Hevoro Reflections 2026

New Sunday – The Locked Room, the Wounds & the Greater Blessing: John 20:19-29

Thomas saw and believed. That was the faith of the first generation. The faith that had the luxury of touching the wounds.

Christ said: there is a greater blessing. For those who believe without seeing. Without touching. Without being in the locked room.

You.

You have received the testimony through Scripture. Through the Qurbana. Through the community. Through the Spirit who prays in you. Through forty-nine days of fasting and the Hevoro Days that followed.

And you have believed. Without seeing. Without touching.

St. Macarius: the not-seeing faith is the higher faith. Because it trusts the Person rather than the evidence.

Blessed are you.

Full reflection at Seeking Theosis

Hevoro Friday – Fifth Day of Brightness – The Harrowing of Hades – 1 Peter 3:17-22

The Oriental Orthodox icon of the Resurrection shows Christ standing on the broken gates of Hades. His hands grasp the wrists of Adam and Eve. He is lifting them out of their tombs. The personification of Death is beneath His feet. Defeated.

Behind Adam and Eve, the patriarchs and prophets are visible. David. Solomon. John the
Baptist. The righteous of every generation since Adam. They had been waiting. Centuries upon centuries. And now they are coming out.

The Second Adam grasping the first Adam. Reversing the Fall by undoing it from the inside. Death has been entered and emptied.

This is what Christ was doing on Holy Saturday.

Full reflection at Seeking Theosis

*Hevoro Thursday – Fourth Day of Brightness* – 1 John 4:19-5:15 – _He First Loved Us_

The entire Lenten series in one sentence. Every reflection. Every passage. Every healing. Every Cross. Every empty tomb. All of it was love. And all of it was first.

Day 28: Christ found the bent woman without being asked. Day 36: Christ invited Himself to Zacchaeus’s table. Day 41: Christ came to Lazarus’s tomb on His own initiative. Day 50: Christ stood behind Mary in the garden before she turned around. Hevoro Monday: Christ joined the Emmaus disciples before they knew who He was.

The love went first. Always first. And because it went first, we can love. The brother. The community. The world.

John does not soften this. If you say you love God and hate your brother, you are a liar.

The brother you can see is the examination. Not the feeling in your heart during prayer. Not the tears during the Qurbana. Not the discipline of the fast. The brother.

St. John Chrysostom: the love that goes up to God must also go out to the brother. Otherwise it is not love. It is religious performance.

The Lenten fast was vertical. Between you and God. The Hevoro Days are revealing the horizontal. Between you and the brother. The love of God needs both dimensions. Like the Cross.

Full reflection at Seeking Theosis

Hevoro Wednesday – Third Day of Brightness: Do Not Harden Your Hearts: Hebrews 3:1-13

The Israelites saw God’s works for forty years. Plagues. Sea parting. Manna. Water from the rock. They saw it all.

And their hearts went hard.

The seeing did not prevent the hardening. The miracles did not inoculate against the rebellion.

St. John Chrysostom: the Hevoro Days are the Church’s wilderness. Not deprivation. Testing. The deliverance has happened. The tomb is empty. The question is whether the heart will stay soft.

Today the Spirit says: do not harden. The fast softened you. Stay that way.

Full reflection at Seeking Theosis

Hevoro Tuesday -Matthew 28:11–20: The Lie and the Commission

Two responses to the empty tomb, side by side in the same passage.

The institution’s response: pay money. Buy silence. Spread a lie. “His disciples stole the body while we slept.”

Christ’s response: go. Make disciples. Baptise. Teach. “I am with you always.”

St. John Chrysostom: the suppression is the evidence. You do not pay people to be quiet about nothing. The money proves the guards saw something the chief priests could not afford to have reported.

The lie is still being told. The truth is still being preached. And the truth has authority.

Full reflection at Seeking Theosis