A Lenten Pilgrimage-40
The Rising

It may be a pure coincidence of nature. The vigorous Passion Fruit vine (“Passiflora edulis”) and the delicate Easter Lily plant in my backyard showed up side by side with their splendid flowers during these days of the Holy Week when we meditate on the passion and resurrection of Jesus.
The Passion fruit was called by that name because some imaginative Spanish missionaries in Latin America, it is said, found in the tropical flower they saw for the time several signs of the crucifixion of Jesus, like for example, the three nails, five wounds, the crown of thorns, the lance that pierced his side and so on! Whatever that be, the name has come to stay.
What intrigued me was the way the two flowers appeared together- the Passion and the Easter- in my humble garden. In the liturgical theology of the Orthodox Church they are inseparable. The saving event that we commemorate and celebrate this week comprises the suffering, death and resurrection of Christ. They are one single unfathomable mystery.
In the medieval western Church’s theology and spirituality, a heavy emphasis was placed on the physical pain and suffering (passion) of Christ, and so the Resurrection of Christ had been relegated to the margins. The trend continued to modern times, and much of western art, literature and theatre including the much hyped recent Mel Gibson film “The Passion of the Christ” typically represented the medieval obsession with the gruesome and macabre physical suffering of Christ. This may explain why the medieval Latin missionaries couldn’t see in the splendid tropical flower the image of the radiant sun symbolizing the risen Christ rather than the exclusive tokens of the passion of Christ!
In the East, however, the Resurrection of Christ took centre stage except in those Eastern churches that came under the colonial influence of Portuguese and Spanish missionaries. Things have changed in the west after the second Vatican Council. Orthodox iconography of crucifixion and resurrection that portrays the equanimous and serene image of the crucified Jesus overcoming the horror of death has begun to influence the west.
The liturgical tradition has kept the healthy balance. There is no glorious resurrection without suffering and death , and there is no meaningful suffering and death without the hope of resurrection. Following the apostolic witness we proclaim the Christ crucified and risen. “For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he rose again according to the scriptures…. If Christ has not been raised, our preaching is vain and your faith also is vain” (1 Corinthians 15;3, 4, 14)
Deprived of its transcendent dimension of hope , human suffering becomes absurd. Belief in resurrection is the only way to redeem human pain from its blind meaninglessness and absurdity.
The 21st century so far seems to be a century of suffering for the Christian faith. The age of the triumphalist western Christianity of crusades and colonial conquests is over. The Christian east had begun to suffer much earlier. Churches in the Middle East region, the very cradle of Christianity, continue to be in the crucible of intense suffering and the threat of total elimination. Christian martyrdom of the first centuries under severe persecution seems to be repeating under new oppressive forces in our age.
An Arab Christian friend Michel Nseir sent the following message:
“In our turbulent part of the Arab world, still holding on to hope in hopeless situations has never been more relevant to many than today. I see it as an invitation to be proactive in transfiguring our world…. Our resurrected Lord Jesus Christ was a loser in the eye of the empire, but victorious in our eyes, when we remain , like his disciples, faithful to his message of transformative love for all.”
The transformative power of true Christian faith has always been its amazing humility and goodwill, on the model of its Lord Jesus Christ, to forgive, to pray for and love those who persecute it. It is the power of resurrection of light and life over against the powers of darkness and evil.
The moment has come for believing Christians all over the world and people of good will everywhere to rise to save life through their own suffering, and secure justice, peace and joy to all God’s creation.
Christ is Risen. He is Risen indeed.
(Note: Two images of the Passion flower and the Easter Lily from my garden are posted on the Face book page of “Sopana Academy for Studies in Theology and Culture”)

A Lenten Pilgrimage 39:
The Hospitality

While living in a tent in plain desert Abraham received three travellers in his tent-house under the shade of an oak tree. They were total strangers to Abraham. His hospitality became legendary, and the incident narrated in Genesis 18 gave rise to interpretations of the doctrine of Trinity later in the Christian patristic era, and also to the celebrated icon of “Philoxenia” (=hospitality, literally ‘love of strangers’) by the Russian iconographer Andre Rublev in the 14th century. The theme of hospitality found a place in the reflections of contemporary philosophers like Jacques Derrida and Paul Ricoeur as well as in the political ethics of modern nation states.
It is known to us from experience that the poor are more hospitable than the rich in general. That means that the virtue of hospitality does not necessarily depend on material resources that we possess. In the ancient monastic tradition, hospitality was a prime Christian virtue for the monks living in the desert with practically nothing to offer to the guests.
St Benedict (6th century) in the west instructed in his Rules to consider every guest as Christ himself. (Remember the ancient Indian dictum “Atithi devo bhavah” – let the guest be god).
In Christ’s self-offering through suffering and death out of love for us and for our salvation we see the supreme example of divine hospitality. It is in the desert of the nothingness of self-emptying (kenosis) that God receives us strangers and aliens into the divine household and the banquet of the kingdom.
The anonymous woman who anointed Jesus at the house of Simon the rich Pharisee (Matthew 26:6-13 and parallels) deeply understood it and responded to the divine hospitality by an unusual and ‘extravagant’ act of human hospitality. Jesus drew out the contrast between the hospitality of a nameless, and even despised woman at a very inhospitable time and place and that of Simon, the rich host’s superficial hospitality with hidden ulterior motives .
The woman was exemplifying the meaning of the overwhelming divine hospitality of the Son of Man who was about to die on the cross by her own overwhelming, evocative, and ‘crazy’ gesture of love. Jesus alone recognized it and said that she did it for his burial. What a marvellous moment of mutual recognition between the divine and the human! In all likelihood, the nameless woman must have followed Jesus up to Calvary and beyond. Think of the “fragrance that filled the whole house” (John 12:3), and how what the woman had done is being told and retold across the ages as integral to the Gospel in memory of her (Matthew 26:13).
The subtle connection between love, hospitality and complete self-giving It may be a bit difficult for us to understand the suffering and death of Christ as part of God’s hospitality towards the created world. But Jesus himself tells us that “There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13). Voluntary suffering for the sake of love for others is the ultimate in hospitality. When you take into your household people who are total strangers and passersby, people who are not related to you in any way, people who are in some dire need of help, you are making a silent commitment to ultimately lay down your life for them. Here hospitality is salvation in its rich meaning. To be hospitable means to be committed to save life.
The opposite of philoxenia or love of the stranger is “xenophobia”, fear of the stranger. We are taught to hate the alien, to suspect the passersby and mistrust and fear anyone who comes towards us. The irony of the age is that our world is now being ruled by high security systems and alerts claiming to save our life. At ever-rising cost of resources and relationships we actually curtail human freedom and rights, natural camaraderie and fruitful human exchanges in order to build devices of death in the name of safety and salvation. The long-term blessings and promises to humanity that true hospitality brings in, like in the case of Abraham and Sarah, are becoming more and more alien to us.
“See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called the children of God. And that is what we are!” (1 John3:1)

A Lenten Pilgrimage 38
The Buds
In traditional Kerala Christian Churches children show much enthusiasm to collect and bring to church lots of flowers and colourful leaves of plants on Palm Sunday. They enjoy throwing up flowers in playful delight during the special service of Hosanna. The day is also marked by the beautiful sight of the tender leaves of coconut trees (kuruthola) blessed during the service and carried by all the faithful. The Malankara Orthodox Church, according to its new lectionary, celebrates Palm Sunday as also the day of children .
Jesus rejoiced in the singing of Hosannas by children during his entry to Jerusalem. It was the fulfillment of a great Messianic prophecy (Psalm 8:2). “But when the chief priests and scribes saw the wonderful things he had done, and the children who were shouting in the temple, ‘Hosanna to the Son of David’, they became indignant , and said to him, ‘Do you hear what these children are saying?’. And Jesus said to them, ‘Yes; have you never read, ‘ Out of the mouths of infants and nursing babies you have prepared praise for yourself?'” (Matthew 21:15-16).
The close connection between the small children on the one hand and the sprouting plant buds and flowers on the other is obvious. Both represent the budding life. Both hold promises for the future and life’s fruitfulness. Both witness to the hope of new life and the new order of the world to be brought about by the Messiah. Both have a certain transparency and loveliness of innocence that attract discerning people of good will.
It may seem paradoxical that a radically new vision for the world and for a new order of life sprouts in the most unlikely place, namely the desert. So all the biblical heroes that we celebrate in the Lenten prayers had something to do with the desert or desert like situation hostile to life. The dreary desert of the great Lent can become the fertile seed-bed for the budding life.

A Lenten pilgrimage 37:

The Incense

“Botafumeiro” is the giant   80 kilogram censer (dhoopakutty) in the Cathedral of Santiago de  Compostela in Spain. It is hanging from the  roof of the  huge cathedral and is swung   by a team of special operators who, to me,  looked like Spanish “matadores”,  the bullfighters . Some 40 kilograms of  incense and charcoal are fed into it for every performance that attracts big crowds. It sends out huge columns of  smoke in striking configurations in the air. It was a  stunning experience for a priest used to small, handy censers in the Indian Orthodox parish churches.

The use of incense in liturgical worship was common to both  the western and the eastern Christian traditions. It however  has  become   almost a nominal practice in the west today while eastern Christianity still generously makes use  of incense in worship. There is a rich biblical symbolism associated with  the  smoke of incense and its fragrance.

When we burn certain spices like frankincense in public worship  the   sweet smelling  smoke that rises into  air is considered, according to biblical  symbolism, to be the  rising prayer of the community.

“And  the smoke of the incense , with the prayers of the saints, went up before God out of the angel’s hand” (Revelation 8:4). The fragrance of our  offerings is well pleasing to God according to the Old Testament scripture. We are also called the “aroma of Christ” by St Paul (2 Corinthians 2:15) .

In one of the Lenten prayers Jesus Christ is called the  “pure smoke of  incense  that pleases the One who sent  him by his self-offering,  delights  the  creation with his fragrance, gladdens his handiwork with his sweetness” (Palm Sunday Night, Ethro).

Our  prayers  are to  transcend  the world of daily living  while its fragrance  gladdens and heals the surroundings. It is like music. Prayer at its core is  music. That is why we chant musically even prayers written in prose. We know that music has this  celebrated  quality of  rising above the divisions while harmonising  disparate and dislocated s elements in our surroundings.

Typologically  we may consider the Lent as a giant censer. Our virtuous thoughts and actions, our prayers and intercessions,  pain and suffering, sighs and  tears – we offer like  frankincense  to the  glowing embers of the Lenten censer. They are then  mixed with the prayers of  the saints of all ages and all places, and rise to God’s throne of mercy.

We sing the psalm in every evening prayer:  “May my prayer  be counted as incense before you; the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice” (Psalm 141:2)

A Lenten Pilgrimage-36:

The Test

As children we used to be amused  by the song of   the Indian Cuckoo, popularly called “Achen Kompathu pakshi “or “Vishu pakshi”in Kerala.

A rather shy bird that appeared in Kerala  during March- April it was not easily visible, but its  song was  loud and  resounding. Children used to  parody  the rhyming sound of the bird  in  humorously absurd words like “achen kompathu, amma varampathu”. Hence its name “achen compathu”. We  children competed in exercising  our parodying  skill by inventing  funny  two-line parodies.

Some of us associated  the  bird song with  the exams as the Achen-kompath bird used to  appear in the season when we were preparing for our school exams in March.  Later  we   also  linked it to the Lenten season. Retrospectively one sees that  both the exams  and the lent are kind of tests. Jesus was tested by the tempter, and he passed the rigorous exams in the desert’s  desolation after a 40-day long test.

The  Achen-kompath bird was also a sign bird. Suppose you are praying hard to God for an answer to some knotty personal questions, but you don’t get any. You may become  dispirited and confused. Then, according to some, this  bird’s song may give you  a clue to  the solution of your problem. A great man of God in our  time, Metropolitan Geevarghese Mar Osthathios of blessed memory once told us an amusing story. Staying at the Bethany Ashram of the Malankara Orthodox  Church as a young sub deacon he was  praying for divine guidance  as to his vocation- whether he should become  a celibate priest or a married priest.  After several days of prayer and meditation he  was still  wavering without any clear answer from God. Disappointed  he was about to depart from the ashram. And then all on a sudden he heard  the  song of this bird in the  thickly wooded   Bethany environment. An interpretation of the bird call spontaneously rhymed in his mind. “Ippo kettenda. Pattam kettikko“( Don’t   get married now. Get ordained !). You may believe it or not. But he followed the bird’s message to the great blessing of Church and society as later  history proved.

Well, God’s will can be revealed to us in mysterious and totally unexpected ways in  nature. Some  sort  of a  theophany, manifestation of the divine..!

Recently I was visiting  the family of a  good friend of mine. They were  passing through a very  distressing  time as their ancestral home, a very fine old building, had been destroyed by fire. Graciously  no one was  physically hurt.

As I was taking leave of the family after the pastoral visit, we heard two “Achen-kompath” birds, hiding  at some good distance from each other,  make the familiar resounding call. With the burned house in the background  the bird’s sound  simply  rhymed in my mind as “Kathipokkotte. Daivam Koottunde” ( Let  it burn out , God is with us). My friends were strong in faith and trusted  God’s providential care. They too, I believed, probably  heard it  in a similar consoling way.

The family was literally  passing through a fiery test. Some sounds and sights in nature  can be  a timely message from heaven.  In this context I dared to interpret the  it as   a sign of   assurance about God’s empowering presence and care in our moment of testing.

“Look at the birds of the air, they do not sow or reap or  store away in barns, and yet our heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than those birds?”(Mathew 6:26)

A Lenten Pilgrimage-35

 The Night

“David got up in the thick of  the night  in order to sing praises to the wonderful decrees of God, and he saw the amazing beauty of the moon and the stars decking the firmament of the sky, and he marvelled at their order”.

The night is glorified in the Lenten prayers notwithstanding its ambiguous symbolism related to ignorance and evil. The Lent itself, despite its apparent dryness of fasting and abstinence, can become a night of  spiritual streams and a night of revelation of the higher knowledge of the beauty of God’s ordering of creation.

For those inclined to a meditative quiet there is no better time than the night. Covered by the dark veil and hidden from curious eyes and with most of her children put to sleep, mother nature goes into a deep meditation herself. So the best time  and place for our own meditation is the lap of nature at night.

The gospels tell us that Jesus left the crowd and even his close disciples in the evenings  “and went up alone to the mountain to pray.” There he had no man-made building to stay in, but it was plain nature open to the vast sky.

For most people the  vision of the sky at night is more enchanting than that of the day. While the blinding light of the sun eclipses all stars in the day sky, they come out in their infinite numbers and delightfully  illuminate the night sky in the absence of the sun.

When things go against us, when we suffer from serious set backs, loss or disease we say it is night for us. But the very night of disarray and despair can provide to us an exquisite vision of  the universe in its broader and brighter dimensions. Meditating on this mystery of  the night vision  we will be filled with new hope and plans for the future. The night is spiritually the most creative time for a  deeper perception of our life.

As a practical step we need to go out  at some odd hour of the night and watch the starry sky in a meditative mood thinking of their incredible distances and the amazing rhythm and harmony of the planetary and galactic movements. Being  aware of our own breathing we can listen to the music and feel the pulse of the universe, and be profoundly grateful to God our Creator for  the very life in us.

A Lenten Pilgrimage-34

The  Tears

Tears are older than smile in human biological evolution. They have a clear physical function. The lacrimal secretion known as tears constantly cleans and lubricates  the eye balls. However, we  usually associate tears with our emotions.

Our eyes can be watery for  various reasons. Some of  the reasons are physical. For example , when we have an allergy or  nerve malfunction, or dust particles  or other irritants entering the eye or in contact with some pungent vapour like that of  the onion, or  we ‘cry’..

At the psychological level,  tears are related to our deep emotions. For example when we  have a sense of loss by death or otherwise of a family member or a close friend, or when we lose some of our valuable material belongings by theft or fire or accident .

Some cry  by empathy, when they see the  pain and misery of another person, or read the news of  a tragic event involving  death and suffering of people.

Some of us  cry when we are afraid, or feel insulted or helpless and so on. These are tears of sadness.

Some cry  when there occurs any matter of  great  joy by surprise, as for example, when they achieve a coveted  position  or prize or a bumper lottery or the chance meeting with a long lost bosom friend or on hearing  a touching word of appreciation…These are  tears of joy.

In any way these emotional tears help us release the mounting stress in us, restore the balance,  and clean the windscreen of our mind, just like the physical function of  tears that maintain the wetness and  thus clean the eyes.

In the Lenten period the hymns and prayers speak a lot about tears, but on a different plane.

First there are  tears of repentance. We cry when we realize  that we have done some serious wrong to others by hurting them in some way, or by neglecting our duties or squandering  our resources or  being insensitive to the love of others or when we feel remorse for  some criminal acts on our part . These tears are  considered  healthy,  – psychologically and at deeper levels spiritually. These are the tears that are associated with a true sacramental confession. Tears can be a more or less a sure sign that the person realizes his or her serious  sinful act. (not forgetting  that some people can wilfully produce  tears that are deceptive, the ‘crocodile’  tears). Repentance  would mean not only admission  of sins but also a sincere submission to the love, compassion and forgiveness of God , and consequently a wilful determination on our part not to repeat  the  sinful conduct. We tend to cry when we receive unconditional  forgiveness for the sins of omission and commission on our part. This leads us to reconciliation with God and our fellow human beings. It  generates  internal peace and the virtue of genuine hope  within us. We are assisted in this process by the grace of the  Holy Spirit who  helps us discern the way of light and life.

Secondly, there  are tears that are  generally called ‘the git of tears’ in the spiritual tradition of the eastern church. It is  far deeper than the   tears of repentance. The physical , emotional and  ordinary spiritual reasons are not there. These tears flow out of  a person ‘automatically’ without wilful knowledge or control when that person is  filled with a profound awareness of God’s creation, the mystery of love and the  depth of  existence. These tears include all that we  speak about  under  compassion, empathy, repentance, forgiveness, joy, reconciliation and so on, but  it transcends all these. Their source is totally unknown. So it is called a gift. It is ecstatic in character for those who receive  this gift. The gift of tears point to the mystery of creation.

The gospels pass under respectful silence the  tears that flowed from Jesus    in the  solitary nights with only the moon and the stars, the wild figs and olives or the total darkness  as his only witnesses when he withdrew from  even his close disciples and went apart to  pray.  They, however, explicitly mention Jesus weeping at the   tomb of  his friend Lazarus or at  the sight of the   beauty of Solomon’s  temple of Jerusalem. We may understand in human terms the reasons for his tears on such occasions, but not the other.

We have  examples, even that only partly known , of  saints like  Saint Isaac  of Nineveh who spoke about the experience of  the gift of tears. As a young boy this writer had heard  stories from an elderly gentleman contemporary  of Saint Mar Gregorios of Pampady about the discreet  and abundant tears of the  ascetic bishop while the latter was a deacon . Retrospectively one wonders if those tears  had anything to do with the gift.

A Lenten Pilgrimage-33
The Kanikonna
Jesus said: ” The kingdom of God is like a man who casts seed upon the soil ; and he goes to bed at night and gets up by day, and the seed sprouts and grows – how, he himself does not know. The soil produces crops by itself; first the blade, then the head, then the mature grain in the head..”(Mark 4:26-28).
I fondly remember the “Kanikonna” tree that stood on the northern side of the Old Seminary chapel and blossomed in March- April during the Lent season.(The tree is called Golden Shower Tree in English or scientifically Cassia Fistula). Every time we students walked into the chapel for the Lenten fasting Prayer of the Hours in the oppressive heat and humidity of South Indian summer, this modest tree with its rich golden yellow flowers was an enchanting and soothing sight. Every little branch was covered with bunches of flowers and on every bunch there would be some fully unfolded golden flowers and dozens of green buds of various sizes, from the very big to the tiniest, waiting for their turn to bloom. Every bud undergoes patiently the process of slow maturing . Every day there will be new flowers added to the older ones on hundreds of bunches, and towards the end of the Lent the whole tree would be only flowers and it turns radiant with a golden hue..
What was interesting was the efflorescence, the slow growth and gradual unfolding of the buds to full bloom. Our Lenten spirituality, it seemed, was very much nourished by the flowering process of the Kanikonna . (It is the state flower of Kerala and the “auspicious -sight” flower of the Vishu festival, the time of Spring Equinox in South India). It is slow and steady. Every bud needs its own time to mature and unfold. Every step is taken slowly and gradually.
There is no hurry, no space for despair. Every day new blooms appear. Every bud comes out with a new message of hope -for the life, the beauty and the joy of the world.
The Orthodox spiritual tradition emphasizes the gradual steps like in the “Ladder of Spiritual Ascent” of St John Climacus.
The 40 days of fasting and prayer of Jesus in the desert, the 40 days of Moses climbing the Mount Sinai in the desert , and the 40 days of the prophet Elijah walking in the desert to Mount Horeb – all betray this gradual character of our Lenten spiritual exercise. Nature’s life cycles give us inspiring models for our own pilgrimage.

A Lenten Pilgrimage-32
The Lamp
It is a familiar sight in Hindu temple festivals in India where traditionally dressed women wait with lighted oil lamps to receive the image of a god or goddess taken out in procession. A similar reception by young girls with flowers sometimes takes place when important personalities are received at social functions. It happens not infrequently that the arrival of the personalities gets delayed, and some of the waiting young girls get tired, faint or become sleepy and lose their lamps and flowers. This reminds us of the well-known parable of the Ten Virgins told by Jesus.( Matthew 25:1-13). It is one of the favourite Lenten themes. Christian art especially in the West is deeply influenced by this parable of great aesthetic and spiritual significance .
The contrast between the vigilant preparedness of the five wise virgins and the lazy sleepiness of the five foolish virgins illustrates the contrast between those who eagerly wait for the Lord and those who are indifferent to the goal of life. The parable clearly points to the end of history and the end of our life when we face the final judgment of God.
“Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour” (Mathew 25:13)
The Lent is symbolically the span of our life which is a time of vigilance and readiness to receive the bridegroom, and enter the chamber of lights with him to participate in the everlasting wedding celebration.
The vigil, the state of wakefulness, is an essential part of Lenten fasting. This does not always mean that we literally deprive ourselves of sleep, but that we take care of our internal awareness with a view to enlightenment. Continuous prayers like the “Jesus Prayer” with breathing and the regular reading and meditation of the Word of God can help us trim and illuminate our awareness.
Above all the Lent is a time of joyful expectation. We are filled with hope for the future, and therefore we don’t count time.
But imagine the contrary experience of looking at future with a dismal anxiety . Usually this is our lot. We count time; we are bored; we pay all our attention to trivial things and silly conversation. We are disappointed, and we quarrel at home and in society. When the important thing happens we are not there. We regret, but it is too late.
In one of the Lenten prayers we pray:
“Re-lighten, O Lord, our lamps that are extinguished for want of righteousness”.
This is about the equipment that we are required to carry with us as we wait. Christianity brought to the world a very fine set of ethical standards in social life -justice, equality, freedom, human dignity, peacefulness, forgiveness, honesty, humility, service-mindedness …
These values constitute the oil that keeps the light of our hope burning. But now regrettably most Christians have lost these essential ethical standards of right living. The Christian mission now is to restore these essential values required for a really human community life.
All our socio-political ills like rampant corruption and denial of justice to the poor arise from our lack of will or indifference to practise them. So we need to check and re-check if our lamps are still burning, if our dresses are smartly in order, if we are just and honest, humble and ready to serve our fellow human beings in need whatever be their race and religion.

Thirty:
The Martyrs
The world was terribly shocked when the ISIS (Islamic State) army brutally beheaded 21 young Coptic Orthodox Christian workers in Libya recently. They were killed because they were Christians. They did not do any harm to anyone. They left their poor villages in southern Egypt in search of work in order to help their families survive. In the video strip telecast by the assassins some of those victims were seen to be reciting the name of Jesus moments before their innocent blood mingled with the waters of the Mediterranean just “south of Rome”.
Contrary to all human logic, amazing divine grace, forgiveness and faith prevailed in the families of those young men who died as bold witnesses (martyrs) to their crucified Lord. The mother of the two young brothers, Bishoy and Stefanos, killed along with 19 others, thanked the IS army for letting her beloved children enter the kingdom of God by the gate of martyrdom… ! There were originally only 20 Coptic Orthodox Christians. The 21st one was a young black African from Chad who, watching the amazing faith of his fellow workers, confessed Christ and was beheaded as a martyr.
The Coptic Orthodox Church has declared the 21 youth as martyrs for Christ and recognized February 15 as the Feast day of their commemoration in the Church calendar.
One is reminded of the 40 martyrs of Sebaste brutally killed by the Roman army of emperor Licinius in Armenia in 320 AD. They were young soldiers who refused to renounce their Christian faith, and were thrown naked into a frozen lake. We remember their martyrdom on the fifth Saturday of the great Lent.
Their story is touchingly similar to that of the Coptic Christians. In the Sebaste killings in the 4th century there was also a courageous mother who stood by her son encouraging him to face the cruel death with unswerving faith and hope in Christ. There was also one young man among the 40 who , unable to face torture and death, left his brothers for the warm bath kept ready for anyone who renounced his faith. But a Roman guard, watching the courage of faith of the 39 young men, confessed Christ, jumped into the frozen lake and courted the death of a martyr!
The Sedra prayer for the Feast of the 40 Martyrs of Sebaste in the Lent says that the number 40 of the martyrs suits well the 40 Lenten days of the Lord’s fasting and prayer. What can we say about the number 21 of our contemporary Coptic martyrs? Can we say the number 21 stands for 21st century?
Yes, probably. Christian faith is going to face great suffering in this century. It has started in many places including our own beloved motherland India. What would then be our witness to the Prince of Peace and the Gospel of love? (the Greek word ‘martyria’, cognate of martyr, is translated as ‘witness’).
“Then they will deliver you to tribulation, and will kill you, and you will be hated by all nations because of my name…But the one who endures to the end will be saved”(Matthew 24:9-13)

Twenty-nine
The Owning
The Sanskrit word “tiryak” stands for all non-human creatures in general. The word means bent, horizontal, slanted or crooked, and it refers particularly to animals that walk on four legs. Their spine is horizontal and the face and eyes directed to the earth. This contrasts with the straight body of a human being who can stand erect and look up to the sky ( “homo erectus” marks a crucial mile stone in the story of biological evolution).
The bent woman whom Jesus heals in the synagogue on a Sabbath day had been physically reduced to the animal condition. She had put up with its suffering and the indifference and contempt of others for over 18 years. She had never dreamt that her condition would be altered, and so never sought any healing. Jesus, therefore, had to call her to come forward, and he placed his hands on her to restore the original condition of her body. This is one of those few occasions when Jesus heals someone without an explicit request to be healed.
Jesus’ act of liberating the this old woman, probably a poor widow, on the margins of society, provoked an indignant reaction on the part of the leader of the Synagogue.

Twenty-eight
The Waiting:
We were a small motley crowd huddled in the waiting room of a famous physician in a big Kerala hospital. Coming from different places we hardly knew each other. Since the rule was first-come-first-served we had taken our seats already by 7.30 in the morning though the doctor would come only by 10.30.
Breaking the initial silence people started talking. One gentleman in a wheelchair said he was brought back to life by the doctor from a very fatal condition. Some others also gave testimonies for the compassion and competence of the physician. Being a first-timer to consult that doctor I was given a lot of advice by experienced fellow patients, but all pointed to the possibility of healing. In fact, our discussion was centered on hope, healing and the skill of the physician.
Being in the time of the great Lent, I happened to draw an analogy between the doctor’s waiting room and the Lenten period. I was reminded of the daily prayers in which we repeatedly meditate on disease and suffering, healing and the heavenly physician. In those prayers from the Orthodox tradition disease is called sin, suffering ill-health, healing the uprooting of sin along with its symptoms, and the physician, of course, Jesus Christ, the compassionate healer.
We have come to the Lenten waiting room with various diseases of body , mind and soul. We were strangers to each other. But we broke into an animated conversation, focused on each other’s disease, its symptoms and the suffering it caused. It was all different one from the other. But we were united in one thing, namely, our deep desire and hope for healing to be fulfilled by our able and sympathetic physician. We listened to each other with understanding, because we were all in the same condition of illness more or less; we supported and encouraged each other and became one body in the intense and shared desire for healing and wholeness.
Is it not what is expected of the church community as we observe the Lent? Let us pray for each other, be sympathetic to each other’s faults and shortcomings; let us encourage each other to wait patiently for our Healer in faith and hope. Our Physician is the one who takes up our pain and bear our suffering. “When evening came, they brought to him many who were demon-possessed; and he cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were ill. This was to fulfill what was spoken through Isaiah the prophet: He himself took our infirmities and carried away our diseases” (Matthew 8:17)

Twenty-seven
The Wings
Human beings are winged creatures! Or so they dream to be. From the time of the Wright brothers in the late 19th century to that of space shuttles and the solar powered experimental airplane now flying around the globe, humanity has been perfecting the art of flying. Religious mythology is replete with flying beings and even airplanes like our puranic “Pushpaka Vimana”.
The Christian tradition, however, has always held that the soul has wings and is capable of rising to the heavenly heights. We are taught that the soul is weightless, invisible and unaffected by the power of gravity. It is probably this spiritual soul-force within us that make us resolute flight-aspirants. “Those who wait on the Lord will renew their strength; they will soar on wings like eagles..” (Isaiah 40:31)
The Lenten prayers describe prayer as having wings.”Prayer is love-ful: unless love lifts it up its wings are weak”.
The ascetics and people who genuinely observe fasting witness to the body’s light weight experience. In other words, the soul’s character is transferred to the body which is naturally heavy and pulled down by the earth’s gravity. There is a phenomenon of ‘levitation’, the gift of rising gently from the ground while in prayer or meditation attested to by certain spiritual figures.
We are not focusing here on the physical rising but simply mention that even that is reportedly possible. We are concerned about the lifting up of our inner person to the heights of a new awareness of our spiritual gifts through fasting and prayer.
Interpreting the experience of Adam and Eve in paradise before the fall and on earth after the fall, the Fathers like St Gregory of Nyssa would say that the physical body of our first parents, which was weightless and transparent in paradise, became heavy, opaque and thus subject to the forces of nature on earth . So the spiritual struggle of humanity has always been to overcome this slavery of the body to the material forces, and to rise to its original transparency and lightness. In the observation of fasting and prayer and other spiritual exercises, we make an attempt to subordinate the instinctual natural drives like hunger, thirst and sex to our higher goals of spiritual soaring and transcendence. We also need to be liberated from our inclination to debasing passions like power, pleasure, possessiveness, and aggressiveness.
So spiritual exercises like fasting and prayer need to develop wings in order to climb high levels of experience.
According to the best of the Gospel tradition, love alone generates those wings

Twenty-six
The Thooyobo
The Eucharistic liturgy begins with what is called the service of “Thooyobo” smile emoticon preparation). This touching preparatory part of the liturgy is performed nowadays by the priest alone in the silence and seclusion of the closed sanctuary, while the congregation sings the morning office outside of it.
The preparatory service comprises, among other things, three elements :
– Placing of bread and wine to be consecrated on the altar.
– Prayers of personal repentance and confession of the priest.
-Priest’s prayerful vesting ,- wearing of sacred vestments,
– Intercessory prayers for all kinds of people from Adam and Eve to the present.
It is done silently or in subdued voice and the whole preparation becomes the proper base for the public liturgy. For those who do it in its true spirit it is really empowering and deeply moving.
We may take this “thooyobo” (preparation) for the public liturgy as a metaphor for other aspects of our spiritual life too. For example, the Lent is considered as preparatory to the great and saving celebration of the death and resurrection of Christ.

Twenty-five
The Breath
“Let everything that breathes praise the Lord”. (Psalm 150: )
Of all ancient civilizations of the world India alone seems to have gone deep into the mystery of human breathing in order to connect it with spirituality. The Yogic understanding and practice of “Pranayama” begins with simple breathing exercises, enters the field of vital energy and finally leads on to higher states of consciousness. Here our usual breathing is controlled in such a way as to create new levels of spiritual awareness.
Breathing is life, and it comes to us naturally from the moment of our birth to the moment when we breathe our last. The Jewish-Christian Scripture , in fact, begins the story of creation with the Spirit (=breath, wind) of God breathing over the dark and the deep, sweeping over the face of the waters of nothingness (Genesis 1:1-2). “-Then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being” (Genesis 2:7).
It is in continuation of this that in the New Testament, with the coming of Christ, the Holy Spirit or the Holy Breath of God, is associated with the new creation, the renewal of all created reality. The Church is the icon of the new humanity formed by the Holy Spirit beginning with the Pentecost experience as promised by Christ.
The breath of life in us is of divine origin. It is one of the most profound mysteries that we daily live with without being aware of it. But we can explore it as much as we are able as it was done in this country.
We have a common problem of bad breath when food particles degenerate between our teeth, or when we have certain diseases. Even simple abstaining from all food and drink can create bad breath. We are daily bombarded with all kinds of pharmaceutical remedies for bad breath! When we eat food gluttonously without gratitude to any one, when we breathe out abusive words against others, when we harbour evil thoughts and jealousy, when we pollute the atmosphere with all kinds of chemical and industrial waste, our breath is poisoned. It degenerates, and it is the end of life. It smells death -the ultimate bad breath.
It is interesting to know that the Christian tradition speaks of the “sweet breath” of saintly persons who have transformed their human breath as a continuation of the breath of God through their holy lives. This is not only metaphorical but also experiential. One of the Sedra prayers in the liturgy make us pray: “May our breath be filled with your fragrance, our mouths be opened to sing your praise and our tongues made ready to sing your hymns” (Mor Osthathios of Antioch)
Lent is the time to learn to sweeten our breath by the practice of virtues. Those of us who are specially gifted and called by God in monasteries or elsewhere may also try to develop a practical Lenten Pranayama with the goal of attuning our breathing to the rhythm of the Holy Spirit and of producing ever higher states of awareness of love, compassion and the presence of God.

Twenty Four
The Intercessor
In the Lenten Friday midnight prayers, we are exhorted thus: “Take courage, O you who pray; do not be dispirited or slothful, because the entire prayer of the Son of God is for you. Therefore attach your prayer to his powerful prayer, and then your prayer will be answered.”
What a consolation for those who have feelings of despair while they pray! It often happens that we feel helpless and confused in our prayers. We are not sure if our prayers will be answered. We need some degree of certainty about the result of our prayers. But then we need to know how to pray. The admonition cited above teaches us a method or ”technique” of prayer. We need to attach our prayers to the great high-priestly prayer of our Lord Jesus Christ in our favour. We are used to sending “attachments” along with our letters and email messages. If there is an attachment it is indicated by a special sign. The attachment goes only together with the main message.
Christ is our unique intercessor before God, the Father. He is the only mediator between God and the humanity. According to the Letter to the Hebrews, Christ is our pioneer in faith, our eternal high priest, our mediator and intercessor. “He is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them (Hebrews 7:25) . According to St Gregory the Theologian (4th century), Jesus Christ, the Second Person of the Trinity, “still pleads for us as Man” with his full humanity which is united with the Word of God incarnate. “For there is one God and one mediator between God and human kind, the man Christ Jesus..” ( 1 Timothy 2:5)
We invoke the Holy Virgin, Mother of God and other saints to pray for us. This is fully in tune with the unique intercession of Jesus Christ. The Holy Mother, the apostles and the saints cannot make any prayer apart from the prayer of Christ our High Priest, for they themselves have received the grace and holiness of God through Christ the only Mediator. In holiness and by the practice of virtue they are fully integrated to Christ. As we ask each other to pray for us in this world, so we ask the Holy Virgin and the saints, who overcame the world by the power of the Holy Spirit, to pray for us through Jesus Christ, our Savior. We pray for them too. Praying for them and requesting their prayers is the great sign of our communion with those who are fully in communion with our Lord. Their prayers for us are also attached to the prayer of the Lord, and are more powerful than the prayers of those who still struggle in this sinful world.
The Church teaches us that our prayers are not to be isolated individual supplications but collective outpouring of the heart of the whole people of God. It is compared to the image of the rain. Rain falls drop by drop. Each drop of water by itself has no power. But when tens of thousands of drops are collected, they become a mighty stream. It is hardly possible for us to stop such a formidable torrent of water. Our prayer in community is likened to such a powerful current of water that can break open the door of divine mercy.
In the Lenten period, we are admonished to add each drop of our prayer to the prayers of all those who pray unceasingly for us and for the world. Above all it is our Lord Jesus Christ who prays for us. So let us take courage and persist in our prayer without any doubt or disappointment.

Twenty-three
The Centering
The ancient medical symbol of a snake entwining a vertical rod is familiar to us. Used still in modern medical profession in different forms it is given various interpretations. In one version it is referred to as the symbol of the Greek god Asclepius, the god of healing and renewal of life. Since a snake periodically sloughs off its outer body layer, it is said to be representing renewal and return to youthful life. It is also an ambiguous symbol since the physicians and their medicines remain in between life and death; they can either heal or kill.
It is remarkable that in the Book of Numbers a similar symbolism is associated with the brazen serpent raised by Moses in the middle of the camp of Israelites for the healing of those bitten by poisonous snakes. (Numbers 21:9). It was a curse against those who rebelled against God during their forty years of wandering in the desert. The very symbol of curse became the symbol of healing. This is further taken up by Christ, the heavenly physician, in his incarnate life:
“As for me, if I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to myself” (John 12:32).
“Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the son of Man will be lifted up”.(John 3:14)

In the Orthodox Syriac liturgical tradition we symbolically enact this saying of Christ by erecting a wooden cross on a raised wooden stand in the middle of the nave of the church on mid-Lent Wednesday. As the people of Israel bitten by poisonous snakes looked up to the brazen serpent and were healed, we look up to Christ on the cross for healing and protection from evil and the death of sin.
The centre of the church representing Space, and the midpoint of the Lent representing Time are significant. They stand for our life span and the space of the universe. So the life-giving Cross of Christ, the Tree of Life that heals nations, is planted at the very centre of Space and Time.
Every believer who enters the church is instructed to kiss the red trapping of the cross in repentance and hope. We need to take this symbol of the cross of Christ, our Healer-Saviour, to our heart, the innermost core of our existence.
When in danger human beings usually look outside for any help. When we are about to drown we desperately stretch out our hands and look out for something to hold on to. But in our spiritual life we will come to a point where we cannot find anything or anybody from outside to come and help us. All that we depend on, or put our trust in, will vanish. In the thick darkness we will grope around for outer light, but we have only the inner light to enlighten us.
Therefore we need to implant the cross in our heart so that we can draw healing and life from this inexhaustible inner fountain, the very source of our being.
In the Lenten period we make a special effort to weave our life round the cross of Christ, and search for the inner light of Jesus amidst the surrounding darkness of suffering and hopelessness.
We cannot by any means ignore the suffering of people, those who crave for a touch of healing , and those who dwell in the dark shadows of death. Lifting up the cross of Christ that radiates healing and hope, light and life is the holy task that we take up these days.

Day Twenty Two
The Siddhi
“Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey Him?” (Mark 4:41)
The Lenten prayers repeatedly highlight great heroes in the Old Testament like Moses and Elijah, Joshua and Daniel, Hananiah (Shadrach) and his two friends as examples of persons who accomplished superhuman feats as a result of fasting and prayer. Moses could ascend the mountain of God and receive the Ten Commandments. Elijah could stop the rain or bring down fire from heaven or ascend to heaven in a fiery chariot. Joshua could stop the sun and the moon in their course. Daniel could shut the mouth of lions in the den where he was thrown to be torn apart. Hananiah (Shadrach) and his two friends came out whole and unhurt from the intensely heated furnace. We learn that the elemental forces of nature are brought under their control, and that is what we call their miraculous powers. (Exodus 19; Joshua 10:12-13; I Kings 17-19; II Kings 2:8; Daniel 3; 6:10-18)
When we read the biblical passages referring to these heroes, we may notice two things:
First, we come to recognize the intensity of their commitment and the prophetic zeal with which they pursued their vision and how they purified themselves from all selfish goals for the sake of a great cause. This is the essence of fasting. It is not simply abstaining from food, drink, sex and other externals, but positively and single-mindedly pursuing the path of justice and truth for the common good. They did not compromise on the great principles, but stood against both the royal power and populist notions of power at great risk of their own lives.
Second, they were able to stand above the ordinary, first of all by strictly bringing under their control all their senses connected to the fundamental human drives of hunger, thirst, sex, power, fame, authority and so on. This is the essential frame of fasting. Jesus followed it in his fasting and prayer in the desert, in the encounter with the Satan.
Third, the power of mastery over elemental forces of nature like water, fire, air, earth’s gravitational pull, movement of stars, planets and the like arose from the basic control of their own self. So it is not simply miraculous, but a logical consequence of their determined mastery over themselves.
In India we would call it Siddhi, the extraordinary ability to perform feats of great power. Anyone can acquire such powers provided one is able to follow the arduous path to control one’s senses. In the Christian tradition, though we respect the siddhi of ascetics, we are taught by the example of Jesus not to use it or advertise it for our selfish interests for wealth, pleasure and fame. It is meant only for healing and reconciliation, for justice and peace, and thus to witness to God’s deep compassion, forgiveness and care for us human beings and all God’s creation. Siddhi is of no spiritual value without deep love.

Day Twenty One
The Argumentation

Can we argue with God? Most of us may not be confident enough to answer that question. Some of us may find it irrelevant. Some others may consider it blasphemous. How can we puny human beings argue with our Creator God?
Perhaps we have the popular negative notion that arguing is always rebelling and disobedience. But arguing can be a creative dialogue, a committed conversation between two dedicated individuals or groups with logical clarity and consideration of all the consequences of the point in question, and with a clear view of the ultimate goal. Well-known Indian economist and Nobel laureate Amartya Sen has a beautiful book, The Argumentative Indian, in whcih he brings out the ancient Indian tradition of the participation of both men and women in creative argumentation in public on philosophical and social questions.

Day Nineteen
The Return

Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man; and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim, and a sword flaming and turning to guard the way to the tree of life.(Genesis 3: 23-24).