Forgiveness Sunday

In the Orthodox Church the Sunday before the start of Great Lent is known as Forgiveness Sunday. Vespers is celebrated in the evening and following vespers we ask for the forgiveness of all the parishioners while the choir sings, "Christ is Risen" and other joyful hymns. This is a beautiful service and one that speaks to the meaning of what Lent means. In the following Fr. Alexander Schmemann spells out the meaning and beauty of Forgiveness Sunday and tells us how we can benefit from it as we start our Lenten Journey. Enjoy!

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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 memories, with the prayer of St. 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 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 no 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 return to it, 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 l 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.

Fr. Alexander Schmemann, 1982. 

The Eucharistic Gift

Fr. Alexander Schmemann always had a way with words. In the following passage Fr. Schmemann is trying to show the reader that in our modern western (America) society we have forgotten our Eucharistic vocation and in losing this vocation we have turned the Eucharist to a Sunday practice. By divorcing the Eucharist from our day to day lives we have forgotten what it means to live a life in Christ. Christ is present in all places and fills all things showing us what it means to be a human being. Fr. Schmemann warns us that if we continue to separate the Eucharist and the life in the world then we have lost the meaning of living a Eucharistic life. I recommend this book as Fr. Schmemann shows us the meaning of Lent through understanding what it means to live a Eucharistic life.

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It is useful to note here that the Orthodox liturgical tradition, different in this from the Latin practice, has no adoration of the Eucharistic Gifts outside Communion. But the preservation of Gifts as reserved sacrament, used for Communion for the sick and other emergency situations, is a self-evident tradition which has never been questioned in the Orthodox Church. We mentioned already that in the early Church there even existed a practice of private "self- communion” at home. We have thus the permanent presence of the Gifts and the absence of their adoration. By maintaining simultaneously these two attitudes, the Orthodox Church has avoided the dangerous sacramental rationalism of the West. Moved by the desire to affirm—against the Protestants—the objectivity of Christ’s "real presence” in the Eucharistic Gifts, the Latins have, in fact, separated adoration from Communion. By doing this, they have opened the door to a dangerous spiritual deviation from the real purpose of the Eucharist and indeed of the Church herself. For the purpose of the Church and of her sacraments is not to "sacralize” portions and elements of matter and by making them sacred or holy to oppose them to the profane ones. Instead her purpose is to make man’s life communion with God, knowledge of God, ascension toward God’s Kingdom; the Eucharistic Gifts are the means of that communion, the food of that new life, but they are not an end in themselves. For the Kingdom of God is "not food and drink but joy and peace in the Holy Spirit.” Just as in this world food fulfills its function only when it is consumed and thus transformed into life, the new life of the world to come is given to us through the partaking of the "food of immortality.” The Orthodox Church consistently avoids all adoration of the sacrament outside Communion because the only true adoration is that having partaken of Christ’s Body and Blood, we "act in this world as He did.” As to the Protestants, in their fear of any "magical” connotation, they tend to "spiritualize” the sacrament to such an extent that they deny the presence of the Body and Blood of Christ outside the act of Communion. Here again the Orthodox Church, by the practice of reserving the Holy Gifts, restores the true balance. The gifts are given for Communion but the reality of Communion depends on the reality of the Gifts. The Church does not speculate on the mode of Christ’s presence in the Gifts. She forbids the use of them for any act other than Communion. She does not reveal, so to speak, their presence outside Communion, but she firmly believes that just as the Kingdom which is yet to come is "already in the midst of us,” just as Christ ascended into heaven and sits on the right hand of the Father yet is also with us until the end of the world, the means of Communion with Christ and with His Kingdom, the food of immortality, is always present in the Church.

Fr. Alexander Schmemann, Great Lent. Pages 59-60! 

Contemplation on the Resurrection: By Father Matthew the Poor

The following Contemplation is taken from the Chapter entitled Resurrection and Redemption in the Orthodox Concept from the book Communion of Love by Father Matthew the Poor:

Great is the Church’s jubilation when it celebrates in the Easter season the resurrection of Christ from the dead, repeating the words "Christos Anesti.” For the Church these words mean that redemption is accomplished and that it has become a right of all sinners to receive with faith the bond of freedom from the captivity of sin and death and to accept the call to eternal life...

Resurrection in the Church’s theology on the concept of the cross—as a voluntary self-sacrifice for the atonement of the sins of all the world—stands both as a foundation and a summit. The mystery of resurrection as a tangible reality of faith was like a heavenly glorious light which, when it entered the hearts of the disciples, transformed all the humiliating and painfull sorrows of the cross into honor, triumph, and glory. Death became redemption, the grave turned from the pit of death into the fountain of life...

When we consider the joyful song of the Church "Christos Anesti,” we realize the reason for this overwhelming joy that annihilated all the sorrows and agonies of the cross, all the pains of sin and death. For if Christ has risen, then our faith is true and we are no longer in our sins. His cross was not an ignominy but a glory. If the body we eat and drink is the body of His crucifixion, it is also the body of His resurrection, and we are partakers in the self-same resurrection and life eternal.

Christ’s resurrection turned the disgrace and curse of the cross into grace, salvation, and glory, and made the broken body and the shed blood not only alive but also life-giving. Moreover, if death was paid as a price for our sins, resurrection increased this price by making it openly and permanently acceptable both in heaven and On earth...

In the doctrine of the Orthodox Church, resurrection has come to be the foundation of the act of redemption that was latent in the heart of Christ from the very beginning. Redemption did not mean merely that Christ should pay the price of our sins or remove the wrath of God from the reprobate who were enslaved to sin. To Christ redemption meant in the first place something beyond forgiveness and reconciliation—to restore the love and eternal life we had lost through transgression and separation from God. This was originally implied in the concept of incarnation as understood by the Fathers of the Church, such as St. Athanasius who says: "The Word became human that we might become gods in Him” (that is, partakers of the divine nature)...

Our life in Jesus Christ is henceforth written for us in heaven in the newness of the spirit, that we may reign with Christ. All the daily deeds of the Church have become known to and read by all heavenly beings, because Christ, who sits at the right hand of power in heaven, is also the King of saints for the heavenly Church, and He is here the head and the bridegroom of the Church on earth, just as St. Paul says: "That through the Church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places. This was according to the eternal purpose which He has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Eph. 3:10,11). Whether in the sacrament of baptism, where death with Christ and resurrection with Him are accomplished to obtain the new birth that qualifies us to enter the Kingdom of heaven and behold it from now, or in the sacrament of Eucharist, where the body of Christ is revealed, the Spirit descends and believers partake of the oblation, declaring His death and confessing His resurrection in preparation for sharing in His resurrection.

Whenever the Church sings the words "Christos Anesti” (Christ is risen) the echoes of their response resound in the heavens in the mouths of the saints, "Alithos Anesti” (Verily He is risen).

Mary, Mysteries and Mission-Part 3

At the annual Lenten Retreat (2013) for SVOTS Seminarians, Fr. Chad Hatfield, the Chancellor of St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary, discusses three assured paths to spiritual renewal as we participate in the Great Fast: Mary and the Incarnation, the Mysteries of Baptism and the Eucharist, and our vocation to Mission. This is part three of four forthcoming presentations.

Taken from Ancient Faith Radio. Here is the link to part three:

http://ancientfaith.com/podcasts/svsvoices/mary_mysteries_and_mission_part_three

Reflections on Fasting- Part 3

The following are reflections on fasting written by Father Matthew the Poor. In the book, Communion of Love, it has a chapter entitled "The Deep Meaning of Fasting" which these reflections are taken from. A recommended read for all during the Lenten period. The book is a complication of Father Matthew's smaller booklets put into one book:

-For whoever fails to offer his life totally, or is dismayed at the prospect of self-sacrifice, and so of death, finds that his intention retreats and that he rejects death. He becomes evasive and offers an outward sacrifice, such as an act of service or an offering of money, or uses some other stratagem to avoid sacrificing his own self. So he loses his portion in Christ the Redeemer, for Christ redeems from death those who have accepted death.

-Once more we repeat that Christ, blessed be His name, cannot become a ransom for the human soul unless man offers his soul on the altar of love, in death to the world, making a total offering with all his will, relinquishing himself forever, raising the knife with his own hand in determination and earnest resolve, proving that he has accepted death.

-The Lord crucified Himself for the world before the world crucified Him. He carried out the offering of His body, His self, as a sacrifice on behalf of the world immediately after He was baptized when He was led by the Spirit. He gladly obeyed and went to face the test of fasting. This is the volitional aspect of the cross. Thus it was that the Lord was careful to institute and celebrate the rite of the Eucharist prior to the cross, not after the resurrection, to show that the sacrifice and offering were a free act.

-That is the meaning of “Take, eat . . . Take, drink . . . this is my body . . . this is my blood.” This was said a whole day before the crucifixion, but He saw that the coming events were completely in accordance with His will. He saw the cross standing and on it the body being slain and the blood being shed; He saw Himself content with it all. And so He took bread and filled it with the mystery of the broken body, and wine and filled it with the mystery of the shed blood, and He fed His disciples. They ate from His hands the mystery of His will and drank the mystery of His love, the mystery of His sufferings, the mystery of salvation. Therefore, when we share in the mystery of the body and the blood in the Eucharist, we share not only in the cross, but also in a mystical life poured out and a body that has struggled with severe fasting, deprivation, want, and pain.

-When asked what, then, is our fasting? Father Matthew replies: We fast and offer our bodies as a sacrifice; the outward form of this is bearing fatigue, but its essence is the intentional acceptance of death, that we may be counted fit to be mystically united in the flesh and blood of Christ. It is then that we become, in Christ’s sacrifice, a pure sacrifice, capable of interceding and redeeming.

-Fasting, since it is an incomplete sacrifice because of sin, has to be consummated in Communion, partaking in the pure body and blood, to become a perfect sacrifice, efficacious in prayer and intercession. Every Holy Communion Has to be preceded by fasting, and every fast has to end with Holy Communion. When we receive Communion in this way it is right for us to intercede, for our offering and sacrifice are made perfect. "Pray to receive Communion worthily. Pray for us and for all Christians” (Coptic Liturgy).

In Lent we prepare ourselves for the Last Supper. We prepare for two like things coming together. How could those who do not sacrifice themselves be worthy of Him who sacrificed His life? If we eat of a sacrificed body and do not sacrifice our own selves, how can we claim that a union takes place? The Mystical Supper on Thursday, which is the intentional acceptance of a life of sacrifice, is but a preparation for accepting sufferings openly, even unto death.

Whenever we eat of the body and drink of the blood, we are mystically prepared for preaching the death of the Lord and confessing His resurrection. Every testimony to the death and resurrection of the Lord carries with it a readiness for martyrdom. And every martyrdom carries with it a resurrection.

Mary, Mysteries and Mission-Part 2

At the annual Lenten Retreat (2013) for SVOTS Seminarians, Fr. Chad Hatfield, the Chancellor of St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary, discusses three assured paths to spiritual renewal as we participate in the Great Fast: Mary and the Incarnation, the Mysteries of Baptism and the Eucharist, and our vocation to Mission. This is part two of four forthcoming presentations.

Taken from Ancient Faith Radio. Here is the link to part two:

http://ancientfaith.com/podcasts/svsvoices/mary_mysteries_and_mission_part_two

Reflections on Fasting- Part 2

The following are reflections on fasting written by Father Matthew the Poor. In the book, Communion of Love, it has a chapter entitled "The Deep Meaning of Fasting" which these reflections are taken from. A recommended read for all during the Lenten period. The book is a complication of Father Matthew's smaller booklets put into one book:

-We should notice that all the commandments of Christ regarding works—whether they be voluntary poverty, asceticism, renunciation of kindred, divestment, or bearing the cross—revolve around the person of Christ and end up in Him: "for My sake;” "come, follow Me!” "for My name’s sake;” "be My disciple;” "come after Me;” "watch with Me.”

-All the works we perform in the name of Christ, for His sake, and in imitation of Him—whether they be fasting, vigil, patience, endurance of suffering or persecution, service, sacrificial love, or crucifixion—are but a voluntary translation of the desire to imitate and unite with Christ ("Follow me”). They express communion in spirit, heart, and intention.

-The Church has inherited this living apostolic experience; it has inherited Christ working in the Apostles. So the importance, or rather the inevitability, of works in the Orthodox Church means that the Church focuses on Christ Himself working in us just as He did in the Apostles, doing the same deeds He did for our salvation. The Church believes in exactly what St. Paul meant when he said: "For God is at work in you, both to will and to work” (Ph. 2:13). It is equally confident that this also leads to St. Paul’s words, "Do all to the glory of God” (1 Co. 10:31). It is through Christ and in His presence that works should be done; it is only the work of Christ that leads to the glory of God: "Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Ph. 2:11).

-To this perfection belongs Christ’s whole action and, better yet, even His entire mission and compassion for all humanity. Works, then, are not limited acts done by the human will to relieve the ego. The importance of works in Church thought is based on the fact that all works must spring from the will of Christ and be perfected by His power: "I can do all things in Him who strengthens me” (Ph. 4:13). Works must end up in the glory of God the Father. In other words, they must reveal Him and testify to Him: "That they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven” (Mt. 5:16). Henceforth, the concept of "faith and works” in the Orthodox Church is inseparable from the living person of Christ, who is the source of faith and works alike in human life. The utlimate end of both faith and works is the glorification of God the Father—an essential work that belongs exclusively to Christ: "Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Ph. 2:11).

-If we delve deep into the essence of divine love, which is the model of love we intend to follow, we find that it only can be attained by self-denial to the point of self-renunciation, or even destruction.

-Fasting is a test in which the personality defies the self. It is an exercise in which the self has to be forsaken and resisted by the whole being. Fasting may therefore be considered an act of love of the highest order, a physical way of entering into the experience of the cross, and an inseparable part of that experience.

-Thus, when we fast we exhaust the body, and so, indirectly, subdue the self. If we subdue the self through the subjugation of the body, we have in fact come close to the destruction of the self, at least partially.

-This is attained by the mental acceptance of death itself, willingly with no dismay or restraint. But we received the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves (cf. 2 Co. 1:9 ).

Mary, Mysteries and Mission-Part1

At the annual Lenten Retreat (2013) for SVOTS Seminarians, Fr. Chad Hatfield, the Chancellor of St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary, discusses three assured paths to spiritual renewal as we participate in the Great Fast: Mary and the Incarnation, the Mysteries of Baptism and the Eucharist, and our vocation to Mission. This is part one of four forthcoming presentations.

Taken from Ancient Faith Radio. Here is the link to part one:

http://ancientfaith.com/podcasts/svsvoices/mary_mysteries_and_mission

Reflections on Fasting- Part 1

The following are reflections on fasting written by Father Matthew the Poor. In the book, Communion of Love, it has a chapter entitled "The Deep Meaning of Fasting" which these reflections are taken from. A recommended read for all during the Lenten period. The book is a complication of Father Matthew's smaller booklets put into one book:

-It represents the first battle in which Christ did away with His adversary, the prince of this world.

-It is then extremely important to accept and to feel the power of each of these three acts (Baptism, Holy Spirit and Fasting) in our depths and draw from Christ their action in us as they worked in Him, so that His same life may identify with ours. The ultimate aim of baptism, of being filled with the Holy Spirit, and of fasting is that Christ Himself may dwell in us: "It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me” (Ga. 2:20).

-In baptism the connection with our old Adam is cut off for us to receive our sonship to God in Christ. In being filled with the Holy Spirit, our connection with the devil and with the life of sin is cut off for us to receive the Spirit of life in Christ. And in fasting, the connection between instinct and Satan is cut off to give the flesh victory in its life according to the Spirit, in Christ.

-The point to understand is that fasting is a divine act of life, which we receive from Christ complementary to baptism and fullness. Since its beginning the Church has been occupied with infusing into its own body the acts of Christ’s life so they would become life-giving acts to all its members. If the Church imitates Christ in its life discipline, it is because it has been given grace and authority by God to possess Christ Himself as a life of its own. The Church, which is one with Christ, is a lively and efficacious image of the life of Christ. The Gospel describes it as the "bride of Christ” united with her Bridegroom. Though the Gospel declares that the Church has become one with Christ, it still reiterates that Christ will remain a Bridegroom on His own, no matter how much He offers Himself. Neither does Christ become a Church, nor the Church become a Christ.

-This confirms to us that we, as members of the body of Christ, always need to strive to acquire Christ to become more like Him and to be a bride "without spot,” a betrothed "pure bride” in a perpetual state of betrothal like the Virgin who conceived and bore the Logos.

-Fasting in this sense is one of the fundamental phases that Christ underwent. We have never been able to claim that we live in the full maturity of Christ, or that Christ abides in us in His full measure, particularly if we overlook fasting. If baptism is one phase and crucifixion another, fasting is an extremely important stage between baptism and crucifixion. Fullness with the Holy Spirit, which Christ consummated by baptism, elevated the flesh to the level of extraordinary fasting, i.e. total deprivation of food and drink, utter seclusion and prayer. He thus raised the flesh to the stage of the cross.

-Their power (Christ’s work), however, is not imparted to us unless we experience and practice it. Those who are baptized put on Christ, those who are filled with the Holy Spirit live by means of Christ’s life, and those who fast win Christ’s victory over the prince of this world.

-Here He reveals that He has placed Himself as a model of life and works, as our “Forerunner,” as the "first-fruits,” that in everything we would be "like Him.” He became like us so we would become like Him.

 

The Prayer of St. Ephrem the Syrian

During the lenten period the church incorporates the prayer of St. Ephrem the Syrian to conclude many services like Matins and Vespers. It is a beautiful prayer and it can definitely be added to anyone's prayer rule throughout the day:

O Lord and Master of my life!
Take from me the spirit of sloth, faint-heartedness, lust of power, and idle talk.
But give rather the spirit of chastity, humility, patience, and love to thy servant.
Yea, O Lord and King! Grant me to see my own errors and not to judge my brother; for thou art blessed unto the ages of ages. Amen.

The prayer within the liturgical use is prayed twice with a set of prostrations in between each line. The prostrations would be added as follows:

O Lord and Master of my life!
Take from me the spirit of sloth, faint-heartedness, lust of power, and idle talk.

(Cross yourself and make a prostration)

But give rather the spirit of chastity, humility, patience, and love to thy servant.

(Cross yourself and make a prostration)

Yea, O Lord and King! Grant me to see my own errors and not to judge my brother; for thou art blessed unto the ages of ages. Amen.

(Cross yourself and make a prostration)

(Then you make 12 small prostrations as you recite "O God cleanse me a sinner")

O Lord and Master of my life!
Take from me the spirit of sloth, faint-heartedness, lust of power, and idle talk.
But give rather the spirit of chastity, humility, patience, and love to thy servant.
Yea, O Lord and King! Grant me to see my own errors and not to judge my brother; for thou art blessed unto the ages of ages. Amen.

(Cross yourself and make a prostration)

Prayer of St. Ephraim the Syrian