In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.
Glory to Jesus Christ!
St. Gregory Palamas, in his homily for this feast which we celebrate today, begins with a statement that would be appropriate for every occasion, every feast, every Divine Liturgy: “The time is always right to make a beginning of a way of life that will lead to salvation.” (Homily 42)
It is early September, the year is 2020. Perhaps this year we made a New Year resolution, “This year I’m going to pray more”, “This year I’m going to go to church more”, “This year I’m going to follow the fasts better”, “This year, I’m going to do better at my job”, “This year, I’m going to be a better employee/boss/manager”, “This year, I’m going to be better at”…you name it, etc…But just when we thought we were going to make a great start, COVID. Now for many, family life, work life, school life, is thrown out of whack, upside down. Nothing is working the way it’s supposed to.
It’s hard to know what to do, even how to pray sometimes. This is unprecedented. We have found out that we have no control over many of the circumstances of our lives. We have discovered powerlessness. And yet, even though the outward circumstances are in a bit of a shambles, we still hold out hope. We still make our cross. We still look at our icons and can feel at rest. No, this year we do not control the circumstances of our lives. But maybe this situation has helped us realize, that we never did really have any control. Things are going awry in nature, in society, and in the whole world around us. But there is a constant that we can count on, a rock that we can stand on, a ship that we can sail securely through these stormy seas in.
A key instrument in the feast we are celebrating today, without which there would be no celebration, is a certain humble and poor couple. This couple was experiencing great difficulty. Nature it would seem had turned against them. The society around them, had certainly turned against them. The wider political world around them was definitely not favorable to them, and full of uncertainty.
Joachim, and Anna. A priestmonk on Mt. Athos, Gregorios, says this about them: “Having been childless for many years, the holy forebears of God turned to the Almighty in deep pain and sorrow, and their ardent prayers were not unheeded. They were made worthy to give birth to the All-holy Virgin who would bring forth according to the flesh the Son of God! St. Gregory Palamas comments: ‘Those without children [Joachim and Anna] were preferred to those with many, so that the all-virtuous Daughter might be born of the most virtuous, the All-chaste of the most chaste.’ The Virgin Mother was born of a barren woman ‘because the coming of that which alone is new under the sun, the culmination of miracles, had to be prepared by means of miracles.’”
Nature, and society. Again, St. Gregory Palamas explains; “Joachim and Anna lived together blamelessly before God, but seemed to the Israelites to be at fault according to the law because they remained childless. Since there was not yet any hope of immortality, the continuance of the race was seen as an absolute necessity….in those days having many children was regarded as superior to virtue. Deeply saddened by these reproaches, the righteous couple called to mind Abraham and Sarah, and the others who had suffered grief because of their childlessness.”
This holy and faithful couple, like the long-suffering Job in more ancient times, did not descend into despair, they did not lose faith nor hope. They, like Job, like their forefathers and mothers of old, resorted to prayer. According to St. Gregory, “They then considered the healing remedy for that sorrow, which some had found, and decided that they too would resort to beseeching God. The chaste Joachim departed to the wilderness and dwelt there, fasting and offering up prayer to God that he might become a father. …Meanwhile, the like-minded Anna shut herself in a nearby garden and cried to the Lord with pain in her heart, ‘Hear me, O God of my fathers, and bless me, as you blessed Sarah’s womb.’ And the Lord heard them, and blessed them, and promised to give them a child.”
These difficulties we are experiencing in our own days, are given to us as an opportunity to grow closer to God, to stop dwelling in the past, and to stop thinking “when this virus is over, I will…”. No, again “The time is always right to make a beginning of a way of life that will lead to salvation.” And “Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation”.
Such faith and forbearance produced great and miraculous fruit! Each of us is called to put our faith in God, no matter what our circumstances or situation is, bad or good. As we have seen and heard many times, “what is impossible with man, is possible to God”. We have heard that having faith the size of a mustard seed can move mountains. The let us who claim to be bearers of the True Faith, life up our heads and our hands to heaven. We should not be downcast and discouraged! The Lord put us here on this earth at this time, in this place, so that we would be bearers of Light, salt in the earth, to be bearers of God’s message of redemption through His Son Jesus Christ for the whole world! We are having a hard time, Joachim and Anna also had a hard time. They didn’t just smile and pretend nothing was wrong. But they acted, they responded in a godly way. By getting on their knees and praying. By fasting. By reaching out to God in faith and love, not by reacting to those around them, of becoming angry with God.
May we respond like St’s Joachim and Anna, to whatever life brings our way. And then God will bless us and help us to bear fruit in our lives that can bring about miracles for those around us.
In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.
Glory to Jesus Christ!
