Sunday of the Myrrh-bearing Women

Today the Church remembers those disciples of Christ who were in the background during His three and a half year ministry and who came forward when His active disciples fled.
These were the Myrrh- bearing women who stood at some distance from the Crucified Saviour and came in the early hours of Sunday morning to anoint His body. These also include Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus.
Christ’s disciples were students of the Divine Teacher. Pythagoras used to say that a student is not a vessel to be filled; a student is a torch to be lit. The Lord said of Himself that He had brought fire to the earth and wished that this fire would spread.
Why was it that people other than those who were closest to the Lord burst into flames first? What makes people ready to receive the fire of Christ?  Nicodemus came to see Christ late at night. Joseph, too, was a secret disciple of the Lord ‘for fear of the Jews’, as the Evangelists explain. The women stood and beheld  from afar the Saviour dying on the Cross. All of this made them aware of their own frailty and unworthiness.  They were no longer vessels to be filled. They had become torches  lit by the love of Christ and their reciprocal love for Him.
The eleven disciples, along with the seventy apostles,  would also be lit by the fire of Christ. But first they had to endure the fear and shame of abandoning Him. Only the youngest, John, stood by the Cross with the Mother of Christ-God. Their time would come in a big way at Pentecost when they were lit by the tongues of fire to turn into walking candles who would, in turn, set on fire the hearts of people with the Word.
 
Today’s remembrance of the Myrrh- bearers and the two members of Sanhedrin – secret disciples of Christ – is a story of the power of love. Love is the fire of God that drives out the darkness of fear. Peter and others were sure of themselves as they pledged never to abandon their Teacher. Human strength by itself will always fail. “You can do nothing without Me” – the Lord told them. The same Lord, however, fortified today’s heroes because of their contrite and humble hearts. His love lit their reciprocal love.
The lesson today is: The life in Christ begins with some realistic self-knowledge. We gain this by attempting to keep the Commandments, failing miserably, and receiving a dose of reality. We should never be too sure of ourselves, i.e., of our ‘righteousness’.