The best career move I ever made as a priest was marr
ying a dry-cleaner
’
s daughter!
If you’re the guy who wears fancy
, expensive vestments while constantly working around
staining agents like wine, oil, charcoal, and babies who spit up, … well, hard-to-clean
spots are a
part of weekly life. What y
ou need is so
meone who can tell you right then and there, before the
stain sets, what to do for your precious garments.
Different stains need dif
fer
ent solvents. Some just need rinsing with water
. Others need
perchlorethylene. Some you dampen and sprinkle with baking soda. There is no single deter
gent
that takes out every kind of spot. I myself can’t keep the various remedies straight. One my own,
I would probably have to throw out a set of vestments every year due to staining. But happily
, I
found a gal who grew up in the business of getting out those darn spots.
Each year at Pascha we distribute the light of the Resurrection outside the church. W
e enter the
sanctuary again chanting the hymns of the Feast as we finish the Matins service and move into
the Divine Liturgy
. It is a poignant stretch of minutes, standing there before the Holy
Altar with
the Paschal candle blazing. It is like a moment of time outside of time. Me
mories of past Paschas
sweep over me, and my mind regularly turns to the parishioners we have bidden farewell to in
this life, both over the past year and over previous years. Pascha is a promise—a promise that
someday
, somewhere, so
mehow
, we shall see our loved ones again.
Those few minutes in which the choir and chanters sing the Canon and the Praises are one last l
ittle respite before the final big push of Holy W
eek, and usually I make it to the end of the
Liturgy on my l
ast ounce of strength. It is a deepl
y contemplative moment, and I hope that
writing about it here does not dispel it.
In the next-to-last one of these h
ym
ns, there is a phrase that ca
tches my attention always. It is
the verse that begins
“A Pascha of delight; Pascha, the Lord’s Pascha; an all-venerable Pascha
has dawned for us; a Pascha in which we should embrace one another with joy …”
And then
these words: ὦ
Πάσχ
α, λύτρον λ
ύπη
ς.
There are many different translations of this phrase:
“O Pascha, ransom from sorrow OR
r
edemption fr
om sorr
ow
OR
r
elease fr
om sorr
ow
OR
salvation fr
om sorrow.”
The crucial word
is
lytron, which can be a ransom and is often translated thus, although the related word antilytron h
as this sense more specifically
. The root word is λύ
ω, meaning “to loose, release, dissolve,
destroy
.”
I propose another translation for this phrase:
“O Pascha, solvent of sorrows.” Many different
kinds of sorrow stain our lives. W
e
suffer from the loss of loved ones, from disappointments,
from hurts, from aches and pains and from want. There is only one thing that melts away every
grief of this fallen world—the hope of the Resurrection. Christ’
s victory over death is the down
payment towards that hope. Because He lives, we can face our sorrows day after day
,
knowing
that not a one of them is eternal, but merel
y temporary
. In the end, God’
s love conquers all. In
the end, every stain of sorrow comes out, and we shall shine without spot in the radiance of our
Risen Lord.
Last year on the last Sunday of the Paschal season, I told a story in my sermon about an
experience with a house blessing out of town. From time to time I am called upon to bless
homes that have been beset by dark presences—things that make noises and cause mischief and
instill a sense of fear in the home. What exactly this dark presence is we cannot always say
,
although experience has taught that they often show up in buildings where there has been
violence and abuse, especiall
y of a sexual nature. It is as if the strong negative emotions of past
victims echo in the structure and attract evil.
I told how this particular house had such a histor
y of non-consensual sexual behavior
, and how
the noisy presence fled to the attic during the blessing, but did not leave entirel
y
. What chased it
out for good was the chanting of the hymn of Pascha, “Christ is Risen from the dead, b
y death
trampling down Death, and to those in the tombs He has granted life.” Grievous sorrows stained
that home and lured that spirit into setting up shop there. The joy of Pascha, the news of Christ’
s
Resurrection, was the solvent that dispelled the stubborn stain and pried loose the de
monic hold.
Pascha is the mountain-top high point of our Church year
. T
here will be dips and valle
ys ahead.
Sorrows and sighing await us all. But just because we stop chanting the Paschal hymn in church
forty days later does not mean that we cannot continue to sing it on our own in times of trouble.
Let the Good News of Christ’
s victory be the universal solvent of sorrows all year long.
Χριστὸς ἀνέστη! Ἀληθῶς ἀνέστη
Христóсъ воскрéсе! Воистину воскресе!
المسيح قام! حقا قام!
Hristos a înviat! Adevărat a înviat!
Christ is Risen! Truly He is Risen!
