Post Paschal Ponderings

I find that whenever I have a period of heavy liturgical responsibility, it is matched by heavy pastoral responsibilities during the same time. It was the same during this Holy Week.

You need to know during Holy Week, the Orthodox have services in the morning and in the evening. Though very few people come nowadays to any of the services, yet the priest will still keep the ancient schedule. The two exceptions to the modern practice are Holy Wednesday and Holy Friday. On both of those days the church is nearly full.

On Holy Wednesday we celebrated the service of Holy Unction. It is a service of anointing with oil that is blessed during the service and may become the oil used for anointing the sick during the year. But, it is not simply a service for the sick, or for health during the year, though it is that. It is also a service to receive God’s forgiveness in a special way. One part of the liturgy has a prayer that is said while the priest holds the Gospel book out over the heads of the assembled faithful:

 O Holy King, compassionate and multi-merciful Lord Jesus Christ, Son and Word of the living God, who desirest not the death of a sinner, but, that he should be converted and live: I lay not my sinful hand upon the heads of those who approach thee in sins, and entreat of thee, through us, remission of their sins, but thy strong and mighty hand which is in this Holy Gospel which I (or my fellow ministers) hold upon the heads of these thy servants, and (if other priests are present holding the gospel book add: with them) I pray and entreat thy merciful and evil-forgetting love of mankind, O God our Savior, who through thy Prophet Nathan didst grant remission unto David when he repented of his iniquities, and didst accept Manasses’ prayer of penitence: Do thou receive also with thy wonted love for man these thy servants, who repent them of their iniquities, overlooking all their transgressions. For thou art our God, who hast bidden us to forgive those who fall in sin, even unto seventy times seven, for as is thy majesty, so also is thy mercy, and unto thee are due all glory, honor and worship, with thine unoriginate Father, and thine all-holy Spirit: now and ever, and unto ages of ages. Amen.

Please notice that the priest is not forgiving under his own authority. In fact, the oldest of the Antiochian traditions have the priest, even in confession, stating that the does not forgive but that he comes as one who witnesses the confession, gives counsel, and brings the penitent to the Lord so that the Lord might forgive the penitent. The Russian Orthodox do use a more “Roman” prayer, as do some of the Greeks, but the Antiochians still hold to an older tradition. I say older tradition because the Antiochian patriarchate is older than either the Greek or the Russian patriarchates.

But, please also notice that the Service of Holy Unction is taken to be more than just a service of healing. In fact, our service for the anointing of someone who is sick has the person, if they are able, confess their sins and receive forgiveness, before they are anointed. If they are unable to respond, we yet pray and pronounce a forgiveness of sins over them. Notice that the Scripture in James does not speak about the ill person expressing repentance but only of the elder anointing and the person being forgiven. This actually makes sense if you think of it in terms of ministry to a person who may be unconscious or have limited ability to respond. I believe that it is a graceful, and exceptional, provision by God who desires that no one should perish.

So, why am I thinking of Holy Wednesday on Bright Monday? Well, I had mentioned that this Holy Week was also a heavy pastoral week for me. During the week, one of my people died and another one is still in the hospital. I thought the second one was going to die–and may yet–so it took a lot of my free time.

The final reason I am thinking of Holy Wednesday is because tomorrow I go in for minor surgery. It will take two or three weeks for me to fully recover, although I expect to be able to blog by Bright Wednesday. However, we shall see.