Why Some People Feel Empty During Easter (Even Though Christ is Risen) | St. Sophrony

In this audio recording, St. Sophrony the Athonite (+July 11, 1993) speaks to his monastic brotherhood about Pascha and why it can feel heavy or difficult for some people, even though it is the Feast of Feasts. It talks about the struggle with passions, the meaning of true resurrection, and what it means to really wait for it with hope.

Essex Monastery, April 8th, 1991
English translation adapted after the Romanian version of Fr. Rafail Noica, Cuvantari Duhovnicesti I (11).

St. Sophrony:

We greet Pascha with: “Christ is Risen!” – and we celebrate our common Resurrection, and not only the Resurrection of Christ, as St. John Chrysostom says in the Paschal Homily: “Christ is risen, and not one dead remains in the grave.”

Many acetics have loved illnesses, for illness eases the battle against carnal passions. And because we have not yet overcome the passions, we cannot fully live the joy of the Resurrection. And yet, to a certain extent, we do live it. And many times it has happened to me to encounter such phenomena, that Pascha was for some a time of trials, and they experienced it as a kind of existential collapse. “Christ is risen, and not one dead remains in the grave.” And I feel myself suddenly under the dominion of death! Not only when you tangibly feel the victory of the passions over you, but even in the very struggle, remember that nothing else exists except Christ, and lean on Him. There may even arise the feeling: “Look, Pascha has come, but I still lie in the death of passions.” But you must not give in to this temptation, but you must believe that we shall truly rise; and not only believe, but also await, as the Holy Fathers speak wonderfully in the Symbol of Faith [the Creed]. I do not only believe in the resurrection of the dead—no! I also await it.

Say these words with deep feeling, examine yourselves, and come to know the nature of this phenomenon! If we say in the Symbol of Faith: “I await the resurrection of the dead,” and in the prayers for the departed: “Give rest to him who hath fallen asleep in the hope of the resurrection unto eternal life,” it means that we emphasize that, having died, we shall await our resurrection. And in the meantime: “into Your hands I commit my spirit.” I wish you all to live Pascha truly, with this expectation of our common Resurrection…