A “good beginning” to Great Lent can go a long way toward a “good ending.” Today, on “Pure Monday,” it certainly may seem premature—if not a bit ludicrous—to already allude to the end of Great Lent. We are just beginning our Lenten journey, and the end is not quite in sight! But I bring this up with a pastoral purpose in mind. I have, in…
by Father Andrew Morbey
The American poet and Orthodox convert, Scott Cairns, writes in a chapter of God For Us: Rediscovering the Meaning of Lent and Easter:
.... at first, I was surely among the crew that Father Alexander Schmemann acknowledges when he writes (in his amazing and very helpful book, Great Lent), “For many, if not for the majority…
I thought to compile a list of more-or-less Orthodox “lenten classics” upon which you may want to draw as Great Lent approaches. I have read and re-read these books through the years and they have all had an impact on my spiritual formation.
Each book is quite accessible—no dry theology, just a variety of lively approaches to God and the spiritual…
As we enter Holy Week, the festal atmosphere of Lazarus Saturday and Palm Sunday yields to the solemnity, sobriety and sadness of Holy Week as the Lord moves toward His voluntary and life-giving Passion. The Son of God came into the world “to bear witness to the truth” [John 18:37] and “to give His life as a ransom for many” [Mark 10:45.] It is…
by Father Theophan Whitfield
On the weekend of Palm Sunday, we begin the celebration of Holy Week—a 10-day long procession to the Cross, to the tomb, and to the Resurrection. And as we get ready, our Lord extends the same invitation to us as He extended to James and John. To all of us who wish to see His glory, who desire to be by His side at…
In the Western liturgical calendar we find the Feast of “Christ the King” (often changed to conform to the draconian canons of political correctness as “The Reign of Christ”). Someone once asked me if we Orthodox kept such a feast, and I answered, “Yes, we do. It is called ‘Palm Sunday.’”
On the first Palm Sunday, Christ entered…
During Great Lent, we commemorate the great monastic saint and writer, John Climacus (of the Ladder). Saint John, who fell asleep in the Lord in the mid-seventh century, was the abbot of one of the most ancient monasteries in the Christian world, at the foot of Jebul Musa—Moses’ Mount—on the Sinai Peninsula. An austere ascetic, he wrote what may…
“The end is approaching, O my soul – it is approaching! So why do you not care or prepare yourself for it? Arise! The time is short! The Judge already stands at the door. Life is vanishing like a dream – so why do you continue living in vanity? Arise, O my soul, and reveal the evil things you have done. Ponder them well and…
Shine, Cross of the Lord, shine with the light of thy grace upon the hearts of those that honor thee!
Hail! Life-giving Cross, the fair Paradise of the Church, Tree of incorruption that brings us the enjoyment of eternal glory!
Hail! Life-giving Cross, unconquerable trophy of the true faith, door to Paradise, helper of the faithful, rampart set…
by Father J. Sergius Halvorsen
Everyone loves a winner.
We celebrate athletes that run and jump, throw and catch better and faster than anyone else. We marvel at entrepreneurs who start companies that earn billions of dollars. We idolize the actors and musicians who are at the top of their craft. Everyone loves a winner.
We live in a culture…
Years ago, a neighbor visiting a parishioner’s home noticed our parish bulletin hanging on the fridge. The bulletin cover declared in bold letters, “Sunday of the Last Judgment.” Fascinated and somewhat troubled by the reference, the neighbor asked, “how do you know?”
Our annual liturgical preparation for Great Lent includes the reading of the…
Recently, on the First Sunday of Great Lent, we read the Synodikon in church—well, actually just a tiny snippet of it dealing with the legitimacy of icons and that this faith had established the world, while offering a heartfelt “Memory Eternal” for those who had died defending it. We did not read the entire Synodikon, because it is quite long…
The gateway to divine repentance has been opened. Let us enter eagerly, purified in our bodies and observing abstinence from food and passions, as obedient servants of Christ, Who has called the world into the heavenly Kingdom. Let us offer to the King of all a tenth part of the whole year, that we may look with love upon His…
by Fr. John Parker
The Great 40 Days are generally considered to be a time of introspection and repentance. The very first words of the Great Canon of Saint Andrew indicate the way: “Where shall I begin to lament the deeds of my wretched life? What first-fruit shall I offer, O Christ, for my present lamentation?”
The kontakion we sing in…
Recently I was finishing up in the altar while the choir was practicing, and I heard them sing (beautifully, as always) the pre-Lenten Matins hymn, “By the waters of Babylon.” After it was all over, I stopped to ask them, “Do you know where Babylon is?” After a few blank stares, someone tentatively offered, “East of here?” It was a…
“And He said, ‘There was a man who had two sons….’”
This is how Christ begins what is perhaps the greatest of his parables, the one we know as the Parable of the Prodigal Son, but which could easily be titled the “Parable of the Two Sons” or the “Parable of the Compassionate Father.” With this parable, which we will hear at the Divine Liturgy on…
At the beginning of Holy Week we contemplate “The End”—of the earthly ministry of Christ, of our own lives and the judgment that will lead to, and of the “end of the world.” In other words, there is something of an “apocalyptic edge” to the texts of the services, beginning with the Scriptures and extending into the hymnography. Another term would be…
Every year during Lent, we invite into our churches a great pastor, Saint Andrew of Crete, and listen while he leads us in a meditation on sin and repentance. That is, we listen while his Great Canon is chanted, and in response we reply over and over again, “Have mercy on me, O God, have mercy on me!” Some things in this long poetic work might…
During Great Lent we remember and venerate Saint Mary of Egypt both on April 1 and the Fifth Sunday of Lent. With the Canon of St. Andrew, read in many churches during the first and fifth weeks of Lent, we uphold her as an icon of repentance, an example for every Orthodox Christian to emulate. Yet for many years, she lived a life of bondage to…
During the mid-point of Great Lent, on the Sunday of the Veneration of the Cross, the following verses are sung at the Alleluia just before the reading of the Gospel: “Remember Thy congregation which Thou hast gotten of old. God is our King before the ages; He hath worked salvation in the midst of the earth!” The verses are from Psalm 74,…