“The heart of a woman is more open and receptive to the divine message,” Bishop Teofil of Trotuș, assistant bishop of the Archdiocese of Roman and Bacău, said on Sunday at the Archdiocesan Cathedral of Saint Parascheva in Roman.
His Grace celebrated the Divine Liturgy on the Third Sunday after Pascha, the Sunday of the Myrrh-Bearing Women, and, in his homily, said that women have been endowed with courage and spiritual sensitivity.
“The Holy Church has set apart this special Sunday for the honouring of the first women deemed worthy to behold the risen Saviour Jesus. And the first human being to proclaim Christ is Risen! was a woman.”
“The heart of a woman is more open and receptive to the divine message. She has been endowed by God with a particular sensitivity, and for this reason was chosen to be the dwelling place of life. For us, the Mother of God is set forth as Mother of the Church, as the model of motherhood, a model of spiritual sensitivity, of prayer, and of protection for the whole Church. She is also the model of all Christian women,” Bishop Teofil said.
Holy Romanian Women as Models of Sanctity
This year’s Sunday of the Myrrh-Bearing Women marked the first observance of the Synaxis of the Holy Romanian Women, and Bishop Teofil underscored the abundance of models of holiness offered by women of the Romanian people.
“On this Sunday of the Myrrh-Bearing Women, while honouring Christian womanhood, our Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church has ordained that all the Holy Romanian Women also be commemorated on this day. For our Romanian nation, through the ages, has borne forth holiness.”
“It has brought forth not only priests, bishops, ascetics and men of prayer, but also models of holiness from among women — princely consorts, mothers of families, and prayerful monastics in monasteries and in the wilderness. All these have been added to the assembly of Romanian saints,” the assistant bishop said.
Photo: Archdiocese of Roman and Bacău
