Brothers and sisters in Christ—
The cure of the woman with a curvature of the spine is among the miraculous signs that the Lord Jesus performed on the Sabbath Day in strict violation of the contemporary interpretation of Jewish Law. The cure allows the woman to stand upright, so that she is no longer gazing at the earth. Instead, for the first time in many years, she is able to lift her eyes to Heaven. In this way, the cure symbolizes the entire mission of Christ on earth. He heals the affliction of human beings, so that they are no longer bound by sin and death, and the human race recovers its original inheritance in the heavenly places. The Lord says consolingly to the woman with the curvature of the spine: “Woman, you are set free from your affliction.” After hearing this, the woman stands upright and all the on-lookers give praise to God. Before the woman’s cure, she could not stand upright, and then the Lord pronounced her cure. She was cured indeed, but she still had to stand upright. St. Luke tells us that she stood straight after the Lord had spoken to her.
In a similar way, we have received a comprehensive cure from sin and death in the Mysteries of Christ. Nevertheless, in order for that cure to be effective in us, we have to stand upright, taking our eyes off of the things of this world, and look towards Heaven. We have to willingly enter into a personal relationship with God, One in the Holy Trinity. We must raise our minds and our hearts up to God. This is what we call prayer. When do we pray? The Holy Apostle Paul tells us, “Pray constantly.”
Years ago, during my years in the monastery, I was assigned by the abbot to clean out a certain attic. The attic was partially filled with the items that had been donated to the monastery over the years. In a small box tucked deep under the eaves, I found a small icon of Christ Pantokrator. It was a Greek icon with typical Greek characteristics. The face of the Lord in the icon was extremely stern, so stern that it was, somewhat, disturbing. I put the icon aside. Later on, however, Brother Benedict, one of my fellow monks came to me to see the icon. He told me something very insightful and illuminating. He told me, “the longer you pray before it, the kindlier the image will become.” Initially, I dismissed the whole idea as nonsense. Painted images do not change, unless they are repainted. After some time, however, I got the icon out and began to pray. That which Brother Benedict had told me was true, as it turned out, not because the painted image changed, but because my heart changed. I was now able to see as kindness, what I had previously seen as severity.
In just the same way, we have to enter into a relationship with God. When we first raise our eyes to God there are bound to be things that we discover, which are disturbing. What our Christian faith teaches us is at variance with the teachings and values of the world in some very remarkable ways. On this basis, the world tries to convince us that our beliefs are unrealistic, out of touch and uncompassionate. Traditional Christianity, like the faith of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church, appears more and more authoritarian with the passing years, not because the teaching of Christ is unrealistic, out of touch and uncompassionate, but because the Christian people have ceased to pray (to seek communion with God) in any kind of a meaningful way. More often than not, we say rote prayers, sometimes without thought, but the practice of being in the presence of God in meditation and mental prayer have become more and more rare. Thus, when we have difficulties in faith, the worst thing we can do is decide that, “I do not believe this or that, which the Church teaches.” Instead, we should take our difficulties to Christ in prayer. There are those who believe that the sermons in the Church should deal with every contemporary event and circumstance, but the opposite is actually the case. If we learn prayer, we learn everything, because we learn the Living Christ. From prayer we acquire the mind of Christ and the compassion of Christ, a compassion that shows up the world’s compassion for what it is—demonic hatred of our race.
Christ has cured us from the disease of sin and death in His Life-Giving Mysteries, but, having been cured, we need to stand upright and turn towards Heaven. We accomplish this through prayer. We turn our eyes to the One Who is our inheritance and reward.
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