WHAT ABOUT HOW WOMEN BRING LOVE ?

This Sunday is called the Sunday of the Myrrh-Bearing Women; that is, women, bearers of myrrh. Having heard this phrase, “women, bearers of myrrh”, we can suppose that the profession or occupation of these women mentioned by the Holy Evangelists was to anoint the reposed with myrrh; that is, when someone died, they were to anoint with fragrances and aromatic spices the body of the one who had departed to the other world. But we are mistaken! This is not why they are called myrrh-bearers, but because they bore an entirely different myrrh in their hearts—they loved Christ. Thus, their occupation was not anointing the deceased with fragrances. We can say much more beautiful words about them: The myrrh-bearing women were bearers of the myrrh of love for Christ. And inasmuch as they were bearers of this extraordinary, fearless, beautiful love for Christ, the Church considered it appropriate to dedicate this Sunday almost immediately after the great feast of the Resurrection of Christ, called the Sunday of the Myrrh-bearing Women. Why have we called the myrrh-bearing women bearers of love? There are a few amazing virtues that we can learn by looking at their relationship to the Lord. Usually when we talk about this Sunday, we underscore the significance of women, and explain the meaning of this wondrous and blessed gift that is woman. And when we immerse ourselves in the stream of modern ideology, we even get the sinful desire to demonstrate woman’s superiority over man, proceeding from the Gospel reading for this Sunday, as if emphasizing these women’s heroism, courage, love, etc. And we would fall into this trap by wishing to prove that women are higher than men, in part due to the fact that they were the first to receive the news of the Resurrection: “Rejoice!” (Matt. 28:9). Perhaps there is a bit of truth in this, but we will never understand the Gospel in this vein. I think that the myrrh-bearing women attract our attention by other wondrous virtues. First of all, they are bearers of love, who had enormous love for Christ. They did not abandon Him when He was abandoned and left by all, including by the apostles, who knew in some measure just Who Christ was. They saw Him on Mt. Tabor, they knew that He is God, and that they must not abandon Him. They saw Him in all different situations, when Christ worked miracles and healed They saw how He spoke, and understood that no one could ever have spoken or could ever speak as Christ did. This means that the apostles had very weighty reasons why not to abandon the God-Man, their Teacher, when He needed them near Him more than ever. And Who accompanied Him when He was being insulted, when filthy words were being flung at Him, when people mocked Him and laughed at Him, when He hung alone on the Cross? The myrrh-bearing women. When love is beautiful, authentic, and true, it never abandons a person who has been left alone. To the contrary, a person who loves is ready to follow one who has suddenly found himself alone and in grief—no matter how heavy and dangerous the context of the real circumstances is—and think nothing of it. The myrrh-bearing women also did this amazing thing. When we meet lonely, abandoned, and unneeded people, let us also learn from the women, the bearers of this myrrh of love, and be close to them. The words I heard in an interview on a television program with the most worthy Metropolitan Bartholomew (Anani) seared my heart for life. He was asked, “What was the most painful thing in your life?” He replied: “The most bitter thing for me will always be that my parents died all alone, without comfort, because I was in prison and couldn’t be with them.” So, when someone dies, you need to be there with him, not leave him alone. You need to hold his hand, stroke his forehead, speak affectionately with him, and be attentive to his every move as he departs from this life. After all, he has become so important and precious to you that you cannot leave him at his moment of death. Death can also be emotional and spiritual when you are abandoned by all, when everyone is mocking you—deservedly or perhaps undeservedly. But there is another kind of death—loneliness. But if you have a person who truly loves you, you will not be alone. The second excellent lesson that we can learn from the myrrh-bearing women is that when we truly love God, we receive more than we expect. For here is what love actually means: receiving something of which, as you know in the depths of your soul, you are unworthy. Love is what you will never deserve to receive! You are so unworthy in comparison with the one who loves you so beautifully and abundantly, and you know that you do not deserve to be loved with such strong love as that with which he loves you. There have been many cases in our lives when each of us as felt conquered by the love we received. Perhaps we expected to be scolded, spat upon, but we received love instead. This is an extraordinary virtue. Why? Because such love possesses enlivening power. And love is always good and tender, and hides a delightful nobility. It never wounds. The souls of the myrrh-bearing women were torn apart by the sorrows of Passion Friday. They went to seek Christ the crucified, Christ the mocked, Christ the spat upon and tortured… They sought this Christ from early morning in order to perform the appropriate rite over Him Whom they loved. Otherwise, they would not have dared to go out in the dark—after all, at that time there was a patriarchal mentality. Women did not have the same freedoms as they do today. But these women, these bearers of the myrrh of love, ignored all danger. They could have thought that those guarding the grave would chase them away. But they didn’t think anything of the sort! They had only one thought: to take care of the crucified Christ. And to their great surprise and horror, as the holy evangelists write, they found the tomb empty (in fact, it wasn’t empty—it was filled with the light of Christ’s Resurrection) and they received the tidings that Christ was no longer there! The angel said to them: “Why seek ye the Living among the dead? He is risen! Go and tell the apostles that they will meet Him in Galilee, as He told them before.” How excellent, how wondrous is God when you love Him as these myrrh-bearing women did! They thought that they would see Christ dead, crucified on Great Friday. But to their great joy they met Christ resurrected; Him Who conquered death for our sakes and deified our human nature making it just as bright, beautiful, and filled with nobility and with His Resurrection. Only sin spoils and blackens each of us—and how horrible it is to bear the burden of sin. When you truly love, as did these women, these bearers of the myrrh of love, God always gives you more than you deserve; more than you expect. And the final thing that we can learn from the myrrh-bearing women, from Mary Magdalene who also goes out early in the morning and sees the grave empty. She meets Someone in the garden where the Christ’s tomb was. And she thinks He is the gardener. She asks Him from a soul darkened with pain: “Where is the Lord? Perhaps you have taken Him from there and put Him in another place?” And Christ answers her, but she does not recognize His voice. You see, when we love someone very much, we know every modulation and tone of his voice; these are distinguishing signs for us: “This is the person I love!” The person’s voice means so much to you that as soon as you hear it you feel at peace, and the muddy waters of your soul become clear. But Mary Magdalene did not recognize Him them. She only recognized Christ when He called her by name: “Mary!” And she answered with all simplicity: “Rabboni (Teacher)!” What can we learn from this? That every time God calls us by name, the name we received at Baptism, we are revived. In the Gospel of John it is said that the sheep know their shepherd by his voice (cf. Jn. 10). We can recognize the Shepherd by His voice only at the moment when He calls us: The Shepherd calls His sheep, He calls them to the Kingdom of God. When God calls you by name, only then will you recognize God, as it happened with Mary Magdalene. “And springs well up, sweetly calling us by name.”[1] This, I think, is what we learn from the women, the bearers of the myrrh of love: When we love, we do not abandon a person who is alone, sad, and abandoned, when he is experiencing the most acute need for help. When we love someone very much, we receive much more than we deserve. This is what happened to the myrrh-bearing women who sought Christ as dead, but met Christ Resurrected. The myrrh-bearing women became the first missionaries of the Risen Christ. When God calls you, you learn to recognize Him and delve more deeply into Him. May God help us to emulate these women, these bearers of the myrrh of love, so that each of us might become bearers of Christ’s love

How the Mercy of God, Not the Mongolian Mountains, Helped a Couple Become Parents After Twenty Years of Childless Marriage Alexandra Gripas Artist: Steve Hanks Artist: Steve Hanks It is not uncommon for people to come to the faith through sorrow or joy. I would like to share with readers a vivid story from my childhood, which made a strong impression on me and afterwards helped me come to the faith, get baptized and become a church-goer. Our family was on a business trip to Mongolia in the 1980s. It was in the small town of Erdenet. We had a lot of friends there who we would visit regularly. Among my parents’ acquaintances there was a married couple, both pediatricians—Mikhail and Lyudmila. They were a beautiful and interesting couple, but childless. One day Mikhail and Lyudmila invited some close friends to their home; they said they would reveal a secret to all of them… Everyone was intrigued. They imagined various things, but no one hit the nail on the head. Mikhail, an adult man who went in for sports, laughed and cried like a child. He now stood up, now sat down while sharing the secret with us: “Lyudmila and I have been married for over twenty years now. We got married in our first year at university. We have always dreamed of a big, closely-knit family, with both daughters and sons, with a lot of noise and fun at home. We so wanted to hear children's laughter! But the doctors diagnosed infertility. We went to various sanitariums, underwent mud therapy and all kinds of other procedures. We saw the most famous doctors, and my wife courageously did various tests, some of which were painful—but it was all in vain. “Three years ago we moved to Mongolia. Before that, there had been business trips to Latin America and Africa. And now Lyuda1 is in her first trimester. We didn’t tell anyone earlier because we couldn't believe it and were afraid it was a mistake. The first months of pregnancy are very sensitive and complicated. The gynecologist said that if we managed to get through the first three months, then we wouldn't have to worry anymore.” Silence began to reign after such a speech. Even we, the children, stopped joking and laughing, somehow feeling the importance of what had been said, intuitively realizing that we had come into contact with a miracle. After a few minutes the hospitable hosts were bombarded with questions. Lyudmila was shining with happiness: “I had never thought that I, a physician and the author of several scientific articles, would utter the word ‘miracle’. But I can't call it otherwise! I have a grandmother who is a long-liver. Twenty years ago she said that she would pray for me in front of an icon of the Most Holy Mother of God. She believed in the mercy of the Lord and His Most Pure Mother. I showed understanding, thinking that she was an elderly woman and these were remnants of the past… “But what has happened to us demonstrates that my religious grandmother was right: the mercy and love of the Lord are always with us. So many years of treatment and hope... Now we are both almost forty years old, and in six months we will become the happiest mother and father.” Everyone congratulated the couple, saying kind and beautiful words. Then the guests tried to “figure out” what exactly had helped Lyudmila get pregnant. They suggested many different explanations: One of them assumed that a change of climate had had a wholesome effect on the woman's body, another one supposed that the presence of mountains and a slightly high radioactivity level had played a role, while others believed that the treatment, albeit belatedly, had borne fruit at last. Lyudmila put a crystal glass of homemade fruit drink on the table and said seriously: “I see only one explanation: It’s neither the mountains, nor the climate, nor the Gobi Desert. It’s a miracle. My grandmother turned out to be much smarter than me. She always said that we would have a child, because the Lord and His Most Pure Mother are merciful. But until recently I stubbornly believed that since the doctors had diagnosed infertility, no prayers could help. Foolishly, I equated my grandmother’s earnest prayers with the spells of various psychics who ‘cure’ childlessness with a decoction of a cat’s tail or by sprinkling ashes on the bed! As soon as my pregnancy was confirmed, we immediately called my grandmother. I cried with joy and then, of course, I apologized for being skeptical about her words about God and faith. I thanked her. “But, nevertheless, my Komsomol upbringing affected me. At the end of the conversation, I asked my grandmother why the Lord had sent us a baby only twenty years later, if she had started praying earlier. My wise grandmother replied that I would understand it myself. Now I know that getting ready to become a mother at my age (over thirty-five), when all attempts to cure infertility did not help; when, according to all biological laws, the chances of getting pregnant even for a very healthy woman decline, is a miracle of God. This is the power and mercy of the Lord. I recall how my grandmother once told me a chapter from the Gospel about how the elderly holy Prophet Zachariah and the holy Righteous Elizabeth became the parents of the holy Prophet John the Baptist, and how the Archangel Gabriel announced the Good News to the Virgin Mary… Before confirming my pregnancy, the doctors had ruled out uterine fibroids and cancer, re-examining everything and repeating tests many times, and only then did they tell me the good news: ‘Believe it or not, but marvel—you will be a mother.’ When I asked them how it was possible, they smiled and said that such a phenomenon could only be called a miracle, as they could not explain it from a scientific point of view.” The whole town of Erdenet followed the events in their family. Everyone offered their help, gave children’s clothes and toys. Lyudmila’s husband walked with her before going to bed, bought groceries himself and cooked only healthy food intended for expectant mothers. After a while, the couple went to Moscow for the birth. In due time, a beautiful, healthy boy was born. Later, the happy parents sent us a long letter: after a month and a half, the baby was baptized with the name Zakhary (Zachariah). At that time, the authorities began to return monasteries and churches to the Russian Orthodox Church, and many people began to go to church for confession and Communion. Mikhail and Lyudmila converted to the faith as well. Alexandra Gripas Translation by Dmitry Lapa