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Today is our last talk until after Easter and as
with our previous two talks where we saw the Gospel readings for the
following Sundays, we should today look at this Sunday’s Gospel reading,
which is the last of the Sundays of Preparation before the onset of Holy
and Great Lent. But I don’t want to look at the Gospel reading in depth or
the meaning of the day because we covered these last year in our talk on
the Preparation for Lent. The fact that we stop the talks during Lent
means that we never get the chance to look at this great spiritual period
and how we should take it seriously in our life. So today I will recap on
the messages we receive with this Sunday’s Gospel reading, but concentrate
more on the first week of Great Lent and a little on the following
Sundays.
This coming
Sunday is known by two names: Cheesefare Sunday and Forgiveness Sunday,
but is also known as “the Expulsion of Adam from the Paradise of bliss.”
It is called Cheesefare Sunday because as I’m sure you are all aware, all
this week we were allowed to eat fish, eggs, cheese and all dairy products
and Sunday is the last day we may eat these foods, because with Monday, we
begin the great fast of Lent. It is called Forgiveness Sunday because the
Gospel reading tells us that we must forgive others the wrongs they do to
us if we want our heavenly Father to forgive us. But it also lends it name
to the special Vespers service held in the evening called the Vespers of
Forgiveness. At the end of the Service, the faithful come one by one to
the Priest, kiss the Cross and his hand and exchange a mutual forgiveness.
Having done this the faithful also asks forgiveness of one another. Thus
we begin Lent by asking forgiveness from everyone and not only from those
who we know have wronged us, because many times we upset our fellow men
without realizing. So let’s listen to the Gospel reading which also tells
us the proper way to fast.
“The
Lord said: 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. Moreover when you fast, be not,
as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance: for they disfigure their faces,
that they may appear unto men to fast. Verily I say unto you, They have
their reward. But you, when you fast, anoint your head, and wash your
face; That you appear not unto men to fast, but unto your Father which is
in secret: and your Father, which sees in secret, shall reward you openly.
Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth
corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for
yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust does corrupt,
and where thieves do not break through nor steal: For where your treasure
is, there will your heart be also. (Matthew 6:14-21)
If you
remember in the previous Sunday Gospels we were taught that we must have
humility and love for all mankind, and see in everyone the image of Christ
and treat them with the same love we would have for Christ. We saw that
love is the criterion with which we will be judged at the Last Judgement
“Inasmuch as you have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren,
you have done it unto me.” Christ is now telling us that love means to be
able to forgive all the wrongs people have done to us. If we can’t show
this love and humility and forgive those who have sinned against us, then
don’t bother asking forgiveness for yourself because God will not hear us:
He will turn away from us as we turn away from others. Christ then tells
us that if we want our fast to be affective then it must not be
hypocritical, in other words we shouldn’t fast as the Pharisees did who
fasted because the law told them that they must fast and took pride in
showing off to others that they were righteous, because they obeyed the
law and fasted. Fasting must always be accompanied with humility, prayer
and repentance. Fasting is not an act of religiousness because we what to
appear to others as religious. Christ tells us to keep our fast a secret
that only the heavenly Father who knows the secrets of men can see and who
will reward us openly. If our fast has the element of pride with the
feeling that we want to be rewarded for our effort with praises from
others, then don’t expect any reward from God: it is a false fast and you
might just as well not fast at all.
As I mentioned
earlier, this Sunday is also known as the Expulsion of Adam from the
Paradise of bliss. This is a theme we hear in the hymns during Vespers and
Mattins. Throughout the entire preparation period for Lent, the message we
should have received is that man’s sin has deprived him of the blessed
life in Paradise and his life on earth is in exile: a self imposed exile
in that far away land of the Prodigal Son, distant from the fatherland
which is our true home. Great Lent is our effort to return to paradise: a
pilgrimage towards our heavenly fatherland. Thus, as we approach the start
of our journey through Lent, we are reminded of how great a loss Paradise
was for mankind: what beauty and sweetness, what blessings and delight
Adam lost when he fell from grace and how much Adam must have wept
bitterly knowing what he had lost. This is the message we hear in the
hymns for the day, hymns like the following:
“Adam
sat before Paradise and lamenting his nakedness, he wept: Woe is me! By
evil deceit was I persuaded and led astray, and now I am an exile from
glory. Woe is me! In my simplicity I was stripped naked, and now I am in
want. O Paradise, no more shall I take pleasure in thy joy; no more shall
I look upon the Lord my God and Maker, for I shall return to the earth
whence I was taken. O merciful and compassionate Lord, to thee I cry
aloud; I am fallen, have mercy on me”.
“Adam was cast
out of Paradise through eating from the tree. Seated before the gates he
wept, lamenting with a pitiful voice and saying: ‘Woe is me, what have I
suffered in my misery! I transgressed one commandment of the Master, and
now I am deprived of every blessing. O most holy Paradise, planted for my
sake and shut because of Eve, pray to Him that made thee and fashioned me,
that once more I may take pleasure in thy flowers.’ Then the Saviour said
to him: ‘I desire not the loss of the creature which I fashioned, but that
he should be saved and come to knowledge of the truth; and when he comes
to me I will not cast him out.”
As we begin
our Lenten effort we are reminded that we are Adam, but Christ, the
Saviour of the world has re-opened the gates of Paradise to everyone who
would follow him. But to follow means to deny ourselves as Christ himself
said “Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his
cross, and follow me.” Lent is the period where we are asked to deny
ourselves, but this involves not only denying ourselves the pleasures of
certain foods, but also other passions and carnal pleasures. True fasting
helps us to calm these passions. It bridles the lust of the stomach and of
that below the stomach, meaning the removal of the passions, the
mortification of the body and the destruction of the sting of lust. Thus,
it is necessary to first overcome the stomach for the healing of the other
passions. Certain passions can be controlled by prayer, but others need
the spiritual effort of both prayer and fasting as Christ said, concerning
the casting-out of certain demons: “This kind never cometh out except by
prayer and fasting.” (Matt. 17:21)
Holy and Great
Lent is therefore not only a period of fasting, but also a period of
intense prayer and this we see in the daily services which we are asked to
make a special effort and attend. In parishes there are only two types of
services held during the weekdays of Lent: Great compline, which is sung
every evening and the Presanctified Liturgy on Wednesdays and Fridays,
which should be served in the afternoon, but in most places are held in
the mornings. Great Compline (Μέγα Απόδειπνο) is the last service in the
day’s liturgical cycle. It consists of many readings from the Psalms and
prayers to Christ and the Mother of God with a few hymns sung in between.
On the
Thursday of the fifth week in Lent, we sing the great penitential Canon of
St. Andrew of Crete, but during the first week of Lent this canon is
divided into four parts and sung during Great Compline – from Monday to
Thursday. The Canon is best described as a penitential lamentation
revealing to us the depth of sin and bringing us to the realization of our
despair, repentance and hope. In writing the Canon, St. Andrew used all
the biblical themes from Adam and Eve, Paradise and the Fall, Cain and
Abel, the Patriarchs, Noah and the flood, David, the Promised Land, Christ
and the Church, and confession and repentance. All the events of Biblical
history are revealed as thou they are events of our lives or more
correctly “My Life” and how God acted to these events as acts aimed at me
and my salvation. Thus my life is shown to me as part of the great and
all-embracing fight between God and the powers of darkness which rebel
against Him. Before each verse of the Canon we hear the constant refrain
“Have mercy upon me, O God, have mercy upon me”: a constant reminder that
the story of man’s fall is my story and the sins revealed in the Canon are
my sins. After the first week, St. Andrew’s Canon is replaced with canons
to the Mother of God found in a book called the Theotokarion.
The other
service held every Wednesday and Friday is the Liturgy of the
Presanctified Gifts. What then is this service? During Lent it is
forbidden to celebrate the Divine Liturgy. The rubrics say clearly that
under no circumstances can the Divine Liturgy be celebrated in Lent Monday
through Friday, with only one exception – the Feast of the Annunciation,
if it falls on one of these days. But why are we not allowed to celebrate
the Divine Liturgy on weekdays in Lent? We have mentioned before that the
period of Lent is a period of deep mourning and fasting, a period of
sadness. In Orthodox tradition, the celebration of the Eucharist has
always preserved its festal and joyful character. Is it the sacrament of
Christ’s coming and presence among his disciples and therefore a
celebration of the Resurrection. But it is also the celebration of the
Wedding banquet of the New Kingdom, the feast that we will partake of at
the Second Coming of Christ. Every time the Church celebrates the
Eucharist she transcends to the heavenly kingdom and we find ourselves
standing with Christ after the General Resurrection. If we are with Christ
then how can we fast? Did he not say that the “Children of the Kingdom
cannot fast while the Bridegroom is with them.” One understands then why
the Eucharist is incompatible with Great Lent, incompatible with fasting.
Great lent is the period of our pilgrimage: we are on our way to return to
the heavenly kingdom, we haven’t reach there yet, let alone celebrate as
though we are sitting around the Great Table laden with the fatted calf.
In
spite of this understanding, Holy Communion is still distributed to the
faithful during the fasting days at the Liturgy of the Presanctified
Gifts. Some might say that this is a contradiction to what we have just
said, but it isn’t because the Liturgy of the Presanctified is not a
Liturgy in the normal sense where the bread and wine are transformed into
the Body and Blood of Christ. Basically all that we do is distribute to
the faithful, the holy Gifts which have been consecrated on the previous
Saturday or Sunday. That is why the service is called the Presanctified.
On the previous Saturday or Sunday the Priest takes out an extra Lamb from
a different prosphoron (bread) that the one used for the day. After the
consecration of the Gifts he takes this extra Lamb and dips it into the
Blood and then places it in a special container to be saved for its use on
the Wednesday or Friday during the service of the Presanctified. The
Priest must foresee how many such services he will perform during the
coming week and take out a separate Lamb for each. Thus he usually takes
out another two Lambs for Wednesday and Friday, but he can if he wants,
serve the Presanctified Liturgy everyday from Monday to Friday, but that
means that he has to have five extra prosphora and take out five extra
Lambs which then have to be preserved carefully on the Holy Altar until
their use.
Holy
Communion is the source and sustaining power of our spiritual effort, the
fulfilment of all our efforts. As we have said before, Great Lent is our
spiritual journey which will take us to the Lord’s Day of His Resurrection
and to our homeland. The journey is often painful and tiring with many
temptations along the way. As we increase our spiritual effort so too does
the devil increase his war against God by trying to tear us away from him.
In this fight, we need help, strength and support and we find this
spiritual help in the Body and Blood of Christ. It is that essential food
which will help keep us spiritually alive and help us overcome the many
dangers and temptations we will encounter on our journey through Lent.
Distribution of the Eucharist during Lent therefore became essential for
the spiritual welfare of the faithful and the Presanctified Liturgy was
introduced into the Lenten cycle for this exact purpose. But it was also
introduced to replace a custom of the early Church that was becoming a
problem. In the early Church when Christians were fewer, there existed the
practice of distributing the consecrated Gifts to the faithful at the end
of the Sunday Eucharist for their daily individual Communion at home. This
caused practical problems and there was also the problem that people would
misuse the Holy Gifts. As the Church grew, so did the problems and the
practice of taking home the Holy Gifts was discontinued. The people at
this time had been used to having a daily Communion so the Presanctified
Liturgy was introduced to allow them Communion on at least two weekdays
during Lent.
Before we
explain something about the Sundays of Lent there is another service sung
on Friday evenings, which although has nothing to do with Lent itself, has
found a special place in the Lenten Triodion and in the hearts of the
faithful. The service in question is the Akathist Hymn of more
appropriately the “Χαιρετισμοί” The Akathist Hymn is actually appointed to
be sung on the Saturday of the Fifth Week of Lent, but in the Greek
practice the hymn consisting of 24 stanzas is divided into four parts,
with each part sung on the first four Fridays with the Service of Small
Compline and then on the Fifth Friday the complete service is sung. The
Akathist has been described as one of the greatest marvels of Greek
religious poetry, but how did it find itself into the Lenten worship? The
hymn is made up of praises addressed to the Mother of God, each beginning
with the salutation of the Archangel Gabriel Hail “Χαίρε” which is why the
hymn is called “Χαιρετισμοί”. Its proper name of Akathist means “not
sitting” and is so called because everyone should remain standing while it
is sung. The hymn makes mention of all the main events connected with
Christ’s incarnation beginning with the Annunciation to the Holy Virgin,
all the events of the Nativity, the flight into Egypt and the Presentation
of our Lord in the temple. In the early Church, the Feast of the
Annunciation was celebrated together with the Nativity on Christmas day.
The day after on the 26th December, the Church celebrates the Synaxis of
the Mother of God and the hymn was probably composed to be sung on this
day. Later the Feast of the Annunciation was moved to the 25th March and
when this happened the Akathist Hymn was also appointed for this day.
During the Ottoman Empire the Hymn was transferred from the fixed calendar
and instead of it being sung on the 25th March, it was appointed to be
sung on the fifth Saturday of Lent. The custom of singing a portion on the
first four Fridays is even more recent and is only observed by the Greeks.
It became part of the Lenten tradition because the Feast of the
Annunciation on the 25th March almost always falls within the period of
the Great Fast. If any of you have never attended these services you
should make the effort: the Akathist Hymn is truly one of the most
beautiful hymns of the Orthodox Church which is verified by the fact that
so many people come to hear it.
So now let’s
take a quick look at the Sundays of Lent. The first Sunday is called the
Sunday of Orthodoxy or the Sunday of the Triumph of Orthodoxy. On this day
the Church commemorates the victory over Iconoclasm and the restoration of
the veneration of the Icons which occurred on 11 March 843 in
Constantinople. There is no connection of this celebration with Lent and
the Feast is purely historical as the first “Triumph of Orthodoxy” took
place on the first Sunday of Lent and the Orthodox Church continued to
celebrate this feast every year on the same Sunday. We have talked about
this special feast before in the talk on Icons and in the talks on the
History of the Church. There we mentioned that the Church continues to
celebrate this feast because it was not only the Icon that was being
defended, but also the very dogma of the Incarnation [the church’s beliefs
concerning God becoming man]. The Icon is directly connected to this
dogma, which is the very foundation of Christianity and which all our
hopes of salvation depend on. The feast then is a celebration of the
victory of the true faith over all the heresies and errors that the Church
has had to do battle with. At the end of the Liturgy the priest will stand
by the royal Doors and say in a loud voice: “A yearly thanksgiving is due
to God on account of that day when we recovered the Church of God, with
the manifestation of the pious dogmas and the overthrowing of the
blasphemies of wickedness.” After this a procession with the holy Icons is
made around the Church and at intervals the priests says petitions on
behalf of all those that defended the Orthodox faith. When he reaches the
main entrance again, he reads extracts from the synodical decree of the
Seventh Ecumenical Council. The service is said in an abbreviated form
leaving out the 60 anathemas against the various heretics from the third
to the fourteenth century.
The Second
Sunday is dedicated to the memory of St. Gregory Palamas. Again this has
nothing to do with Great Lent, but is actually a continuation of the
previous Sunday’s feast for the Triumph of Orthodoxy. If you remember our
last talk on the History of the Church we mentioned the Hesychast
controversy in the 14th century. St. Gregory Palamas defended the Orthodox
practice of Hesychast spirituality from the attacks of Barlaam, Akindynos
and other heretics of his time. His victory is seen as a renewed Triumph
of Orthodoxy and so is celebrated on the next Sunday after the Sunday of
Orthodoxy.
The Third
Sunday is dedicated to the Life-giving Cross and is called “Κυριακή της
Σταυροπροσκυνήσεως” Sunday of the Veneration of the Cross. We are now in
Mid-Lent, we have been fasting for 20 days and if our physical and
spiritual efforts have been sincere and consistent, we should begin to
feel tired and even think that the fast is somewhat a burden on our way of
life. We need help to carry on and some form of encouragement. At the same
time we begin to see that our pilgrimage, our journey to the fatherland is
not so far away. In the Gospel reading for this Sunday we hear Christ’s
commandment “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take
up his cross and follow me” (Mark 8: 34) Lent for us is our self
crucifixion and our experience of this commandment, but it is not our
cross that saves us, but the Life-giving Cross of our Saviour Jesus Christ
and so this is now placed in our midst to remind us that the day of his
Crucifixion is approaching, but also his glorious Resurrection. Thus with
the Cross we are encouraged to continue our Lenten effort. This is the
message we are given in the synaxarion for the day, it says:
“On this Sunday, the third Sunday of Lent, we celebrate the veneration of
the honourable and Life-Giving Cross, and for this reason: inasmuch as in
the forty days of fasting we in a way crucify ourselves…and become bitter
and despondent and failing, the Life-Giving Cross is presented to us for
refreshment and assurance, for remembrance of our Lords Passion, and for
comfort… We are like those following a long and cruel path, who become
tired, see a beautiful tree with many leaves, sit in its shadow and rest
for a while and then, as if rejuvenated, continue their journey; likewise
today, in the time of fasting and difficult journey and effort, the
Life-Giving Cross was planted in our midst by the holy fathers to give us
rest and refreshment, to make us light and courageous for the remaining
task… Or, to give another example: when a king is coming, at first his
banner and symbols appear, then he himself comes glad and rejoicing about
his victory and filling with joy those under him; likewise, our Lord Jesus
Christ, who is about to show us His victory over death, and appear to us
in the glory of the Resurrection Day, is sending to us in advance His
sceptre, the royal symbol—the Life-Giving Cross—and it fills us with joy
and makes us ready to meet, inasmuch as it is possible for us, the King
himself, and to render glory to His victory…. All this in the midst of
Lent which is like a bitter source because of its tears, because also of
its efforts and despondency…but Christ comforts us who are as it were in a
desert until He shall lead us up to the spiritual Jerusalem by His
Resurrection… for the Cross is called the Tree of Life, it is the tree
that was planted in Paradise, and for this reason our fathers have planted
it in the midst of Holy Lent, remembering both Adam’s bliss and how he was
deprived of it, remembering also that partaking of this Tree we no longer
die but are kept alive….”
The
Fourth Sunday of Lent is dedicated to the memory of St. John Climacus or
St. John of the Ladder. Most saint-days which fall on weekdays during Lent
are transferred to be celebrated on the Saturday or Sunday of that week.
St. John’s feast-day is 30th March which almost always falls in Great
Lent, but he has been assigned a special Sunday in Lent because, by virtue
of his writings and his own life, he forms a pattern, a model, an example
of the true Christian ascetic. St. John is the author of the Book called
the Ladder of Divine Ascent or just simply the Ladder. In this work, we
see how, by means of thirty steps, in other words 30 steps of a spiritual
ladder from earth to heaven, the Christian gradually ascends from below to
the heights of supreme spiritual perfection. We see how one virtue leads
to another, as a man rises higher and higher and finally attains to that
height where there abides the crown of the virtues which is called
Christian love.
The Fifth
Sunday is like the Fourth in that it is dedicated to another great ascetic
of the Church - St. Mary of Egypt - possibly one of the greatest examples
of repentance. Like that of St. John of the Ladder, her feast day is on
the 1st April, but is assigned to this special Sunday. Her life story
which is also read on the previous Thursday is truly a remarkable account
of how a person can change from his evil ways and with true repentance can
reach Christian perfection. At the age of Twelve, Mary left her home and
went to Alexandria where she lost her virginity. From then on, for
seventeen years, she lived a life of sexual depravity. But she didn’t do
it for the money, but because she wanted it and enjoyed it. One day she
saw a big crowd hurrying towards the sea and asked where everyone was
going. She was informed that they were all off to Jerusalem for the feast
of the Elevation of the Life-giving Cross, which was in a few days. Drawn
by curiosity she decided to board one of the ships and although she had no
money for the fare or provisions for the journey, she found a group of ten
young men who were waiting for even more of their company and asked them
to pay her fare and in return they would not find her useless. What took
place on the journey I’ll leave to your imagination, but in her own words
she even forced men against their own will to take part in her depravity.
When they reached Jerusalem she spent the days before the feast in a
similar manner. As she says herself “I was not satisfied with the young
men and seduced many others – citizens of Jerusalem and strangers.”
When
the day for the feast came she rushed with the others to the Church of the
Holy Sepulchre. But when she tried to enter the Church with the others
some invisible force pushed her back from the threshold. This happened
three or four times and she realized the reason for not being allowed to
see the Life-giving Cross was her impurity. She began to weep, beating her
breast and groaning from the depths of her heart. Above where she stood
was an Icon of the Mother of God. She began to plead with the Mother of
God and asked her to command the entrance of the Church to be opened to
her and that after she has seen and venerated the Cross she would renounce
the world and everything in it and go to a place where the Mother of God
would lead her. Gaining hope from her prayer, she again tries to enter the
Church and this time nothing stopped her entering. After this she left
Jerusalem and crossed the Jordan and settled in a remote region of the
desert. Here, for the next forty seven years she remained hidden from the
world until she was eventually found by the ascetic St. Zossima, who was
able to give her Holy Communion shortly before her death. St. Mary’s life
is truly a remarkable story and is a must for everyone to read. She
describes how she suffered from the scorching heat and the bitter cold,
but also the many torments and temptations she suffered for the first
seventeen years in the desert naked and without food, except for various
edible plants she came across. But because English books are not so
readily available in Cyprus, maybe at some later date, I should make
copies of it for all of you.
This Fifth
Sunday is actually the last Sunday of Great Lent. There remains another
five days of Lent in the week called the week of the Palms and ends with
the Friday before Lazarus Saturday. During this week the hymns centre on
Lazarus. Monday and Tuesday make mention of his sickness then on Wednesday
his death is announced, Thursday we are told that he has been dead for two
days and on Friday we are told that on the morrow Christ comes to raise
the dead brother of Martha and Mary.
That then is
all we have time for. It would have been good to have another week to talk
about Lazarus Saturday, Palm Sunday and holy Week, but as I said at the
very beginning, this is our last talk until after Easter.
Kalo Stadio to everyone and hope to see you all at the Liturgies.
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