SAINT ANNA, WE WILL NEVER FORGET YOU!
Some pastoral thoughts on the visit of the Myrrh-streaming icon of St. Anna to our parish, October 7th
We will never forget your visit to us last Friday night!
Without uttering a word, you spoke to us of beauty, holiness, purpose and true fulfillment.
Without moving, you moved hundreds of us; touched us and enveloped us in a tangible sense of hope, peace and the reality of the world to come.
In your icon we saw your loving gaze and gentle embrace with your daughter, the Birth-giver of God. We easily recalled the same tenderness in the icon of your daughter embracing her Son, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. She learned it from you!
Had we never seen you—had your icon never come to us—our faith in your Grandson, Jesus, would have remained firm.
We have experienced His transforming power over His creation, which is the work of His hands. We have experienced His transforming love in our lives.
We have tasted His Life in the Eucharist. We were made His brothers and sisters, and children of the Father, in the waters of Baptism. He granted us the power to live in Him in Chrismation. Our “separate-ness” became a holy “one-ness” in the indissoluble union of Holy Matrimony. Our souls and bodies have received healing through the oil of Unction.
And yet, we needed you—your icon—in our midst. The mystery of the myrrh streaming from your eyes, collected in tufts of cotton and traced in the sign of the Cross onto our grateful foreheads, confirmed once again every other mystery and promise of your ineffable, invisible, incomprehensible, ever-existing and eternally unchanging Grandson, Jesus.
You reminded us that in the Church, we have been given a real life in a real Kingdom, ruled by the real God who contains in Himself the real power of real transformation. Your fragrant icon reminded us that our striving for Him, our struggles with our passions and our desire to love our neighbors—to ask forgiveness and to forgive—are not in vain. As the Lord can bring forth other-worldly myrrh from wood and paint, so He can also bring forth virtue and righteousness from our souls and bodies.
Holy lady, we will never forget the hundreds of people you brought to our Temple—scenes and sounds we wished would go on-and-on.
And you called us to be at our very best that night. All that we have learned and practiced and organized so that we could offer our best to God and neighbor, in humble unity with one another, came together in faithful service. Our choir provided heavenly music (with many voices from the congregation joining in). Our Greeters became an army of welcoming warmth (and upraised umbrellas) as our guests arrived. Our Altar Boys served with dignity under the weight of heavy liturgical fans. Our hospitality crew organized a plentiful table of good taste and fellowship. Our parishioners came in faithful witness. And the clergy...well, the clergy did what we do, and we were all deeply touched.
One of our guests summed it up this way: “I see much Christian love and warmth in your parish.”
We will never forget you, St. Anna. We humbly ask that you always remember us as you stand at the Throne of our all-glorious Savior, Jesus Christ.
—Gratefully, Fr. Jason
|
Orthodoxy in America
