PRIEST MIJAJLO BACKOVIĆ: DO WE BETRAY THE SON OF GOD WITH A KISS OR ARE WE HARLOTS WHO WILL ANOINT HIS FEET?

In the Church of St. Vasilij Ostroški in Dobrota, today at the divine service on the occasion of the Holy Sacrament of the consecration of the tree, archpriest Mijajlo Backović addressed the faithful.
"An old Indian wisdom says that there are two wolves in every person, one bad and one good, and that it is only a matter of our free will which will prevail in us and when."
That dualism in man, from that original sin and the fall of Adam and Eve until today, that dualism or curiosity passes through all ages and through every nation, but also through each of us individually.
Each of us, if we really examine ourselves, trying to reach that perfection, which is self-knowledge, true self-knowledge of our heart, our soul and ourselves as in a mirror before the Lord, we will see that those two wolves that live in us are fighting every day from moment to moment and that the difference is small.
Fasting, which we went through and entered the Great Sunday before the Resurrection of Christ, leads us to that self-examination and self-knowledge, showing us how to restrain the evil wolf within us.
He will never leave us and he will wait for every moment of weakness or drop in spiritual immunity for him to speak in us. He will fight, but it is a fight in all of us, brothers and sisters and dear children.
Today and its symbolism also shows two extremes. Today we remember that wonderful woman who repented, the harlot, who came and anointed the Lord's feet with her tears and peace, and then wiped them with her hair, thereby showing that she was aware of her fall, found within herself, looking and questioning the Lord, love within herself and through love, of course, and repentance, because love is the only medicine with which we defeat the evil wolf within us.
On the other hand, we have Judas, who we also remember today, not for good. He looked at his Lord, walked with Him, saw how He resurrected, raised from the dead, how He raised the sick, saw all His miracles, stood, touched His flesh and blood, touched the living God. He lived, walked, ate, mourned, hungered, rejoiced with Him, saw everything through Him and experienced everything with Him, unlike this harlot, who did not see all that, but saw Him once and recognized the truth that He awakened in to her.
And Judas, the other extreme. He saw it all, lived it, was present, and then on this day he betrayed the Son of God with a kiss. Do we sometimes ask ourselves, brothers and sisters, very often me and all of you, whether we who come to the temple, who partake of the body and blood of Christ, whether with that kiss and the most beautiful touch with the Lord, sometimes we who kiss and touch Him we are with Him, we are with Him, we serve the liturgy, we enter the altar, do we sometimes betray Him, like Judas, because of our personal interest, or because of human fear?
And we do that and we fall, but we also get up like this harlot woman. Therefore, this dualism of falling and rising in man is getting its fullness in today's day and we see a woman who repented, and we see a disciple of Christ who betrayed.
According to the custom at the end of the consecration, brothers and sisters and other children, when, remembering that peace with which this woman anointed the feet of the Lord, we anoint with the oil that we consecrate by reading the seven Gospels, seven wonderful prayers that introduce us and show us exactly this to self-examine in order to come to self-recognition and knowledge of their personal heart and soul and their actions, because no illness, physical, occurs if the body is not weakened and if the spirit does not fall.
Then comes the physical illness. Our physical ailments are related to our spiritual condition. That is why we in the Church pray through the spiritual that the Lord will give physical healing to all of us, but above all and first of all, spiritual repentance, the knowledge of our hearts, that these days we will carefully examine ourselves, whether we are betraying the Son of God with a kiss, or whether we are harlots who will anoint His feet with tears , clean with peace and hair.
We also opened according to the old, ancient custom here, as Father Momo taught us, the Gospel at the end over the heads of all of you who bowed your heads, and Father Nemanja read a prayer in which it is said that the Gospel that his fellow ministers hold over the heads of you faithful, who have come to repent through him and through him you receive the blessing and the way he shows you.
We opened and that Gospel this time and this year was precisely the Gospel under the cross, the Gospel of suffering, the Gospel of the crucifixion and the moment when the Lord was crucified on Golgotha. This can indicate and show us our personal suffering, and the suffering of our people.
These days, when we were just waiting for Easter and twenty-five years ago, our people died in that criminal bombing of the NATO pact. Yesterday we were in little Murin, where we were at the scene of the murder of three children and three people, six of them, who remembered the suffering.
Those children and those children throughout our country, then bombed, were precisely children and people crucified on the cross, crucified with the Lord, and that is why this Gospel was not accidentally opened over our heads, because we tend to forget.
Remember our suffering brothers and sisters, remembering the suffering of our Lord God and Savior. But we do not grieve because we know that after Good Friday comes the Resurrection of Christ and from the realistic pessimism in which we find ourselves and this environment we enter into some unrealistic but eschatological optimism that we expect, believe in and hope for.
May the Lord bless you all, our sick and those for whom you prayed and all of us because we are all sick from sin, may the Lord grant healing of soul and body and may all those who will be anointed with this oil that you will bring find healing, but above all to find themselves spiritually in the heart, and then it will be easier to fight with our physical illnesses. Cheers and good health," said Fr. Mijalo.