2nd Sunday of Lent, St Gregory Palamas, Mark 2: 1-12
Imagine how you would react if you went to the doctor to be cured of a disease and were told in response “Your sins are forgiven.” You would probably look for another physician pretty quickly. We seek medical care in order to regain our health, not to be forgiven for wrongs we have done. How sad, then, when we approach Christ wanting only forgiveness without the healing of our souls. Continue reading
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~ Words of the Church Fathers ~
No good thing can be brought to completion by our own efforts, but by the power and will of God. However, God demands effort on our part to conform to His will.
+ Saints Barsanuphius and John
Someone asked “Where is God?” – “Where you have left Him.”
If we turn to Him and follow Him He is with us and in us.
+ Bishop Paulos, Satista
If a man listens to God, then God listens to him.
+ Abba Moses
“But I say to you,” the Lord says, “love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, pray for those who persecute you.” Why did he command these things? So that he might free you from hatred, sadness, anger and grudges, and might grant you the greatest possession of all, perfect love, which is impossible to possess except by the one who loves all equally in imitation of God.
+ St Maximus the Confessor
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John 1: 43-51
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. In the 8th and 9th century, for more than one hundred years, the Church of Christ was troubled by the persecution of the Iconoclasts (those who hated Icons), beginning in the reign of Leo III (d. 741) and ending in the reign of Theophilus (d. 842). Continue reading
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~ Words of the Church Fathers ~
All images reveal and make perceptible those things which are hidden. For example, a man does not have immediate knowledge of invisible things, since the soul is veiled by the body. Nor can man have immediate knowledge of things which are distant from each other or separated by place, because he himself is limited by place and time.
Therefore the icon was devised that he might advance in knowledge, and that secret things might be revealed and made perceptible. Therefore, icons are a source of profit, help, and salvation for all, since they make things so obviously manifest, enabling us to perceive hidden things. Thus, we are encouraged to desire and imitate what is good and to shun and hate what is evil.
St John of Damascus
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Cheesefare (Forgiveness) Sunday – Matthew 6: 14-21
Today we stand right on the edge of Great Lent, for the weeks of preparation to follow our Saviour to His Passion begin tomorrow. We have already been challenged to prepare with the Sundays of the Tax Collector and the Pharisee, the Prodigal Son, and the Last Judgment. Now it is the Sunday of Forgiveness, when we are reminded that we must forgive one another if we hope to receive God’s forgiveness for our sins.
Every time we pray the Our Father, we say “and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Christ teaches in today’s gospel lesson that “If you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father also will forgive you; but if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” It is impossible, of course, to earn God’s forgiveness or put Him in our debt by anything that we do. Before His infinite holiness, we stand in constant need of mercy and grace. At the same time, it impossible to open ourselves to receive His mercy and grace if we do not extend the forgiveness of which we are capable to those who have wronged us.
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The season of Great Lent is the time of preparation for the feast of the Resurrection of Christ. It is the living symbol of man’s entire life which is to be fulfilled in his own resurrection from the dead with Christ. It is a time of renewed devotion: of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. It is a time of repentance, a real renewal of our minds, hearts and deeds in conformity with Christ and his teachings. It is the time, most of all, of our return to the great commandments of loving God and our neighbours.
In the Orthodox Church, Great Lent is not a season of morbidity and gloominess. On the contrary, it is a time of joyfulness and purification. We are called to “anoint our faces” and to “cleanse our bodies as we cleanse our souls.” The very first hymns of the very first service of Great Lent set the proper tone of the season:
Let us begin the lenten time with delight…let us fast from passions as we fast from food, taking pleasure in the good words of the Spirit, that we may be granted to see the holy passion of Christ our God and his holy Pascha, spiritually rejoicing… (Vespers Hymns).
It is our repentance that God desires, not our remorse. We sorrow for our sins, but we do so in the joy of God’s mercy. We mortify our flesh, but we do so in the joy of our resurrection into life everlasting. We make ready for the resurrection during Great Lent, both Christ’s Resurrection and our own.
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God is greater! Greater than your illness whatever it may be. Greater than your deepest disappointment. Greater than your greatest worry. Greater than your worst enemy. Greater than your most difficult problem. Greater than life. Greater than death. God is greater! Believe it! Live by it! Affirm it! Claim it by faith and use it as a pillow to rest your weary soul. God is greater! If your God is not greater, then the God you believe in is too small. He is not the God the Church believes in. ~ St Isaac the Syrian
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