Mar 292015
DURING THE FORTY DAYS of the Great Fast the Church urges us to ascetic effort as a preparation for the observances of Holy Week and Pascha. We know that, by His death and resurrection, Christ has achieved the restoration of our human nature in Himself and has enabled us to share in His victory over sin and death by baptism.
Like Adam in the resurrection icon, Christ has taken us by the hand to draw us from the pit of spiritual death. But we know that, like Adam, our feet are still in the grave. It takes a lifelong process of ascetical effort to keep us joined to the redeeming hand of Christ and emerge from the tomb.
The seal on our Lenten striving is participation in the holy mysteries. Earlier in the Church’s life those who were repenting of serious sins were excluded from the Eucharist during the Fast and reconciled to the Church in Holy Week. The Armenian and Maronite Churches still observe the reconciliation of penitents during this week, celebrating in deed as well as word the forgiveness won by the death of Christ.
In the Byzantine Churches the sacramental climax of our Lenten asceticism is the Mystery of Holy Unction. Anointing the sick was practiced by the apostles during the lifetime of Christ (cf. Mark 6:13) and by the Church in the apostolic age (cf. James 5:14-15). There are occasional references to this mystery in some of the Fathers but the specific practice only reached its present form after the fourteenth century.
Conferring this mystery to the whole congregation seems to have come about in response to the plagues which struck Constantinople eleven times in the fourteenth century. Then the whole city – and ultimately much of Europe and Asia – seemed to be in danger of death. General anointing services were held to help all the people of the capital in these times of crisis.
The Church has always spoken of spiritual and physical sickness in the same breath. Our misplaced strivings for “life” (greed, lust, power, and the rest) have the opposite effect, doing damage to our bodies as well as our spirits. Thus prayers for healing often join intercession for spiritual as well as bodily health.
It should not strike us as odd that the mystery of Holy Unction replaced the reconciliation of penitents as the sacramental seal on the Great Fast. We may not be in need of reconciliation after committing serious sins, but our broken human nature is always in need of healing. Since the Wednesday of the Great Week includes the memorial of Christ’s anointing by Mary, the sister of Lazarus, in Bethany six days before the Passover (cf. John 12:1-8), it became the customary day for offering this mystery to those preparing for Pascha.
Confronting Our Infirmities
In the “Trisagion Prayers,” which occur in many of our services, we pray the following:“All-holy Trinity, have mercy on us; Lord, forgive our sins; Master overlook our transgressions; Holy One, visit and heal our infirmities for Your name’s sake.”In this prayer we affirm that we commit sins (deliberate rejections of what we know to be God’s way) and also transgressions (unrecognized or intended offenses). Many people say that if you didn’t mean it, then it’s not a sin. True, but does that then mean I am not responsible? The children whose ball breaks their neighbor’s window didn’t mean it, but the window is still broken; is no one responsible? The godly person accepts responsibility for transgressions as well as sins. The prayer continues by requesting healing for infirmities, and it is here that the mystery of Holy Unction is important in our Christian life. Whenever we strive to deal with our passions, as during the Great Fast, we discover how unable we are to live God’s way by our own power. We need to throw ourselves at Christ’s feet and implore Him as did the blind man on the roadside, “Son of David, have mercy on me” (Matthew 9:27). It is with this disposition that receiving Holy Unction bears the most fruit.