…I often have played this scenario out in my head, about what we would do if these acts of violence were ever brought to our little Church in the woods, and I would hope that after the dust and shock had settled, we would give thanks and glory to God for the assurance that not only are we on the right path…but the devil is starting to get desperate!
We all have our off days, and it is so easy for us to let those off days become the routine…to allow that broken wheel to continue to spin, causing us to fall even farther away from the love of God. This is why regular participation in the mystery of confession is so vital to us as Christians! It is a re-set button…a release from the routine of sin, and the beginning of the path back to the Life-Giving Streams which our Lord spoke about with St. Photini!
St. Tabitha is a reminder to us all that true beauty doesn’t come from how we look or what type of worldly stature and power that we have, it comes from the way that we live our lives. True beauty is defined by the works that we do, by the faith that we have, and by the love that we show for God and for others.
For the rest of the world, it sometimes feels as if the day after Easter is a normal day (with the exception of the celebration of going to get the 50% off Easter candy at Walmart). I had a good friend of mine call me on Bright Friday, and I greeted Him with “Christ is Risen”, and his response was “Indeed He is Risen…but wasn’t that last week?” For some, the Resurrection is a one-day event, but for the Ancient Christian Church, we carry on like it happened yesterday!
For many of us today, the lull following Pascha seems almost unreal. After more than a month of services and fasting in preparation and anticipation of Christianity’s holiest day, we too may feel a sense of loss. Nothing matches the intensity of the Church activities leading up the Pascha Sunday Liturgy, making everything afterwards seem almost anticlimactic. It just feels wrong not to be in a Church service or twofor every night of the week! So, we may want to ask as well: Christ is risen—so what are we to do now?
