Let us bring our sadness, pain, and weeping, like the good myrrh-bearing women, to the tomb of Christ: Head of the UGCC on the Sunday of the Myrrh-Bearers Women
Today, a Ukrainian woman cries and does not know how to comfort herself. This is because the most precious words in Ukraine today are feminine: Motherland, Ukraine, Mother. And they all cry. But the word of God that we hear today changes everything, said by the Father and Head of the UGCC, His Beatitude Sviatoslav, in a sermon during the Liturgy celebrated at the provincial house of the Sisters Servants in Lviv on Myrrh Sunday.
Commenting on the passage from the Gospel about the Myrrh-Bearing Women, the bishop said that the angel’s word ‘He is not here, for He has risen!’ was addressed to women in very specific human circumstances, which became the matter and mode for the whole heaven and earth to burst into Easter singing ‘Christ is risen from the dead, having conquered death!’
The Head of the Church explained that love and mercy were the force that brought the Myrrh-Bearing Women to the already empty tomb of the Lord early in the morning, despite the obstacles. “Love for the One who became the center of hatred and anger, which from all over the world was concentrated in the person who was stripped, tortured, spat upon, crucified, and hanged naked for all to see. Love and mercy for the One who was even denied all the necessary elements of a religious funeral. The women went to accomplish all that humanity of that time could not complete, add to, and honor the crucified God,” the preacher said.
His Beatitude Sviatoslav assured us that if we imagine this empty tomb and what the Myrrh-Bearing Women felt in their souls, we will find a balm for the wounds of the modern, sick Ukrainian people, of the Ukrainian woman who cries without knowing how to be comforted.
According to him, the pastoral care of the Church in the circumstances of war is the pastoral care of healing the wounds of war. “The Lord God,” he emphasized, “gives the medicine, the balm, the power to change crying into a joy to the Ukrainian woman who speaks to the hearts of those children who are scared of the sound of air raid alarms, of the roar of those bombs and missiles falling on our heads. The Lord gives the power that is the comfort and hope of the mother who hears over her child’s life, although she is forced to leave her home, city, or even her country.”
“This is what we need on this Sunday, when we once again experience the source of Easter joy, for that angel to come to us and proclaim that those who kill and hurt Ukraine will disappear, for that messenger of God to change our weeping into joy, to wipe away our tears, and to give you, dear sisters, that myrrh in your hands not to anoint the dead, but to heal the wounds of the living,” said the Primate.
His Beatitude Sviatoslav thanked the Sisters Servants on behalf of the entire Church for their maternal ministry, particularly in those places where the situation is the most dangerous and difficult today. He also greeted the newly elected provincial superior, Sr. Christophora, and all the sisters who came to Lviv to participate in the formation meetings.
The UGCC Department for Information
