2013 Easter Message

Here is your mother. (John 19:27)

One of the most beautiful examples of the human nature of our Savior, Jesus Christ, is the words spoken on the cross to his beloved disciple John, “Here is your mother.”

The Holy Virgin Mary was experiencing the most painful time for a mother. With a wounded heart the Holy Mother was witnessing her son’s torment, punishment on the cross, and death. She was inseparable from her child. Perhaps she could not totally comprehend the trial and verdict of the Roman and Hebrew leaders; however, the love of a mother impelled her to be with her child, aching and suffering with him.

On the other hand, her son, Jesus, in spite of the torture and anguish on the cross, turned to John, his cherished young disciple, and entrusted his mother to his care. Precisely as today, when on the occasion of the good tidings of the Holy Resurrection, all faithful Christians seek the gift of motherhood from the Holy Virgin Mary, our universal mother.
Mother love has had a great influence on our nation, as powerful as the Holy Virgin. A mother’s love is so strong that it can bring back to life our tortured and dead spirit. Mother love can shape us into a total and complete individual; it can transform us into a new person if we have been felled by misfortune, sinfulness, or hopelessness. Mother love is capable of bringing peace to the world.

Here is your mother. During the Vigil service of Tenebrae we are emotionally stirred and our memories of being a child are shaken with the hymn, “Where are you, O Mother, my sweet mother?” In the darkness of the church we hear Jesus’ voice, we see our mother, we are emotionally touched with the power of that moment and our souls are transformed, because for the Armenian Church and Armenian nation the mother has been, and is, the foundational pillar that keeps our family, as well as our nation, steady and pure. Without any doubt about this fact, His Holiness Aram I, Catholicos of the Holy See of Cilicia, declared 2013 as the “Year of the Armenian Mother,” with conviction and testimony. Wisely gathering our nation’s centuries of experience in this respect, in his message His Holiness highlighted the virtues of the Armenian mother and her traditional role as educator, and as the keeper of the family’s healthy environment. The Armenian mother has been the source of our faith, the custodian of our national character, and truly, the creator of the individual person.
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On the eve of Holy Easter, Jesus speaks to all of us when he says, “Here is your mother.”  Here is the mother in her sanctity, in her kindness, in her noble mission, and the mother who is undeniably worthy of the love and esteem shown by her child.
Christ’s resurrection is a holy day of hope, strengthening of faith, and the formation of love in the hearts of mankind, in compensation for the love that God gave us, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life,” (John 3:16). For us, along with hope and faith, the Holy Resurrection is faith in our everlasting Mother Church, our Mother Country, and our Mother Tongue and Culture.
Christ is risen from the dead. Good tidings of new life. Let us live this new life with love, virtue, sweetness, and peace.
Blessed is the Resurrection of Christ.

ARCHBISHOP OSHAGAN
Prelate
Armenian Apostolic Church of America
Eastern United States of America Easter 2013