The 38th Day: A Love Stronger than Death

Dear Parish Faithful,

GREAT LENT: The Thirty Eighth Day

"But as the antidote to sin, the death of Jesus Christ has broken its momentum. Christ has consumed its infernal roots and extracted its sting. The seed of justice sprouts in our humanity, which Christ bears. In loving obedience to the Father, Jesus in His humanity suffered to the end. He took on the anguish, deadly sadness, lonely agony, judgment, and the passion. Jesus also confronted suffering - not as a mythological hero or a stoic, impassible under the blows, but by anticipating, accepting, and refusing to hide from them, in 'a love as strong as death', as the Song of Songs says (8:6), or rather, in a love that is stronger than death."

From "The Compassion of the Father," by Boris Bobrinskoy

The 37th Day - In Reverse Order

Dear Parish Faithful,


GREAT LENT: The Thirty Seventh Day


"The return of humanity to the house of the Father, the ascent after the condescension, will occur in reverse order: death will be vanquished by the death of Christ and its sting pulled out; sin will be destroyed in its very roots, in the heart of man, by one Man who had not known sin; and humanity will be reconciled, filled with the divine Spirit, by the one who recapitulates in Himself all humans."

- From "The Lamb of God Takes Upon Himself Human Suffering," by Boris Bobrinskoy

The Life of St Mary of Egypt

Dear Parish Faithful and Friends in Christ,

GREAT LENT: The Thirty Third Day

The Great Canon of St. Andrew is chanted on the first four days of Great Lent. But it is prescribed to be chanted in its entirety on the Fifth Thursday of Great Lent also. Since the Canon has about 260 troparia, each to be accompanied by bows (prostrations in monasteries!), that is more than a bit challenging. 

During the Canon chanted on the Fifth Thursday, the Life of St. Mary of Egypt is also prescribed to be read in its entirety. This Life was written by St. Sophronius, the Patriarch of Jerusalem in the 7th c. 

Yesterday evening, I selected the fourth part of the Canon to be chanted and then broke up the Life of St. Mary of Egypt into three parts, read after the third, sixth, and ninth odes of the Canon. St. Mary of Egypt is a living icon of repentance, and her entire life is a startling revelation of the mercy and grace of God that forgives all sin that is genuinely repented of.

In his book Great Lent, Fr. Alexander Schmemann explains the return to the Great Canon of St. Andrew in the fifth week in the following manner:

If at the beginning of Lent this Canon was like a door leading us into repentance, now at the end of Lent it sounds like a "summary" of repentance and its fulfillment. If at the beginning we merely listened to it, now hopefully its words have become our words, our lamentation, our hope and repentance, and also an evaluation of our lenten effort: how much of all this has truly been made ours? How far have we come along the path of this repentance?

The beautifully written and compunctionate Life of St. Mary of Egypt is meant to edify those who hear it in faith. As Panagiotis Nellas writes:

The Life of St. Mary of Egypt is read, so that the intellect and will of the believer may be detached from love of the world and, following in the footsteps of the saint, may be guided into the heart of the desert, into the heart of the mystery of repentance. (Deification in Christ, p. 164)

Yet, there is even a deeper purpose behind reading this Life in a liturgical setting. Panagiotis Nellas further writes:

Thus the liturgical reading of the Life of St. Mary makes the saint present in the assembly of the faithful in a sacramental manner, so that she can accompany them and struggle with them in the contest of repentance of prayer. For this reason, at the end of each canticle of the Great Canon there are two troparia in which the faithful address themselves to her:

God Whom you loved and for Whom you longed, Whose path you followed, O Mother, found you. Pray, therefore, that we may be freed from sin and adversity. (Ibid, p. 167)

Hearing St. Mary's wonderful Life in this setting then brought to life one of the refrains at the end of many of the Canon's odes, of "O Venerable Mother Mary of Egypt, pray unto God for us." Her life is the very flesh and blood embodiment of the Canon's entire purpose: to lead sinners to repentance. Thus, with God "all things are possible."

I will try and bring out other aspects of her Life in Sunday's homily.

You may read the complete 'Life of St Mary of Egypt' here.


Fr. Steven

The 29th Day: The Time Given Us by God

Dear Parish Faithful & Friends in Christ,


GREAT LENT - The Twenty-ninth Day


Today is the feast day of St. John Klimakos (March 30), and yesterday we brought to mind St. John as he is also commemorated on the Fourth Sunday of Lent. In his classic book The Ladder of Divine Ascent, St. John teaches that one of the fundamental virtues of the Christian life is the "remembrance of death." I wrote about this in a fairly recent meditation (Thursday, March 19), within a different context. My point is not to morbidly pound home this theme of our ascetical tradition, but to make the simple point that it is a consistent teaching that can be found throughout the centuries from among the writings of the saints. And that means that the "remembrance of death" is "positive" and not "negative," for is counted as one of the virtues; and the virtues are the energies that imbue our lives with a God-centeredness that a lack of the virtues deprives us of.

This theme was brought back to my mind not only from looking through the Ladder of Divine Ascent again, but by a beautiful prayer that I just discovered coming from a certain Archimandrite Sophrony, entitled "A Prayer at Daybreak." This is a relatively lengthy prayer that covers over two pages in a newly published Prayer Book (that I will discuss below), that covers many aspects of our life as we place ourselves before God as humble servants seeking His daily blessing of our actions, words and thoughts. Near the end of this prayer, Archimandrite Sophrony includes the following paragraph that is a prayerful expression of the theme of the "remembrance of death:"

Yea, O Lord, by your Holy Spirit, teach me good judgment and knowledge. Grant me to know your truth before I go down into the grave. Maintain my life in this world until I may offer unto you worthy repentance. Take me not away in the midst of my days, nor while my mind is still blind. When you shall be pleased to bring my life to an end, forewarn me that I may prepare my soul to come before you.

The "time" we are given by God in this world is a time of repentance, service to and praise of God. It is also a time to grow in the love of God and neighbor. It is a time to establish loving relationships that will endure throughout eternity. It is a time to practice and perfect the activities of prayer, almsgiving and fasting, so that we can be worthy of these thrice-blessed goals. This is the only true way to "enjoy" life. It is nothing but an empty temptation to believe that the more pleasures we experience (hedonism); or the more things that we accumulate (materialism); or the more ego-satisfaction we pursue (solipsism), that our lives will be more complete - or whatever. Most human beings that make those pursuits the center of their lives are terrified of dying, because death is a meaningless frustration - if not absurd imposition - on their passion-filled lives. The "remembrance of death" would only be a hateful aberration that threatens one's psychological equilibrium.

We pray with Archimandrite Sophrony that we are spared from such blindness. We pray to know the Truth - Christ - before we go down into the grave. The "grave" is a forbidding word, but St. John Chrysostom in his paschal homily teaches that since Christ is risen, there are no longer any that are in the graves! The resurrection of the dead has already begun with the Resurrection of Christ. If there is only this life then one perhaps should "eat, drink and be merry;" "go for it;" or "get it while you can." (It may be true that you "only live once;" but it is also true that you live forever, and that there is a "second death" that will make that life unending misery). These are pathetic and pitiful replacements for the paschal mystery of dying and rising with Christ. The "remembrance of death" - certainly a practice that Great Lent can restore to our lives - will protect us from such counterfeit substitutions. Then we can concentrate on the Reality of Christ.




I found the prayer from Archimandrite Sophrony in a newly-published Prayer Book in Accordance with the Tradition of the Eastern Orthodox Church, published by St. Arseny Press, Victoria, Canada. This is not the most complete Prayer Book that I have found to date. If you are interested, follow the provided link, or please let me know.

Fr. Steven

The 26th Day: Forbid Obsessive Thoughts

Dear Parish Faithful,

GREAT LENT - The Twenty-Sixth Day

It is beyond our power to prevent obsessive thoughts
from troubling and disturbing the soul.
But it is within our power to forbid such imaginings
to linger within
and to forbid such obsessions to control us.

Withdrawal from the world means two things:
the withering away of our obsessions
and the revelation of the life that is hidden in Christ.

- St. Theodore the Ascetic (7th c.)