For Great Lent
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- April 5, 2011
- The Meaning of Pascha
By Patriarch Pavle of Serbia of blessed memory
The Resurrection must be our own Experience
Brothers and sisters, our faith in Christ's resurrection and in the coming universal resurrection is not a delusion It is, on the contrary, our directly experienced spiritual knowledge. We share this knowledge, however, to the extent that we are true Orthodox Christians, which is to say, to the extent that we live in the Church. And To live in the Churchmeans to experience her as the Union of God and man, the Assembly of the Saints, the People of God, and not as an ideology or, still less, a religion.
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-
- April 5, 2011
- The Meaning of Pascha
By Patriarch Pavle of Serbia of blessed memory
The Resurrection must be our own Experience
Brothers and sisters, our faith in Christ's resurrection and in the coming universal resurrection is not a delusion It is, on the contrary, our directly experienced spiritual knowledge. We share this knowledge, however, to the extent that we are true Orthodox Christians, which is to say, to the extent that we live in the Church. And To live in the Church means to experience her as the Union of God and man, the Assembly of the Saints, the People of God, and not as an ideology or, still less, a religion.
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- April 6, 2011
- Lenten Sermon of Saint John of Shanghai and San Francisco
"The doors of repentance are opening . . .", starts beloved St. John of Shanghai and San Francisco. His sermon is an example of those lofty and loving words he gave to us as he stood in the Uncreated Light of our Father in Heaven. It is good for us to beg God that these words not fall on deaf ears and hard hearts. Let us strive to be unburdened as he goes on to encourage us, so that we may experience the blessedness of our journey to Pascha!!
St. John goes on to tell us, " . . . 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. . . ."
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- March 19, 2011
- Lent = Change
The theme of repentance is heard so often during Great Lent because it expresses the essential conviction of our Christian faith that the human person is called by God to change. This involves above all a struggle (podvig) against what the Holy Fathers term the "passions". These include our basic inclinations as well as thoughts and feelings which drive a wedge between ourselves and God, between ourselves and other persons. The passions are not sinful in and of themselves. They are the product of "fallen" or corrupted nature, and as such they incite to sin. Here are a few examples:
- Food and drink were intended for nourishment and enjoyment. Passion transforms the natural acts of eating and drinking into gluttony and dissipation.
- Sexuality was intended for our participation through intimate conjugal union in
- God's work of creating human persons in His image and likeness. Passion transforms sexuality into "sex," meaning the self-centered drive to satisfy lust.
- An innate longing for God characterizes human nature as it was intended to be.
- The Meaning of the Great Fast
'We waited, and at last our expectations were fulfilled', writes the Serbian Bishop Nikolai of Ochrid, describing the Easter service at Jerusalem. 'When the Patriarch sang "Christ is risen", a heavy burden fell from our souls. We felt as if we also had been raised from the dead. All at once, from all around, the same cry resounded like the noise of many waters.
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- First Sunday of Lent: "What Is Orthodoxy?"
ON THE FIRST SUNDAY of the Great Fast our Church celebrates the triumph of Orthodoxy, the victory of true Christian teaching over all perversions and distortions thereof—heresies and false teachings.
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- Second Sunday of Great Lent: Life of St. Gregory Palamas
On the Second Sunday of Lent the Orthodox Church commemorates our Holy Father Gregory Palamas, Archbishop of Thessalonica, the Wonderworker.
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- Third Sunday of Great Lent: The Cross
Today is the third Sunday of Great Lent and the day in which we adore the precious and life-giving cross of our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ.
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- Fourth Sunday of Great Lent: Life of St. John of the Ladder
Saint John of the Ladder is honored by the Church as a great ascetic and author of the reknowned spiritual book called THE LADDER, from which he is name, “St John of the Ladder" (or St John Klimakos in Greek).
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- Fifth Sunday of Great Lent: The Life of Saint Mary of Egypt
This Life of Our Venerable Mother Mary of Egypt was written down in the seventh century by Saint Sophronius, Patriarch of Jerusalem, some hundred years after the repose of the holy Mary, who fell asleep in the Lord April 1, 522. It is one of the most beautiful and edifying lives of a saint. Its obvious and stated purpose is to glorify God and to feed the souls of its readers.
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