“The criterion of how much we love God is the degree to which we love the person we despise the most.”
— St. Gavrilia the Ascetic of Love (+1992)
Isaiah 1:1-20 (6th Hour)
1 The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.
2 Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth! For the Lord has spoken: “I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against Me;
3 the ox knows its owner and the donkey its master’s crib; but Israel does not know, my people do not consider.”
4 Alas, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a brood of evildoers, children who are corrupters! They have forsaken the Lord, they have provoked to anger the Holy One of Israel, they have turned away backward.
5 Why should you be stricken again? You will revolt more and more. The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faints.
6 From the sole of the foot even to the head, there is no soundness in it, but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores; they have not been closed or bound up, or soothed with ointment.
7 Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire; strangers devour your land in your presence; and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers.
8 So the daughter of Zion is left as a booth in a vineyard, as a hut in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city.
9 Unless the Lord of hosts had left to us a very small remnant, we would have become like Sodom, we would have been made like Gomorrah.
10 Hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom; give ear to the law of our God, you people of Gomorrah:
11 “To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices to Me?” says the Lord. “I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed cattle. I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs or goats.
12 “When you come to appear before Me, who has required this from your hand, to trample My courts?
13 Bring no more futile sacrifices; incense is an abomination to Me. The New Moons, the Sabbaths, and the calling of assemblies – I cannot endure iniquity and the sacred meeting.
14 Your New Moons and your appointed feasts My soul hates; they are a trouble to Me, I am weary of bearing them.
15 When you spread out your hands, I will hide My eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not hear. Your hands are full of blood.
16 “Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean; put away the evil of your doings from before My eyes. Cease to do evil,
17 learn to do good; seek justice, rebuke the oppressor; defend the fatherless, plead for the widow.
18 “Come now, and let us reason together,” says the Lord, “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool.
19 If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land;
20 but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured by the sword”; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.
Proverbs 1:1-20 (Vespers, 2nd reading)
1 The proverbs of Solomon the son of David, king of Israel:
2 To know wisdom and instruction, to perceive the words of understanding,
3 to receive the instruction of wisdom, justice, judgment, and equity;
4 to give prudence to the simple, to the young man knowledge and discretion –
5 a wise man will hear and increase learning, and a man of understanding will attain wise counsel,
6 to understand a proverb and an enigma, the words of the wise and their riddles.
7 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction.
8 My son, hear the instruction of your father,
9 for they will be a graceful ornament on your head, and chains about your neck.
10 My son, if sinners entice you, do not consent.
11 If they say, “Come with us, let us lie in wait to shed blood; let us lurk secretly for the innocent without cause;
12 let us swallow them alive like Sheol, and whole, like those who go down to the Pit;
13 we shall find all kinds of precious possessions, we shall fill our houses with spoil;
14 cast in your lot among us, let us all have one purse” –
15 my son, do not walk in the way with them, keep your foot from their path;
16 for their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed blood.
17 Surely, in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird;
18 but they lie in wait for their own blood, they lurk secretly for their own lives.
19 So are the ways of everyone who is greedy for gain; it takes away the life of its owners.
20 Wisdom calls aloud outside; she raises her voice in the open squares.
Beginning of Great Lent
In the Orthodox Church, the last Sunday before Great Lent—the day on which, at Vespers, Lent is liturgically announced and inaugurated—is called Forgiveness Sunday. On the morning of that Sunday, at the Divine Liturgy, we hear the words of Christ:
“If you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses...” (Mark 6:14-15).
Then after Vespers—after hearing the announcement of Lent in the Great Prokeimenon: “Turn not away Thy face from Thy child, for I am afflicted! Hear me speedily! Draw near unto my soul and deliver it!”, after making our entrance into Lenten worship, with its special melodies, with the prayer of Saint Ephraim the Syrian, with its prostrations—we ask forgiveness from each other, we perform the rite of forgiveness and reconciliation. And as we approach each other with words of reconciliation, the choir intones the Paschal hymns, filling the church with the anticipation of Paschal joy.
What is the meaning of this rite? Why is it that the Church wants us to begin the Lenten season with forgiveness and reconciliation? These questions are in order because for too many people Lent means primarily, and almost exclusively, a change of diet, the compliance with ecclesiastical regulations concerning fasting. They understand fasting as an end in itself, as a “good deed” required by God and carrying in itself its merit and its reward. But the Church spares no effort in revealing to us that fasting is but a means, one among many, towards a higher goal: the spiritual renewal of man, his return to God, true repentance and, therefore, true reconciliation. The Church spares no effort in warning us against a hypocritical and pharisaic fasting, against the reduction of religion to mere external obligations. As a Lenten hymn says:
“In vain do you rejoice in not eating, O soul!
For you abstain from food,
But from passions you are not purified.
If you persevere in sin, you will perform a useless fast!”
Now, forgiveness stands at the very center of Christian faith and of Christian life because Christianity itself is, above all, the religion of forgiveness. God forgives us, and His forgiveness is in Christ, His Son, whom He sends to us so that by sharing in His humanity we may share in His love and be truly reconciled with God. Indeed, Christianity has no other content but love. And it is primarily the renewal of that love, a growth in it, that we seek in Great Lent, in fasting and prayer, in the entire spirit and the entire effort of that season. Thus, truly forgiveness is both the beginning of, and the proper condition for, the Lenten season.
One may ask, however: Why should I perform this rite when I have no “enemies?” Why should I ask forgiveness from people who have done nothing to me, and whom I hardly know? To ask these questions is to misunderstand the Orthodox teaching concerning forgiveness. It is true that open enmity, personal hatred, real animosity may be absent from our life, though if we experience them, it may be easier for us to repent, for these feelings openly contradict Divine commandments. But the Church reveals to us that there are much subtler ways of offending Divine Love. These are indifference, selfishness, lack of interest in other people, of any real concern for them—in short, that wall which we usually erect around ourselves, thinking that by being “polite” and “friendly” we fulfill God’s commandments. The rite of forgiveness is so important precisely because it makes us realize—be it only for one minute—that our entire relationship to other men is wrong, makes us experience that encounter of one child of God with another, of one person created by God with another, makes us feel that mutual “recognition” which is so terribly lacking in our cold and dehumanized world.
On that unique evening, listening to the joyful Paschal hymns we are called to make a spiritual discovery: to taste of another mode of life and relationship with people, of life whose essence is love. We can discover that always and everywhere Christ, the Divine Love Himself, stands in the midst of us, transforming our mutual alienation into brotherhood. As I advance towards the other, as the other comes to me—we begin to realize that it is Christ who brings us together by His love for both of us.
And because we make this discovery—and because this discovery is that of the Kingdom of God itself: the Kingdom of Peace and Love, of reconciliation with God and, in Him, with all that exists—we hear the hymns of that Feast, which once a year “opens to us the doors of Paradise.” We know why we shall fast and pray, what we shall seek during the long Lenten pilgrimage.
Forgiveness Sunday: the day on which we acquire the power to make our fasting—true fasting; our effort—true effort; our reconciliation with God—true reconciliation.
—Father Alexander Schmemann
Great Lent: Path to Renewal in Christ
David Brooks once published an opinion piece on attention itself, which is the human capacity of self-awareness in guiding and shaping one’s personal life. He writes: “Control of attention is the ultimate individual power. People who can do that are not prisoners of the stimuli around them. They can choose from the patterns in the world and lengthen their time horizons. This individual power leads to others. It leads to self-control, the ability to formulate strategies in order to resist impulses. We would all rather our children be materially poor with self-control than rich without it.” Insightful words of wisdom!
The saints have known very well what Brooks is talking about. Their whole spiritual struggle revolved around the gathering and purifying of autognosia which is self-knowledge or self-awareness. They called this holy task, a veritable invisible war, by many names. It is nepsis, a temperance of the body and a sober-mindedness of the soul. It is an alert wakefulness and guarding of the heart and the mind (phylake kardias/noos). It is a kind of recovery of senses, a kind of peace between the conscience and the deep self by heeding the pure promptings of conscience and by presenting the self in prayer to God. It is true worship, a striving in all things to keep God in prayerful remembrance, to guard the self from evil thoughts and actions, to walk the narrow way of Christ with faith and courage. It is attention to the spiritual inner vision itself, an ongoing watchfulness and prayerfulness, guarding one’s inner world as one would guard one’s own eyes, guarding and nurturing the inner treasure of grace, yet all the while being faithful to one’s daily tasks with seriousness, joy and hope in the Lord.
The pilgrimage of Great Lent has always provided a golden opportunity for inner spiritual focus, the concentration of mind, will and emotions toward the renewal of life in Christ. All times and seasons are holy to God, and precious to us, to live with joy and gratitude. But all too often we find ourselves distracted, confused and aimless or frustrated in a vortex of demands and responsibilities. Unable to resist impulses, we allow sin to touch us and to defeat us. We give ourselves over to the world that is separated from God “and everything that belongs to the world—what sinful self desires, what people see and want, and everything in this world that people are so proud of” (1 John 2:16, Today’s English Version). Great Lent gives us the opportunity to achieve, with God’s grace, inner spiritual attention through practical spiritual disciplines, self-examination and the re-evaluation of priorities. It thus helps to grow and deepen our life in Christ.
St. Paul writes: You know what hour it is, how it is full time now for you to wake from sleep . . . the night is far gone, the day is at hand . . . cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. Put on the Lord Jesus Christ (Romans 13:11-14). Every hour is the hour of decision. Every hour brings choices that determine not only tomorrow but my eternal destiny. Every hour of every day has in it the seed of light or darkness, of life or death. Every hour offers possibilities of spiritual vigilance, genuine faithfulness, quiet joy, inner peace, and right decisions leading to thoughtful actions. But because of my forgetfulness, carelessness, spiritual laziness, or anger and frustration with the world as I encounter it, not every hour is the hour of spiritual mindfulness and measured choices, not every hour is an opportunity for authentic life received as a gift from God.
Thus, the call of Lent: Awake from sleep! Take up the armor of light! Put on Christ! The question to my soul is “Are you spiritually alive or asleep? If alive, thank the Lord and continue to grow in Him. If asleep, when do you plan to awake? If not now, during the journey of Great Lent, then when?” May the Lord help me to cast off the darkness that is in me, to embrace Him through faith as my Savior and Lord, that I might through His grace live my life in the joy and newness of His presence and power.
What’s the whole point of Lent? It is nothing less than thorough spiritual conversion, the inward change of the will, the mind, and the heart that leads to tangible evidence of change in daily life, speech and conduct. This is exactly what we all need, to be not only baptized Orthodox Christians but also convertedOrthodox Christians. What a paradox that we may have baptized but not always converted Orthodox Christians, and yet, in too large a measure, it is true. But you might ask, conversion from what to what? For some it may be conversion from anger and frustration to a sense of peace with God and with self. For others it may be conversion from self-satisfied and set ways, and from the presumption to think that they know all that is really worth knowing to a humble awareness of our own blindness to how engulfed they may be to the values and ways of this world. For still others it may mean freedom from the agonizing struggle of conscience over such things as overeating, gossiping, family squabbles, and secret habits that burden the soul with guilt.
What’s the point of Lent? It is not the patience to endure many and long services. Not the minutiae of fasting. Not sad faces. Not wallowing in guilt. Yes, of course, we need the publican’s awareness of personal sin crying out “O God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” We need the Prodigal’s focus on active repentance and the courage to return to our Father. We certainly need control of our intake of food and drink as remembrance that our true life comes from God. And we need strength to fast from even more important things such as an evil tongue, evil thoughts and evil actions. Too, we need lots of regular prayer, both private and together, to put ourselves in the presence of God and to open our hearts to His forgiveness and healing. We need to become students of the Scriptures. We need many other “religious” things as well, but all these things have but one purpose: a deeper change and conversion to Christ and the new life in Christ.
Behind everything lies the challenge of focusing attention, turning on the switch, making conscious decisions, welcoming the spiritual disciplines of prayer, fasting and works of mercy, and taking specific actions to complete the pilgrimage of Great Lent with integrity and a sense of spiritual growth. Our first priority is worship together with others. Will you take in hand the service book, keep your attention on the words and meaning of the prayers, chant the hymns along with the congregation, and thus truly worship God regularly as our first priority? Or do you think of worship as optional, easily to be put aside when other things seem to be more urgent or necessary?
Do you own a Bible? Have you ever read carefully the Gospel of John, perhaps the most important book in the Bible? Do you know the story of the rise and growth of the early Church recounted in the Book of Acts? What attitudes and good works do you need to work on during Lent? Love? Patience? Forgiveness? Controlling the tongue? Helping an elderly person? Encouraging a person who may be depressed? Committing part of your time to a soup kitchen as a volunteer? Persisting in prayer on behalf of someone who may be in trouble? Befriending a lonely person? You cannot do all of these things but can choose the most suitable to your circumstances.
Great Lent is a period of focused spiritual attention and self-discipline for the renewal of the life of faith. Any of the above disciplines that we commit to ought to be done to honor and serve Christ who is at the center of all that we seek to be as Christians. In this journey of Lent, let our hearts and minds turn to Him with single-minded spiritual attentiveness, to believe in Him, embrace Him, love Him, follow His ways, worship Him and so live in Him. “Behold, I stand at the door and knock: if any one hears my voice and opens the door, I will come” (Revelation 3:20). “He who loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him” (John 14:24). “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give your rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (Matthew 11:28-29).
DISCIPLINES OF LENT:
*WORSHIP every Sunday.
*PRAY regularly and sincerely.
*MEDITATE on your life and God.
*READ the Scriptures.
*FAST by using moderation in food, drink
and entertainment.
*PREPARE for Confession and Holy
Communion.
PRACTICE Christian love, forgiveness,
and service to others.
REFRAIN from gossip, criticism of others,
and from talking about personal exploits.
GREAT LENT is for growing in greater
love for God and all people.
LEVELS OF FASTING:
STRICT FASTING: No meat and dairy
products throughout Lent and Holy Week.
MODERATE FASTING: The above during
the first week, the third week, and Holy Week,
plus every Wednesday and Friday.
MINIMAL FASTING: The above Wednesdays
and Fridays, and Holy Week.
WHEN FASTING we take into consideration age,
health, and circumstances.
BENEFITS OF FASTING:
1. Teaches us self-discipline
2. Leads to spiritual focusing on God
3. Controls our sinful passions
4. Makes prayer more effective
5. Gives us greater moral alertness and
clarity of mind
6. Reminds us of those who are hungry and
suffer
7 Recalls the fasting of Jesus, the saints, and
faithful Christians throughout the ages.
8. Helps us to live by the teachings of Christ
9. Contributes to our physical health
10. Makes us think about the right diet
throughout the year.
LENTEN PRAYER:
O Lord and Master of my life:
Grant me not a spirit of sloth, vain curiosity, love of power and idle talk.
But grant me a spirit of watchfulness, humility, patience and love.
Yes, Lord and King, grant me to see my own faults and not to judge my brothers and sisters.
For You are blessed now and forever. Amen.
Prayer of St. Ephraim the Syrian
This week’s calendar reminders:
Monday 3/3: Great Fast Begins; no Matins; Great Canon 7:00 pm
Tuesday 3/4: no Matins; Great Canon 7:00 pm
Wednesday 3/5: no Matins; Pre-Sanctified Liturgy 6:30 pm (potluck meal to follow)
Thursday 3/6: no Matins; Great Canon 7:00 pm
Friday 3/7: Paraklesis to the Theotokos 8:30 am
Saturday 3/8: Catechumen Class 4:30 pm; Great Vespers 6 pm
Sunday 3/9: Divine Liturgy 9:15am
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Christ the Savior Orthodox Church is located in Southbury, Connecticut, and is part of the New England Diocese of the Orthodox Church of America.
Mailing address: Christ the Savior Church, 1070 Roxbury Road, Southbury, CT 06488
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Fr. Moses Locke can be reached at frmoseslocke@gmail.com