Before Lent

Before Lent
by S John Maximovich of San Francisco

The doors of repentance are opening, Great Lent is beginning. Every year Great Lent is repeated, and each time it brings us great benefit if we spend it as we should. It is a preparation for the life to come and, more immediately, a preparation for the Bright Resurrection.

Just as a stairway is built into a tall building in order to enable one, by climbing the steps, to easily reach the top, so too, the various days in the year serve as steps for our spiritual ascent.

This is especially true of the days of Great Lent and Holy Pascha.

By means of Great Lent we cleanse ourselves of the filth of sin, and at Holy Pascha we experience the blessedness of Christ's Kingdom that is to come. In climbing a high mountain, one tries to eliminate all unnecessary weight. The less a person carries, the easier it is for him to climb and the higher he is able to climb. So, too, in order to ascend spiritually, it is necessary first of all to free oneself from the weight of sin. This weight is lifted from us through repentance, provided that we banish from ourselves all enmity and forgive each person whom we consider to be at fault before us. Once cleansed and forgiven by God, we then greet the Bright Resurrection of Christ.

And what a priceless gift of God we receive, at the culmination of our lenten struggle. We already hear about this in the first hymns of the daily lenten stichera: "Our food shall be the Lamb of God, on the holy and radiant night of His Awakening: the Victim offered for us, given in communion to the disciples on the evening of the Mystery." (Aposticha sticheron, Sunday of the Last Judgment).

Communing of the Body and Blood of the Risen Christ, unto life eternal - this is the aim of the holy Quadragesima [Forty Days]. Not only on Pascha do we commune, but during Lent also. On Pascha those people should commune who have fasted, confessed and received the Holy Mysteries during Great Lent. Just before Pascha itself there is little opportunity for a proper and thorough confession; the priests are very busy and most of the time occupied with the Passion services. Rather one must prepare ahead of time.

Each time one receives the Mysteries of Christ, one is united with Christ Himself; each time it is a soul-saving act. Why, then, is such significance attached to receiving Holy Communion on the night of Holy Pascha, and why are we all called to do so?

Then, especially, we are given to experience the Kingdom of Christ. Then, especially, we are illumined with the Eternal Light and strengthened for the spiritual ascent.

This is an irreplaceable gift of Christ, an incomparable good. Let no one deprive himself of this joy and, instead of receiving Holy Communion on Pascha night, hasten to eat meat and other foods. 

Communing of the Holy Mysteries on that night prepares us for the banquet in the eternal Kingdom of God.

Forgiveness Sunday

With Forgiveness Vespers, which is celebrated on Cheesefare Sunday evening, Great Lent begins. This solemn period of repentance is offered to us as a way of life. A way of life that brings forgiveness from God, as well as from our brethren.

It is very characteristic what is written: "Forgive (συγχωρῶ) means to 'move forward' (χωρῶ) with God and with others." With forgiveness we do not only receive a simple absolution, which implies a legalistic concept of salvation. Rather, forgiveness with God is an ocean of divine goodness that erases human sins. And so in its full reality, forgiveness becomes communion with Christ and His Kingdom.

During the course of our journey, let us mutually support one another in our weaknesses, let us mutually forgive one another by forgetting our differences, let us mutually protect one another to reach our destination. Essentially we should live to what God calls us, as a unique unity with the forgiveness that we offer to others. This is because Christians are not part of a caste system, but we are dough.

Let us now kneel, therefore, before the icon of Christ and the Panagia, our Bishop and our Fathers, as well as our brethren, and let us ask for their forgiveness, since they have much to forgive us for. And let us forgive one another. Forgiveness does not begin when peace, calmness and joy begin to reign; forgiveness begins the moment we take on each others shoulders the "burdens of one another", and the first and heaviest load is the personhood of another, what that person is, and not what that person does or does not do. If necessary let us carry one another as Christ carried His Cross, as a type of torment, pain and death, but let us not allow someone behind under any circumstance without our forgiveness.