The Myrhhbearing Women  

Listening to the account of Christ’s crucifixion and death during Holy Week, I am invariably struck by one detail of the story: the loyalty to the very end of a handful of people, mostly women, about whom the Gospel’s tell us almost nothing else….

This is what the Sunday of the Myrrhbearing Women means. It reminds us that the love and faithfulness of a few individuals shone brightly in the midst of hopeless darkness. It calls us to ensure that in this world love and faithfulness do not disappear or die out. It judges our lack of courage, our fear, our endless and servile rationalizations. The mysterious Joseph and Nicodemus, and these women who go to the grave at dawn, occupy so little space in the Gospels. Precisely here, however, is where the eternal fate of each of us is decided.

Today, I think, we are especially in need of recovering this love and basic human loyalty. For we have entered a time when even these are being discredited by harmful concepts of the person and human life now prevailing in this world. For centuries, the world still had the weak, but still flickering and shining, glow from that faithfulness, love and co-suffering which was silently present at the sufferings of the Man cast aside by all. And we need to cling, as if to a last thread, to everything in our world that still thrives on the warm light of simple, earthly, human love.

Love does not ask about theories and ideologies, but speaks to our heart and soul. Human history has rumbled along, kingdoms have risen and fallen, cultures have been built and bloody wars fought, but what remains unchanging on earth and in this troubled and tragic history is the bright image of the woman. An image of care, self-giving, love, compassion. Without this presence, without this light, our world, regardless of the successes and accomplishments, would be a world of terror. It can be said without exaggeration that the humanity of the human race was, and is, being preserved, saved, by women - preserved not by words or ideas, but by her silent, caring, loving presence….

By Fr. Alexander Schmemann