good voice of God calling us. And He calls us in a special way. If we are to see God, we have to see other people. The Zulus in Africa have a remarkable saying: “I am because we are.” If we do not see God in our brother and sister, in our neighbor, in our enemies—in every person who has been brought into the world by God, then we cannot hope to see God as He is, to use the words of St. John (1 John 3.2).
Today, throughout the world, as I’m sure all of you are aware, there is this disease called the coronavirus. I won’t go into detail about what this means for us physically, but there is a spiritual meaning. We have become used to living comfortably. We are of course aware of disease and death, but we live day to day knowing that there will be adequate provisions in the shops, knowing that our loved ones will be around us for some time yet, and so many things we do really take for granted.
Now, we are faced with what philosophers might call an existential crisis. In simplest terms, it means we should ask ourselves very serious questions about our relationship with God, and if it means questions about our relationship with God, it means about our relationship with each other. We are called to be bound together by the love of God, by His grace. The human race is tempted to unite people on the basis of ideologies, philosophies, and so on. But we must know that there is no human force that can truly bind us together. It is all up to the power of the Holy Spirit, and the power of Holy Spirit manifests itself in love.
And if we are to love, as the Lenten hymns remind us time and time again, we must surrender ourselves. The less there is of me, then the greater the space there is within me for you. This is the spirit which we must live by during Great Lent. If we live by this spirit, by the grace of the Holy Spirit, then we can through God’s aid overcome all those afflictions that appear to be visiting us in these present days.
Let us pray about this. For the first time many people have started to pray, I read today in the newspapers. This is a good thing, because when our hearts are lifted up, we begin to see each other and God in a different, more gracious, and transfiguring light. Amen.
