Below are three of Fr. Abbot's homilies:
for Holy Thursday, the Eve of Pascha, and Pascha, 2008.

We begin now to enter fully into the mystery of the Lord's Passion, the beginning of the Sacrifice of Jesus at the Mystical Supper in the upper room. Of this evening Jesus said to his disciples: "I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer." For He was about to bestow upon them and upon the world a unique and infinitely precious Gift: his own Body and Blood, which would be sacrificed for the forgiveness of our sins and for a perpetual memorial of his everlasting love.

But the Supper began on a sorrowful note. "One of you," Jesus said, "will betray me." One thing I noticed in this reading that I never noticed before is that it seems that once Judas made his deal with the chief priests, Jesus was no longer his Lord. In Matthew's account, when Jesus announced the betrayal, all the disciples asked in turn, "Is it I, Lord?" When Judas' turn came, he asked, "Is it I, rabbi [or, teacher]?" He had already fallen away.

But let us return to the other disciples, for I think we can identify with them, if we are honest. They probably believed, in general, that they were faithful disciples of the Lord. Yet there was in them a salutary self-distrust. A kind of dread entered their hearts, which comes from the fear of God. They wouldn't have thought that any of this select group would betray their Master, yet Jesus said one of them would, and so, horrified and trembling, they approached Him: Am I the one?

They must have known, as we ought to know for ourselves, that human beings, on this side of Paradise, are capable of evil, even the worst kinds; we are all potential betrayers of our Lord. That is one reason why the Church always urges us to embrace humility and reject pride. This keeps our souls in a sober self-awareness. Peter lost sight of that for a while, and boldly protested that he would go even to prison and death for Jesus' sake, even saying that if all the others fell away, he alone would not. But a few hours later he was swearing with oaths that he didn't even know the Man.

Is it I, Lord?

But the Lord continued with this Passover that would forever change the world, despite his weak and wavering disciples. He loved them, after all, even with all their faults, and He knew that when his Spirit would come they would become holy and fearless preachers of his death and resurrection, and would give much glory to God. So "Jesus took bread, and blessed and broke it, and gave it to his disciples and said: 'Take eat; this is my body.' And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, 'Drink of it, all of you; for this is my blood of the new covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.'" There, He did it, the miracle of miracles, yet I wonder if the disciples could understand the magnitude of it at that moment, which was so charged with emotion, with fear and confusion and the threat of betrayal and the prediction of death. Even so, He commanded them: "Do this in memory of Me." Do this, do what I just did. Make My sacrificed Body and Blood present every time you gather in My name: that you may eat and drink the price of your redemption, that you may have life and have it to the full, that you may abide in Me and I in you, that I may raise you up on the last day.

Jesus' command—Do this in memory of Me, six words—was the first ordination rite of the priesthood of the New Covenant. Jesus would complete it after his resurrection when He gave them power to forgive sins (Jn. 20:22-23). But here at the table in the upper room, He gave them the grace and authority to perpetuate his sacrifice, to ritually proclaim his death and resurrection until He comes in glory. None of this would be fully realized by them until the day of Pentecost and the unfolding life of the Church of Christ, but at this moment Jesus declared it. He sacrificially offered his own Body and Blood at the Last Supper in anticipation of its completion on Calvary, and He gave a share in his own high priesthood to his disciples in anticipation of its exercise after Pentecost.

We may rightly wonder if today's priests are aware of the surpassing gift that Christ has given them by communicating the same command to them: "Do this in memory of Me." It is through the priesthood alone that the sacrifice of Christ is perpetuated in the Church, for the life and salvation of its members and of the whole world. The priesthood is not a "service profession," even though the post-Vatican II Church has tended to recast it that way. It is a consecration, an inner configuration of a man to the person of Christ, specifically in the Lord's priestly function of offering the sacrifice that saves the world. In one of the prayers of the priest in the Divine Liturgy, the priest refers to himself as one "whom You have placed in this, your ministry, through the power of your Holy Spirit…" So priests are more than followers of Christ; they have been inserted into his ministry; they do what He did, by the power of the Holy Spirit. So the Eucharist is at the heart of the priesthood, and the priesthood is ultimately meaningless without it—or perhaps it becomes just another service profession dealing with people's temporal needs. But in fact, the Eucharist is so important—and the priest's faith in the Eucharist so essential to his ministry—that in the ordination rite of the priest in the Byzantine tradition the priest must swear that he believes that bread and wine are changed into the Body and Blood of Christ at every Divine Liturgy.

Yet we see today that the priesthood of Christ is in disarray. A very small (though numerically significant) percentage of priests have sexually abused children and adolescents. An alarmingly large minority are actively homosexual. A greater percentage still are disobedient to the Magisterium and do not preach or live according to the Gospel and the teachings of the Church. Some no longer believe in the Holy Eucharist either, grieving the Heart of Jesus, who bequeathed this Gift to his Church at the price of his own blood.

Starting with myself, I entreat all priests to sit in the upper room with Jesus, allow his eyes to penetrate the depths of our souls, and then ask: Is it I, Lord?

After they had finished the Supper, Jesus said to them: "You will all fall away because of me this night; for it is written, 'I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.'" The long Gospel reading for this day does not end with the Last Supper but continues into the beginning of his Passion: the agony in the garden and the arrest and trial before the chief priests. Perhaps the Church thus intends to link the Supper with the Passion, for they are inseparable. The Passion doesn't begin in the garden; it begins at the table. In John's Gospel, while Jesus is still sitting at table with the disciples, He declares: "Now is the Son of Man glorified." According to John, Jesus' glorification is the whole of his Passion, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension. The Mystical Supper inaugurates the Sacrifice; it is the fountainhead of our salvation.

Let us, as disciples of Christ, gather around our Lord who is present in our midst and who will renew the mystery of his Sacrifice in a very short time on our own altar. Let us bring Him the love that others deny Him, let us offer ourselves to Him while others betray Him—yet let us not become overconfident or complacent or proud of our own righteousness. Even as we sit with Him at table we must realize how far we fall short of his glory, how unfaithful we often prove to be, and let us ask Him: Is it I, Lord? Having humbled ourselves before Him, let us approach, as the deacon says, "with fear of God and with faith," and receive the Divine Mysteries with a heart ready to go with Him to his Passion.

Let us also pray for priests, whose special day this is, that all might remember what the Lord has enjoined upon them, remember that their lives have meaning only in the mystery of the divine ministry into which they have been inserted by the power of the Holy Spirit. Let us pray that the Lord may have mercy on all those who have betrayed or denied Him by their words or actions, and that they may be restored to his grace and be courageous witnesses of the Truth and, as we say in the Liturgy of St Basil: "servants of the New Covenant and ministers of the Holy Mysteries."

This is the night that Jesus said all will fall away. Let us keep vigil with Him, as He calls us to accompany Him. "Watch and pray," He said, as He resolutely walked toward his agony in the garden. Watch and pray, believe and trust, follow faithfully and with love even unto the Cross—and we will be declared worthy of his precious Body and Blood, redeemed, sanctified, and prepared to share his glory.

The Gospel for the vigil of Pascha (Mt 28:1-20) describes a truly earth-shaking event. "Behold, there was a great earthquake," says the evangelist. I wonder if this shaking of the surface of the Earth was a reverberation of the smashing of the gates of death in the netherworld, when Christ descended to free the captives of death: those who had been for long years under the curse of the banishment from Paradise, and who were awaiting the prophesied Redeemer.

In Tolkien's Silmarillion, when Morgoth—the evil lord who had imprisoned many and enslaved them in Angband, his loathsome underground stronghold—was finally defeated, it says: "Thus an end was made of the power of Angband in the North, and the evil realm was brought to naught; and out of the deep prisons a multitude…came forth beyond all hope into the light of day…" Tolkien's story is a myth, but the truth at the heart of it comes from reality, from Christ's own victory over the evil powers of darkness and death. Christ descended into the strongholds of hades, the abode of the dead, and made an end of its power. Out of the netherworld a multitude of souls were ransomed and came forth, not into the light of an earthly day but into the light of Paradise, the Blessed Realm where God and all the holy and immortal ones abide.

This is primarily what we are celebrating in this evening service on the threshold of Easter. We don't burst forth with our joyful proclamation of "Christ is risen!" until Matins at midnight, yet we still are celebrating the Lord's victory. Before the glorified Lord shone upon the world in the brilliance of his Uncreated Light, He had to do some "dirty work," so to speak. He had a score to settle with the prince of death. He had to deal with the darkness that had covered the world with the shadow of death. He did this by actually entering into it, by experiencing the torment of suffering and death Himself, absorbing into Himself the whole power of death, thus robbing death of its ability to separate man from God. And, O Great Wonder!—as our Offices often say—now death actually becomes the means, not of separating us from God, but of uniting us to God in the bliss of his eternal Paradise!

This is the great victory that is achieved through the Paschal Mystery. When we sing that Jesus has destroyed or abolished death, that doesn't mean we think that our material bodies will not die or corrupt in the grave. To abolish death means to take from death its ultimate destructive power, to change it into something it wasn't before, to transform it from a bitter end into a rite of passage into a new beginning: the beginning of an endless life in communion with the Lord and Giver of Life, who created us to live and to rejoice with Him forever. Death was not part of God's original plan, for sin was not part of his plan, and Scripture says that death entered the world through sin.

But just because we ruined his plan by bringing death into the world, God wasn't going to shrug his shoulders or throw up his hands saying, "What can I do? They made a mess of everything!" No, if we were going to invite death into the world, God was going to tell it to leave. But it is God's way not merely to pronounce thundering decrees from on High. That would certainly manifest his power and authority, but it wouldn't sufficiently manifest his love. So before getting rid of death, the Son of God was sent into the world to share our lot, to experience the penalty of sin even though He was free from sin. He loved us so much that He willed to drink the cup of suffering and death to the last bitter drop. And then—He went after death with a vengeance (for "vengeance is mine, says the Lord"), and this is rather colorfully described in the services as smashing the bronze gates of hades, tearing out its pillars and foundations, and setting free the ancient captives.

Pope John Paul II wrote: "In his salvific mission, the Son must therefore strike evil right at its transcendental roots from which it develops in human history. These transcendental roots of evil are grounded in sin and death: for they are at the basis of the loss of eternal life. The mission of the only-begotten Son consists in conquering sin and death. He conquers sin by his obedience unto death, and he overcomes death by his Resurrection." The descent into hell is an image, or rather a dramatic manifestation, of this going to the root of evil, the mystery of iniquity and the power of death. That was the mission of the Son of God. He had to deal with sin and death, for if He didn't we would not have eternal life, and the Lord came so that all who believe in Him would not perish but have everlasting life. As the Pope said: his obedience unto death conquered sin, and his rising from the dead nullified the power of death.

As the foundations of death were shaken, the whole Earth quaked in fear and wonder, so let us return now to the surface, to the empty tomb of which the Gospel speaks. As the Earth quaked, an angel descended from Heaven and rolled back the stone from the entrance to the tomb. The angel appeared so that he could give testimony to the fact that the Lord had indeed conquered death.

Jesus had gone down to hades before his bodily resurrection, so He was already releasing the captives in spirit while his body remained in the grave. But who would have believed that—if his body had forever remained in the grave? It would have seemed to be a comforting tale, but not one that would change anyone's life. For something as marvelous as the overturning of the power of death there would have to be some proof, some undeniable sign. So the Lord gave one: He Himself rose from the dead. His body was not in the tomb when the angel rolled back the stone. The angel didn't move the stone so that Jesus could come out, like Lazarus a week earlier. Jesus told them to take away the stone and then called Lazarus out. But Lazarus did not partake of the Resurrection; he was only temporarily restored to his mortal life. But Jesus, in his glorified body, passed through the stone before the angel had rolled it away. He had not only conquered death, He had transcended the limitations of mortal flesh.

So Jesus has given us a sign, through his own resurrection, that He could deliver all those under the power of death. It's as if He would say: "So, you want some proof that I descended into hades, that I have the power to release the dead and give them eternal life? How about if I raise Myself from the dead? Would you then believe? Which is easier, to raise others from the dead or to raise oneself from the dead?" It is similar to the sign he gave the Pharisees after He forgave the paralytic. They couldn't see forgiveness of sins, so they wouldn't believe Jesus had such power. But they could see a manifest healing of a cripple, so He did that, as a sign that He could also do the other things He claimed to be able to do. No one could see Jesus descend to the netherworld and rescue the souls of the departed, but those to whom Jesus revealed Himself after his resurrection could see Him (and touch Him), wounds and all, alive and well and full of the Holy Spirit.

The women came to the tomb looking for what they knew: the body of Jesus. The angel acknowledged that, saying, "I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified." But then he told them something they could not even imagine: He is risen from the dead! When the disciples first heard this from the women they couldn't believe it. They heard the word but hadn't yet been given the sign, as the disciples explained to the Stranger who walked with them on the road to Emmaus: the women told them about the angel's proclamation, "but Him they did not see." Yet the angel told the women: You will see Him.

As they ran from the tomb with both fear and joy, they did see Him, and all his words came to their fulfillment. They realized that in fact He had conquered death, even if they couldn't theologize about it in their ecstatic state! Jesus gave them a message for the disciples, just like the angel's message to the women: "Tell my brethren… they will see me."

We have received sufficient testimony, sufficient signs, that Jesus has overcome death—in Himself and for our sake. It is now up to us to cling to Him in faith and love, so that we will personally enter into this mystery of freedom from the power of death, the mystery of resurrection unto eternal life. Jesus overcame sin, the root of death, by his obedience unto death. We must do the same. The trail has already been blazed; no mere mortal could have done that. All we have to do is follow that trail, stay on it. For death can still have power over us if we relinquish our freedom, if we turn from the path of righteousness, of communion with Jesus. Death feeds on sin, and the more we sin, the more death regains its power. Those who died before Christ could not help but go to the netherworld. But those who die after Christ have no excuse if they go to the world below. Death, that is, eternal death which separates us from God, only has the power that we give it.

So let us worship the Lord who came to set us free at such great personal cost. Let us celebrate our liberation from the power of darkness and the shadow of death, and let us come into the light of grace and joy and resurrection!

Christ is risen! We have come at last to the full and glorious celebration of the Feast of feasts, the Mystery of mysteries: the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ from the dead. We sing at Matins: "Christ our God has brought us from death to life and from earth to heaven; therefore we sing the hymn of victory: Christ is risen from the dead!"

We have proclaimed one of the gospel accounts of the resurrection at the vigil Liturgy, and we'll do others in the course of the next couple weeks. But at the central celebration of the resurrection the Church directs us to read the prologue of the Gospel of John, which does not even mention his resurrection. Yet I think the point of this is to open up for us the mystery of who Christ is, so that the resurrection can be situated within the larger mystery of the revelation of God to man.

We learn that in the beginning the Word was with God, and that the Word was God. This is the beginning of the revelation of God as Trinity. We learn also that the Son of God was instrumental in the creation of the entire universe. Nothing was made without Him, insists the evangelist. The usual punctuation in English of verses 3-4 of the prologue makes it sound a bit redundant and is probably not correct. It reads: "without him was not anything made that was made." I think it is clear that what has been made has in fact been made, without that repetition. It makes more sense to join the last phrase to the beginning of the next verse, so it would read: "…without him nothing was made. What came to be in Him was life." The word translated "made" also means "became" or "happened." So what happened in the eternal Word was life, what came to be in and through Him was life.

To celebrate resurrection is to celebrate life. Again at Matins we sing: "We celebrate the victory over death… and the birth of a new eternal life…" Jesus held these two mysteries together in his own self-identification: "I am the Resurrection and the Life." Resurrection means life, but not merely the biological life that perishes through age or disease or injury. If that is all we're celebrating, we could do it just as well at the local tavern. But we celebrate resurrection and life in church, in the context of the worship of God and the mystical Sacrifice of the Holy Eucharist, for we are celebrating the life that does not die, the gift of eternal life made possible by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

We were not created for death; we were created for life. Death entered the world through sin, but Jesus came into this world to forgive sin and thus to overthrow death and all its power. Jesus sacrificed his own human life so that our sins might be forgiven, and then He rose from the dead as a sign that his word is true—not only that He has power to lay down his life and take it up again, but also that He has the power and the desire to give that same life to us, who do not deserve it, but whom He loves nonetheless. That is why we can celebrate not only Christ's victory over death and his eternal life, but our victory, our eternal life, because He has given this to us. We don't just admire Him from afar, congratulating Him on rising from the dead. We receive from Him the grace to enter that same everlasting and glorious life with Him, in fulfillment of his promise: "I will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also" (Jn 14:3). For as it says in the Prologue: "of his fullness we all have a share, grace upon grace."

After it says that what came to be in the eternal Word of God was life, it continues: "and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it." So Jesus is not only the Life, He is the Light. This is not "the light" in some vague new-age sense of light, which can mean almost anything. Even the name Lucifer means the "light-bearer," so the term can be ambiguous, and it is evident that those who follow new-age spirituality are, wittingly or unwittingly, following Lucifer. But the Light spoken of in the gospel is not something that is vague, nebulous, or susceptible of many interpretations. It means one thing only: the person of the incarnate Son of God, Jesus Christ our Lord, the Way, the Truth, the Life, and the Light of the world.

The world is full of darkness because of sin and error and idolatry and all sorts of self-indulgence, blasphemy, and crime. But the Light shines on, and the darkness cannot overcome it, because the Light, Jesus Christ, is risen from the dead. When Jesus was arrested in the garden and then led ultimately to his death, he said: "This is your hour, and the power of darkness" (Lk 22:53). But even though the very light of the sun temporarily succumbed to darkness at the death of Jesus, the Light shone on, illuminating the deep recesses of the netherworld where He went in spirit to reclaim his own, and then bursting forth from the sealed tomb in the irrepressible power of his resurrection.

He came into the world, says the Gospel, but the world knew Him not. He came to his own people and his own people received Him not. But those who recognized the Light were enabled to become children of God. What happened in them was life, the eternal life that Jesus gives to all those who believe in Him and who follow Him in true faith and love. To follow Him is a commitment of a lifetime, not the mere attendance at Christmas and Easter celebrations. The Lord gives eternal life to those who walk with Him day after day, in good times and bad, in sorrows and joys, those who embrace Him even at great personal cost or sacrifice. Eternal life is not given to fair-weather friends, who like to receive the benefits of his grace but who refuse to accept the conditions under which his grace is bestowed. The gift of eternal life is precious beyond all measure, and it can only be received through a wholehearted and consistent commitment.

But let us be clear: we will not receive the benefits of his grace, especially of the Holy Eucharist, the very life of the risen Christ, without first believing as the Church believes and accepting the conditions the Church requires for a worthy reception of the Holy Mysteries. The Holy Eucharist does not fall out of the sky for all to partake indiscriminately. Jesus has entrusted this most sacred Mystery to his Church. Those who think they can follow their own preferences in this matter are only eating and drinking unto their own destruction, as the Scripture says.

"Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ," concludes the evangelist. He contrasts this to the law coming through Moses. So what has happened is that a new and everlasting covenant has been enacted between God and man through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The life that has come to be in and through Jesus Christ really is new life. This is not the life that was restored to Lazarus or the others Jesus raised from the dead during his earthly ministry. When Jesus rose from the dead, He did not merely return to the human life He enjoyed before his death. When He rose from the dead, He entered into his glory. That is how St John describes the Paschal Mystery: the glorification of Christ. Through his resurrection Jesus entered, in his humanity, into the immortal life which, as the Son of God, He knew from all eternity. This life can never die, can never be taken from Him; the darkness can never overcome it. He declared in a vision to St John: "I am the First and the Last, and the Living One; I died, but behold, I am alive forevermore" (Rev. 1:17-18).

This is the life that Jesus wants to give to us, the life that we have already begun through baptism and the other sacraments, but which will not be definitively ours until—because of our fidelity to Jesus in this life—we are judged worthy to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. The Resurrection of Jesus testifies to us that eternal life is possible, that a glorious eternity in Heaven is available, to those who will believe in Jesus and love and follow Him with their whole heart. This is a day of great joy for the faithful, but a day of misery for the powers of darkness and all those who choose to reject the Life who is Christ. "This is the day the Lord has made," we repeatedly sing in our paschal services, "let us be glad and rejoice in it."

As we decide to receive the grace of eternal life, the Divine Energy of the Risen Lord, let us also decide that we will do things his way, making his prayer our own: "Father, not my will but yours be done." This is the only way to eternal life, for Jesus has clearly said that those who merely call Him "Lord" will not enter Heaven, but only those who actually do the will of God the Father (Mt. 7:21-23). At this moment, the will of the Father is for us to celebrate in faith what He has done in his Son, what He has done for us through his Son—and for us to pledge our fidelity to his Son henceforth and forever. For what came to be in Christ was life, and He is the Resurrection and the Life, and the Life is the Light of the world, and the Light of Jesus shines on in the darkness, and the darkness cannot overcome it. For Christ is risen!

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