Sunday of Myrrh-bearing Women in St. Mina Parish - Blainville

On May 8, with the occasion of Myrrh-bearing Women’ Sunday, His Grace Bishop Ioan Casian was present in St. Mina Parish in Blainville, Quebec.

“We are in a period of joy and strengthening in the faith. The Church today lives in grace the apostolic experience of the former disciples to whom Christ is revealed after the third day resurrection - said the hierarch in his homily delivered at the end of the Divine Liturgy. Hearing the innumerable testimonies of the divine word in the Gospels concerning the resurrection of the Lord from the dead, we relive the experience of those who saw him personally in the 40 days before His Ascension to heaven.

From today Gospel we see that the first to go to the tomb and receive the news of the Resurrection were the myrrh-bearing women. They were the ones who knew Him, accompanied Him or hosted Him during the three years of public activity. They were worried that His body had been hastily buried because of the Sabbath. In their care, they went to the grave early in the morning to do what was necessary in these cases. Their concern about removing the stone from the tomb door is gone because it was moved away. Entering the tomb, they saw an angel announcing to them that Christ had risen and that his disciples would see Him in Galilee.

The same is true of the Matins service. Only the Gospels of the Resurrection are read there, prefiguring the news given by the angel to the women, or recounting the various encounters of the risen Christ with the disciples. The church community lives this testimony of the Resurrection when the priest reads from the right side of the Holy Altar the Gospel after which he comes and places it in the middle of the church, symbolizing Christ. The community comes to worship it as a gesture of confession of faith in the saving work that Christ fulfilled on our behalf.

St. Peter Chrysologus, commenting on the pericope, says that to see the Resurrection, a stone must be set aside. It is probably the stone of unbelief or self-will that is an opaque wall that does not allow us to clearly see the mystery of God, our resurrection, and our transfiguration.

 St. Bede the Venerable speaks of the fact that the Resurrection was progressively revealed due to the difficulty of understanding its meaning. We also see in the case of meetings of St. Mary Magdalene and of Luke and Cleopas with the risen Christ that they do not recognize Him.

In the same way in the Church we understand the things of the faith progressively not because of the incomplete presence of grace but because of our impurity, sins and limitations. The history of the Church shows us countless situations in which the saints see the presence of Christ, the Mother of God, the Holy Apostles and the whole mystery of the presence of heaven and earth in the Divine Liturgy.”

HG Bishop Ioan Casian then spoke about the importance of Holy Communion.

“In order to continue and strengthen our spirituality on the road to the Kingdom of Heaven, we need to draw closer to God, to share in the gifts that Christ has won for us. Our transfigured, restored, and renewed humanity assumed in the Person of Jesus Christ becomes for us the foundation of our new humanity. It becomes through grace, faith and living in the Church the basis of our personal life, the matrix, content and model of every human person in this world who desires the Kingdom of heaven. Holy Communion is the heavenly nourishment or new life-giving humanity that Christ has given us. Received by faith, it nourishes our spiritual life and our growth in God.

Let us approach Holy Communion with proper preparation and humility. Humility will help us remove the wall of our opaque will so that we can see the light of God's presence in this time of joy and light.”

At the end, the hierarch anointed those present and participated in the festive agape that followed.

Rev. Fr. Olimpiu Mărginean, diocesan secretary, is the parish priest of the church. The community has recently bougth its own place of worship in the greater Montreal area.