For the past several months we had to battle covid-19 (we are actually still doing so). Now, sadly, after months of isolation from the threat of this disease, we are again confronted with another isolating disease that has to one degree or another plagued humanity, almost from its beginning.
As His Eminence clearly stated in His pastoral writing, it is the disease and sin of racism. Thanks be to God, it’s not inherent to our personhood, yet at times it does plague humanity. For this reason we must never forget that as Christians we too proclaim as did St. Paul, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.”
Logically although sadly, there are times that we might need to be reminded that all of us were created in God’s image; there isn’t one individual upon the face of the earth who wasn’t created so. Moreover, those of us who were baptized in His name become brothers and sisters in Christ - we proclaim the same Orthodox faith; we gather in the same churches and; we receive from the same chalice. And let us not forget that together we commemorate and petition His Holy ones, the Saints, who in each and every generation were well pleasing to Him - young and older, male and female, those who persevered in virginity and those who married, those who died naturally and those who were martyred, those who were poor and those who were wealthy, all of whom were of particular lands and spoke various tongues yet embraced the same Orthodox Christian Faith.
It is therefore fitting for us to begin the erinika (the first set of petitions) with the petition “In peace let us pray to the Lord.” In this first of the eleven petitions, we beseech the Prince of Peace for peace in the world, not a peace of this world. The peace we long for is an internal peace. It is a peace which reaches the depths of the human heart and cleanses it from evil passions, making each of us truly free and joyful as citizens of the Kingdom that is here and now, but also not yet.
As the world (and each of us living in it) may continue to struggle with a myriad of sins, may we never cease from gazing upon the Holy and Life-giving Cross. For it was upon this Cross, His Cross, that the peace from above was sealed for us once and for all and that we find healing from every disease.
“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, and good will towards all!”
+fr. Christopher