By Fr. George Dorbarakis
"The former prodigal woman suddenly turned sober-minded, despising the base acts of sin and carnal pleasure, reflecting on the profound shame and the judgement of hell that harlots and prodigals suffer. I have become the worst of these and am terrified, yet, fool that I am, I persist in my ugly habit. But the harlot woman, troubled and in haste, came crying out to the Redeemer: Lover of mankind and compassionate One, free me from the mire of my deeds.” (Matins, Oikos of the Kontakion)
The morning service of Great Wednesday (which is chanted the evening prior) is sealed by the troparion of Saint Kassiani, the content of which is the moving repentance of the harlot woman of the Gospel, who approached Jesus Christ with precious myrrh, in order to anoint His immaculate feet with it, as an expression of gratitude for the love with which He accepted and surrounded her and for the forgiveness of course that she received from Him. And it is certainly unnecessary to remind us that Saint Kassiani, a great saint and poet of our Church of the ninth century AD, has no relation to this harlot, beyond the fact that the Saint used the incident of the Gospel to render it with the highest poetic sensitivity and thus deliver it to the fullness of the Church throughout the centuries, always provoking, even today, devotion and a disposition to repentance in every well-disposed soul. And this is precisely one reason why our Church presents the incident to us: that everyone may imitate the repentance of this woman, while for another reason it presents it during Great Week for historical reasons, according to the synaxarion of the day: “This happened a little before the Passion.” An approach to the process of repentance of this woman, beyond the troparion of Kassiani, is given to us by the above Oikos of the Kontakion of the service.
1. “The former prodigal woman suddenly turned sober-minded.” What caused her shocking conversion, which constitutes a paradox, especially when one knows the destructive power of habit? Because many desire to change their sinful lives, unable to bear the consequences of sin – “for the wages of sin is death” and “there is tribulation and anguish for everyone who does evil” – but in practice they realize the weakness of their will to achieve it, which the hymnographer also dramatically points out: “Fool that I am, I persist in my ugly habit!” The hymnographer guides us: the woman was converted “despising the base acts of sin and carnal pleasure,” thus becoming an example for all believers. And this means: no one can repent and become sober-minded, that is, can live with restraint, having control over his false passions and being guided by the governing mind, if he does not take a negative stand towards vile sin and does not develop the so-called holy hatred towards the pleasures of the body. And this is because the obsession with pleasures means the pathological eros of man and his involvement with the world of sin, therefore the inability to see God. “No one can serve two masters!” A relationship with God and slavery to sin are incompatible situations. As the great contemporary Saint Sophrony the Athonite puts it: “Complete repentance detaches us from the deadly embrace of egocentric individualism and introduces us to the theoria of the divine universality of Christ, ‘who loved us to the end’ (cf. John 13:1). When we hate ourselves because of the evil living within us, then the endless horizons of the commanded love open up to us.” And further: “What do I essentially want to say with all this? This is exactly it: Through the repentance given to me, even to the point of self-hatred, I unexpectedly experienced a miraculous peace, and the uncreated Light surrounded me, entered into me, made me a light similar to Himself, and gave me the opportunity to experience the Kingdom of God of Love, a Kingdom of which there is no end” (“We Shall See Him As He Is”).
2. What does this hatred of sin in turn cause, according to the hymnographer? Two things: (1) the judgment of hell and the shame that accompanies it – “reflecting on the profound shame and the judgement of hell that harlots and prodigals suffer” – and (2) the knowledge of God’s love and philanthropy – “Lover of mankind and compassionate One, free me.” In other words, as man acquires knowledge of God's love, something that constitutes His grace is offered, however, to those who, even in the state of sin, retain some nuggets of goodness. Let us remember here what Saint Porphyrios said, that of course God gives His love to all, but in order for this love to become perceptible, He wants something small from man, a desire to want this love himself - to that extent he is drawn to Him and turns to Him in repentance. And if this love does not exist, what can somewhat sober him up and awaken him is the fear of hell and the shame that man will then feel before the judgment of God, a fact that also constitutes a charismatic state, a lower step of love, we would say.
The harlot woman felt these charismatic states of fear and love, a fact that she revealed with the haste of her turning to the Redeemer – “the harlot woman, troubled and in haste, came crying out to the Redeemer.” And it is understandable that these stages of repentance, as the hymnographer offers us through the example of the woman of the Gospel, are certainly the same stages that the Lord's most classic parable on this subject presents to us: the Parable of the Prodigal Son. Whatever the prodigal did – awareness of his sin and turning to the love of the Father – we see the prodigal woman doing the same. One is a parable, the other is reality. The result, however, is the same: the open embrace of God who forgives us and elevates us to His children.
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
