The Fifteenth Day: St Gregory Palamas on Repentance

Dear Parish Faithful,

GREAT LENT - The Fifteenth Day

"Repentance is to hate sin and to love virtue, to avoid what is bad and to do what is good."

"The person repenting with all his soul reaches God by both his good disposition and his opposition to sin."

"The awareness of one's own sins is followed by conscious self-reproach, and self-reproach is followed by sorrow on account of one's sin, a sorrow which St. Paul referred to as godly. An offshoot of this godly sorrow is redeeming Confession and supplication to God with a contrite heart, together with the promise to henceforth abstain from evil. This is repentance."

~ St. Gregory Palamas (+1359)

The Presanctified Liturgy: "A Day in Our Life," and "Our Life in One Day"

Dear Parish Faithful & Friends in Christ,

GREAT LENT: The Eleventh Day

If we look inside our hearts
and find there even a trace of animosity toward others
for the wrongs they have done to us,
then we should realize that we are still far removed
from the love of God.
The love of God absolutely precludes us
from hating any human being.

~ St. Maximus the Confessor

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Yesterday evening, we served the Liturgy of the Presanctifed Gifts for this second week of Great Lent. I believe that it was Fr. Thomas Hopko who said that this is one of the true "masterpieces" of the Byzantine liturgical tradition. After a long, hard day of work - combined with fasting - we enter into the presence of our Lord within the stillness and solemnity of this superb lenten service. Into the darkened church Christ will come as the "Gladsome Light" that "illuminates all." We are all tired, hungry and humbled by our weakness. Thus we learn of our great dependency on God - for truly "man does not live by bread alone." We offer the day back to God, with its sorrows and joys; its successes and failures. And God does not disappoint us, for at the end of the service we will receive the very Body and Blood of Christ from the presanctified Gifts that were prepared for this moment. This is the manna that sustains us through the "desert" of the Fast. This is the "Bread from heaven" which is Christ Himself. Now we are strengthened in order to "complete the course of the Fast." What an incomparably blessed way to end the day! Yet another gift from God. Many will stay for the "agape" meal to follow; others will have to leave. Either way, we then return to our homes - still tired! - but no longer hungry because our hunger was fulfilled by receiving the Eucharist. At the end of the day there is Christ - and that is everything.

Perhaps we can understand this day of the Presanctified Liturgy as a microcosm of our entire lives. At the end of our lives, we hope to encounter the glorious Light of the presence of Christ. We hope to enter the Kingdom of Light where the Holy Trinity dwells in inexpressible glory. That will be the unending Banquet of Life where are fellowship with God will be our fellowship with each other. Our entire life is a preparation for that encounter. It means a life spent in prayer and fasting; in following the commandments of Christ amidst all of the temptations and tests that life presents before us. There are sorrows and joys; successes and failures. And we will offer all of this back to Christ Who will "judge" it. Thus, we are "rehearsing" our greatest hope as Christians when we experience Christ in this particular service at the close of the day. It makes for a long, perhaps even exhausting day; but that is how life is often.

When you choose to attend and then prepare for the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts, you are anticipating your deepest desire for how you want your life to end - in union with Christ. One of the many gifts that Great Lent brings to us.

Fr. Steven

Great Lent - The Ninth Day: On Love

Dear Parish Faithful,

GREAT LENT - The Ninth Day

Love is a most holy condition of the soul
in which it values the mystical knowledge of God
above all other existent things.
We cannot enter into such a state of love, however,
if we are still obsessively clinging
to material values.

~ St. Maximus the Confessor

Fr. Steven

Great Lent - The Fifth Day: Closing the Mouth

Dear Parish Faithful,

GREAT LENT - The Fifth Day

You need a spiritual pilgrimage.
Begin by closing your mouth.

Never look down on anyone.
You do not know whether the spirit of God
prefers to dwell in you or in them.

Never pass judgment on anyone, for any cause.
Never do evil to anyone.
Discipline yourself and purge yourself
from material and spiritual evil.
Cultivate a modest and gentle heart.
If you can do all these things
and see only your own faults, not those of others,
the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ
will be with you abundantly.


~ Sayings of the Egyptian Fathers

Fr. Steven

Great Lent - The Third Day

Dear Parish Faithful and Friends in Christ,

GREAT LENT - The Third Day

A furnace puts gold to the test.
The assiduous practice of prayer
tests a disciple's zeal and love for God.

+ St. John Klimakos

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Last night I noticed that our parish website now has Four Homilies on Prayer by St. Theophan the Recluse posted there. Click on "Great Lent" from the homepage and scroll down to the bottom to locate them. They are quite thorough, and clear and accessible with a great deal of practical guidance about establishing a Rule of Prayer, seeking concentration in prayer, etc. With so much teaching in these four homilies, I will therefore find other material for further short lenten meditations than from the writings of St. Theophan. I would suggest printing them so that you can read them carefully when you have the opportunity to concentrate on these rich homilies. Below the homiles, you will also find Fr. George Metallinos' classic essay about Heaven and Hell.

Also, at www.orthodoxytoday.org there is a marvelous article on "Prayer and Silence" by Bishop Ilarion Alfeyev, one of the best Orthodox theologians writing today.
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Our parish Church School students are participating this year in a Lenten Read-A-Thon. They will choose age-appropriate books of a religious/spiritual nature and keep a "log" of their book titles and the minutes spent in reading. Sounds like an excellent tool for introducing them to good Orthodox literature. I believe that this "goal-oriented" program is going to result in a good deal of reading on the part of our students.

Have you chosen your "lenten reading" yet?! Our webmaster has created an excellent Great Lent resource page, that has many good titles recommended and summarized. Most of those books are in our parish library. Again, a good beginning is important.
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I like looking through book catalogues when they come through the mail. I recently noticed a book by a Roman Catholic scholar entitled Seven Secular Challenges Facing the 21st Century Catholic. Admittedly, I don't intend to read the book, but the seven challenges that this writer saw from secularism are the following, and it is a quite an interesting list:

1) lack of respect for authority
2) cynicism
3) uncritical openness
4) ideology
5) learned helplessness
6) anti-intellectualism
7) political correctness

Answering those secular challenges as Orthodox Christians is not an option for us - but an urgent necessity.

*Webmaster's Note: The "Seven Challenges" together with two responses from Christ the Savior parishioners appears on our Orthodox Q&A blog.

Fr Steven