Dear Baba - Post Pascha
Dear Baba; Great Lent and Pascha have come and gone. Sure I can eat anything I want now but I miss everyone. I miss all the services even though they seemed to weigh so heavily on my to do list. I miss being in church like we were during Great Lent. What do I do now? – the Lonely Feaster
Dear Lonely Feaster – Christ is Risen! Indeed He is Risen! Let me embrace you and exchange 3 joyous Paschal kisses. Come sit down and have a cup of tea. I have some delicious Pascha cakes and goodies for you to have with that cup of tea as well. Now first and foremost you must realize that this is the Paschal season. We celebrate Pascha fully for 40 days. The triumphant ‘Christ is Risen’ is sung throughout the liturgies until the Feast of the Ascension and the faithful continue to greet each other with those powerful words. Remember with us Orthodox, we fast in preparation for a feast day and then we feast. In the case of the Nativity, Christmas isn’t over the moment the last gifts are unwrapped but rather it is only beginning. So the Paschal season celebrations are still underway.
You are facing the dilemma that so many of us face. The preparation for the Feast of Feasts pulled us all together and now that we are celebrating, we fall back into earthly lives, thinking nothing of what we eat or if there is a service that night. Plus we really feel the fatigue of Great Week and Pascha setting into our feet, bones and backs during Bright Week. It is understandable with that mix, that we would feel lonelier. But here are some things to consider during these glorious days of the Paschal season.
- Continue to come to church. You’ve already proven to yourself you can make it to more than just Sunday liturgies. There are many services every week.
- Make it a regular habit to come. In fact, why don’t you add a couple more services during the month from here on out? I know you can do it.
- Greet each other with “Christ is Risen.” And you can even be so bold as to answer the phone with “Christ is Risen” instead of ‘hello’ even if you don’t know who is calling.Make time to call family and friends. Reconnect with them during this joyous Paschal season.
- If you are so inclined, invite a few friends over from church. Make it a pot-luck and you will all enjoy the time of fellowship.
I think, though, there is something quite a bit deeper that is tugging at you. There is a major choice you are being called to make especially right now. Will you go back to being the ‘old man’ you were before Great Lent began and just consider it a temporary thing you had to do? Or will you take all your experiences, all your growth, all your steps and missteps in your journey closer to God and keep moving towards Him?
Remember my dear, that we are created to walk with God in the cool of the evening. In this fallen world, we struggle to shake off those things that shackle us and keep us from God and keep His light from shining through us. We also struggle to move past our shackles and continue growing closer to Him to the point that we become one with Him.
That is where we find true happiness, peace and joy. Despite our Lenten struggles, we tasted the life we were created to live. During Great Week and Pascha we truly experienced it. And now we are torn between an ultimately empty material world that we are used to and this new life we had begun to journey towards. It is a bit scary. In the challenging times of Great Lent, we talked ourselves into keeping at it for only a few more weeks. It made it all less overwhelming didn’t it my dear? But what do we do now? Do we actually continue on the journey now that we have reached the Feast of Feasts? Can we grow from this point forward? Yes, Great Lent is a particularly intense time of spiritual battle and growth. But it doesn’t mean we can’t keep actively clawing our way through the muck and empty debris of this world towards God even outside of the Lenten times.
Yes, by all means feast. But feasting doesn’t mean debauchery, gluttony or worst of all forgetting Our Lord. We all felt the calming effects of our quieter houses during Great Lent. We all tasted the sweetness of time spent with Him during all those services. We drank of the life giving waters. If we turn our backs to it and resume our old normal worldly lives, we will of course thirst for it like a dry land. We felt what it is like to fill our hearts and souls with God. Nothing on earth, no material thing can begin to fill that space reserved for Him.
Metropolitan Jonah wrote a most compelling letter to the faithful at the beginning of Great Lent. In it he said:
“Great Lent can be a clinic, a hospital, for our souls that are sick with the passions. Have we been healed? We can have our minds and hearts lifted up to heaven itself, if we want. We can use Great Lent to lay the foundational stones of discipline, and build habits that will stay with us the rest of the year. We can emerge from Lent with our hearts illumined and our minds cleansed, with a new way of being. Will we allow ourselves to change and be transformed in repentance?
It is only this transformation that will open our spiritual eyes, that in our hearts and with all our being we will be able to shout with joy, "Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and upon those in the tombs bestowing life!"
His words are so true. As I refill your cup, I beg of you seize the blessed opportunity we have to take the experiences of Great Lent and keep growing closer to God. Look at St. Thomas whom we commemorated last week. He is sometimes derided as being the ‘doubting Thomas.’ What a shame. The Sunday after Pascha shows us his intense desire to know the truth. When he experienced the truth, he was the first to fall to his knees before Christ and say “my Lord and my God.” And it transformed the rest of his life. He courageously and joyously brought the light of Christ to far away places including India. He didn’t leave his encounter with the Risen Lord, saying “gee that was swell” as he headed back to his home and the life he had. Together let us continue this journey to Christ. Together let us celebrate the Feast of Feasts without taking our eyes off of heaven. Moving towards God brings joy and peace. Together, let us let Him change our lives forever.
Christ is Risen! Indeed He is Risen!
With enveloping hugs;
Baba †
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Living Faith 
