By Fr. George Dorbarakis
“Since by the power of the Cross, You have strengthened my mind, guide me to do Your will O Lord, having been weakened by the attacks of the wicked."
"Raise me up, O Christ, for I am laying on the bed of pleasures from the slumber of sloth, and make me a pilgrim of Your Passion."
"Having brightened our souls, cleansed by fasting, let us go to meet Christ, to Jerusalem, dwelling in the flesh." (Ode 1, Tone 2)
The dichotomy towards which our ecclesiastical hymnography constantly moves, in this case in the first ode of the canon of the day, by Saint Joseph the Hymnographer, continues: on the one hand, the awareness of human weakness, which is due both to the Evil One who never ceases to fight the believer, but also to the passion of slothfulness that binds the believer to pleasures; and on the other, the turn "towards the only one able to save", the Lord, Who, seeing the supplication of His servants, guides them towards His holy will, raises them up, so that they may be with Him as fellow travelers and pilgrims of His Passion. Given this salvific relationship between Christ and believers, we observe two “things”: first, His own love for His creatures - the Cross and His Passion are the constant confirmation of this truth; second, our desire as humans to be with the Lord - through our plea for Him to help us and the struggle of our fasting, physical and spiritual, which purifies the soul, are also proof of this truth on our part.
The most crucial element in this relationship with the Lord is certainly our request to direct our will to His: “Guide me to do Your will.” And this is because the holy hymnographer knows well that the only thing that always stands as an obstacle in man’s relationship with God is our own will. “The will,” according to the abbas of the Gerontikon, “is the bronze wall that does not allow us to see God.” It is the struggle with our selfishness, with “this is how I like it” – the continuation of original sin. To submit our will to the will of the Lord is the path of our sanctification. A holy man is one who has decided with all the strength of his soul to make the will of God his own personal will. What the Lord did as a man in the Garden of Gethsemane: “Yet not as I will, but as You will, Father.” This choice, painful indeed because it goes through the complexities of our selfishness, reveals that we even say the “Our Father” hypocritically. Because the Lord from the beginning and throughout eternity asks this of us, and we are judged by it: "Your will be done," and not our will.
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
