To follow the path of the Mission, one must support oneself on two fundamental laws: the love of God and his fellow man, and the love of pain. The second follows from the first, which in turn is the first commandment of the Spiritual Law of the Gospel.
Now, in one of the church services that we performed in a suburb of the capital, they invited me to see a sick young man. When I entered his mud hut (these are usually an open space of about 15 sq. m. housing up to ten family members), I was repelled by an intense odour of something at an advanced stage of putrefaction, whose origin I could not yet determine. I continued, however, because I had a duty to see the sick person. On a bed, I found a 28 old man in a terrible state. On asking his mother what her son's illness was, she showed me his leg, which was the wrapped in a dirty clothand literally in a state of complete decomposition: it was swollen and grey in colour with multiple holes from which fluids flowed - providing abundant food for all kinds of microbes and insects.
Thus, the source of the smell was his leg, and the reason his leg had deteriorated so badly was that he did not have the money to pay for hospitalisation. Unfortunately, such situations are very common among the poor in Madagascar.
The next day, we took the young man to the hospital and after a few days, his leg was removed in an, admittedly, extremely expensive and excruciating medical procedure. The cost, in the best case, was equivalent to the money that a local worker would have been paid for five months' work. The young man is still hospitalized because he is in a critical condition; nevertheless, there is evident improvement in his health and above all, he now has a new name - a Christian name. While he was in pain and anxiety in the operating theatre, he accepted the Holy Baptism and was Baptised Seraphim.
Seraphim has now recovered psychologically and almost physically. Although we rejoice for his recovery, we are, naturally, still anxious about him. Seraphim's story is a small incident that is just one of the countless incidents we encounter here in this – ‘prison of pain'. Here, as a matter of necessity, you learn how to tune your heart to the painful hearts of these people. Here, you learn that there is nothing more precious than - Christ. You see Him in the eyes and agony of the suffering children; in the inconsolable mother; in the unemployed father with half a dozen or more children; in the old rag-and-bone man; in the hunger of the people; and in the lack of spiritual and secular comforts.
Here, one learns how to build real churches not how to write fictional best sellers. This is what gives us great consolation and solace in the 'prison', where we have self-exiled ourselves. This need for a little 'cup of water' in Christ's tragic call, 'I thirst.' is heard from the Holy Cross of Calvary to these forgotten mud huts of the Third World.
‘Christ is Risen’ from Madagascar. ‘Christ is Risen’ from yet another 'prison of pain'.
Hieromonk Polykarpos
To follow the path of the Mission, one must support oneself on two fundamental laws: the love of God and his fellow man, and the love of pain. The second follows from the first, which in turn is the first commandment of the Spiritual Law of the Gospel.
Now, in one of the church services that we performed in a suburb of the capital, they invited me to see a sick young man. When I entered his mud hut (these are usually an open space of about 15 sq. m. housing up to ten family members), I was repelled by an intense odour of something at an advanced stage of putrefaction, whose origin I could not yet determine. I continued, however, because I had a duty to see the sick person. On a bed, I found a 28 old man in a terrible state. On asking his mother what her son's illness was, she showed me his leg, which was the wrapped in a dirty clothand literally in a state of complete decomposition: it was swollen and grey in colour with multiple holes from which fluids flowed - providing abundant food for all kinds of microbes and insects.
Thus, the source of the smell was his leg, and the reason his leg had deteriorated so badly was that he did not have the money to pay for hospitalisation. Unfortunately, such situations are very common among the poor in Madagascar.
The next day, we took the young man to the hospital and after a few days, his leg was removed in an, admittedly, extremely expensive and excruciating medical procedure. The cost, in the best case, was equivalent to the money that a local worker would have been paid for five months' work. The young man is still hospitalized because he is in a critical condition; nevertheless, there is evident improvement in his health and above all, he now has a new name - a Christian name. While he was in pain and anxiety in the operating theatre, he accepted the Holy Baptism and was Baptised Seraphim.
Seraphim has now recovered psychologically and almost physically. Although we rejoice for his recovery, we are, naturally, still anxious about him. Seraphim's story is a small incident that is just one of the countless incidents we encounter here in this – ‘prison of pain'. Here, as a matter of necessity, you learn how to tune your heart to the painful hearts of these people. Here, you learn that there is nothing more precious than - Christ. You see Him in the eyes and agony of the suffering children; in the inconsolable mother; in the unemployed father with half a dozen or more children; in the old rag-and-bone man; in the hunger of the people; and in the lack of spiritual and secular comforts.
Here, one learns how to build real churches not how to write fictional best sellers. This is what gives us great consolation and solace in the 'prison', where we have self-exiled ourselves. This need for a little 'cup of water' in Christ's tragic call, 'I thirst.' is heard from the Holy Cross of Calvary to these forgotten mud huts of the Third World.
‘Christ is Risen’ from Madagascar. ‘Christ is Risen’ from yet another 'prison of pain'.
Hieromonk Polykarpos