On the occasion of the feast of the Myrrhbearers, Archbishop Makarios of Australia underlined the fact that the love for Christ goes beyond fear and allows us to truly experience His Resurrection.
On the Sunday of the Myrrhbearers, the 3rd of May, the Archbishop celebrated the Divine Liturgy at the Church of St. Nicholas, in Sydney, which was concelebrated by Bishop Aimilianos of Meloe. The Divine Liturgy was celebrated behind closed doors, due to the restrictive measures to prevent the spread of the coronavirus pandemic.
Moreover, Archbishop Makarios stressed, “We are all Christians, we live as members of the Orthodox Church and for this reason, we crave eternal life. However, we avoid bearing the cross. We are all in the Church, our lives are full of ‘myrrh and perfumes,’ which we do not use to anoint the Body of Jesus, but to take care of ourselves.”
At this point, Archbishop Makarios added, “Myrrh and perfumes are our virtues and desires, our gifts and our yearning”, which, as he underlined, “have value only when we use them to approach Christ in order to love Him more.” “Otherwise we become like the Pharisees,” he said, “who had many virtues, but never truly welcomed Christ into their lives.” “When we are in the Church, we tend to be talking about the Resurrection and to be constantly saying ‘Christ is Risen’, but, in fact, only a few of us really believe in the Resurrection,” he said.
Finally, he pointed out, “Our desire is communion with the Risen Christ” and urged the faithful to welcome Christ into their lives. “If we do not believe in the Resurrection of Christ, this does not mean that the Resurrection is not a true fact, but that our faith has died, just like the people who crucified Him,” he concluded.
