Homilies

Christ has risen! Truly risen!

Before I explain how Easter is a new creation, I would like to correct myself,
if I may, and say more exactly that PASKHA is a new creation. Easter and
PASKHA mean the same thing in the English secular dictionary and in the
mind of many Christians. Besides, you may say with Shakespeare:
"What is in a name?
That what we call a rose
By any other name will smell as sweet."

However the feast of Easter was before Christianity. It was the feast of
Ishtar, the pagan goddess of love and fertility. It came at the beginning of
the spring to honor that false divinity which exalts purely human values as
separated from the true God Whom we adore. The symbol of Ishtar is the
Easter Bunny. So, in my opinion, the Easter Bunny is not only a wrong
symbol of Christ's Resurrection; but it is a wrong competition distracting us
from the beautiful reality of the Resurrection. PASCHA, instead, is the
Greek word for Passover (Pesekh in Hebrew; FesseH, in
Arabic, written Facka in Legga Lebnaaniyyi (cf. Elyagoodnews Website).
This brings to mind a similar word in Arabic: Fashkha, a step, a pace or a
passage.) In fact, Pesekh, passover, means passage, transition through
the Red Sea, from the mainland Egypt into Sinai and the Promised Land,
from slavery to freedom, from death to life. It is also the passage of the
angel of death, sparing all those who were marked - redeemed - by the
blood of the Paschal Lamb who is
for us Christ, the Messiah, "the Lamb of God Who takes away the sins of
the world."

So, I wish you all a very "Happy Paskha!"

Paskha, the Feast of the Resurrection of Christ is called in our Eastern
tradition "the Great Feast" (Al 3iid Al Qabiir), and in our liturgical hymns
"the king and master of all days, the Feast of Feasts and the Season of
Seasons," (8th Ode of the Paschal Canon) as if to say "better than the
best." The Resurrection of our Lord Jesus is the greatest event in history.
Yet, more important than His Rising from the tomb is His rising and
growing in our hearts.

As I said in my introduction above – and it is worth repeating -- Paskha is
the religious name for Easter. It means "Passage". This word, Paskha,
brings to mind the Arabic word from the same Semitic root: "Fashkha", i.e.
a wide step. Christ's Resurrection is a "Passage" or a "Giant Step" from
slavery to freedom, from poverty to the Promised Land of Plenty, from
death to life, from hatred and resentment to forgiveness and love.
Originally, the word "Easter" was the secular/pagan name for the Feast of
Spring antedating Christianity. The ideal situation is when we rectify and
baptize our secular reality, adding to it the spiritual dimension. Happy
Easter! This is our human wish. Blessed Pascha! is the spiritual yearning
of our heart. Christ is Risen! Truly Risen! This is the expression of our
faith and hope in the Risen Lord who brought us from slavery to freedom
and death to life.

May our Risen Savior transform the daily reality of our life into the
splendid spectrum of His divine love.

"I shut the door of yesterday and threw the key away.
Tomorrow holds no fear for me, for Christ is Risen today."

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