Reflections in Christ

Lenten Reflections

Reflection on Forgiveness Sunday

The rite of forgiveness takes place once a year in most parishes, but in some monasteries, it is a daily practice. Forgiveness, after all, should not be limited to one day in the year. This Forgiveness Sunday, as we enter into Great Lent and renew our commitment to lead the life in Christ, we might consider making the asking and granting of…

Reflection on the Sunday of the Last Judgment

On this Sunday, we remember the end of the world. “Pondering upon that fearful day,” as the hymns exhort us to do, we realize that we have no righteousness, no worthy deeds, nothing by which we might justify ourselves before that dread tribunal that knows no respect of persons. All we can do is ask for mercy. Glimpsing the end of the world,…

Reflection on the Sunday of the Publican and Pharisee – The Beginning of the Triodion

This week, we begin our Lenten efforts by making no efforts to fast whatsoever. This is an important reminder: God does not need our fast, but we always stand in need of his grace. No matter what efforts we make or fail to make during the coming weeks, our fast is not our project, much less our accomplishment: it is merely a small attempt to…

Reflection on the Thursday of the Great Canon

During the first week of Lent, we sang the Great Canon of Saint Andrew over the course of four nights at Great Compline; today this lengthy penitential canon is appointed in full at Matins. Some small details concerning the order of the troparia and the like have changed, too. This serves as a reminder that repentance is not static; our repentance…

Reflection on the Sunday of Saint John Climacus

The Ladder of Saint John leads the Christian, step by step, rung by rung, along the ascent to heaven. Naturally, the higher steps involve more dangerous temptations and more exalted virtues. For many of us, who remain perpetual beginners, it is good to be reminded of the first steps: we must renounce the world, become detached from worldly cares,…

Reflection on the Sunday of the Cross

The Cross stands at the center of the fast as it stands at the center of all our activities, indeed, at the center of our entire life. The world is cruciform, and, as we see in holy icons depicting the days of creation, the Lord formed his creation with the hands that were pierced by Roman nails. Following his lead, in all our activities, let us…

Reflection on the Sunday of Saint Gregory Palamas

One week after the Sunday of Orthodoxy, we attach an appendix, as it were, to that celebration: the feast of Saint Gregory Palamas. Saint Gregory Palamas’s teachings concerning the divine energies, the light of Tabor, and hesychasm are well-known but, in many cases, only superficially understood. More accessible are the great saint’s homilies,…

Reflection on the Sunday of Orthodoxy

What is the triumph of Orthodoxy? Historically, this was the victory of the Iconodule party in the Byzantine Empire, with imperial backing. Yet, since then, year in and year out, in lands throughout the world, that triumph is celebrated—and realized—again and again. Ultimately, Orthodoxy’s triumph is not by force of arms, not by princes or…

Reflection on the First Saturday of Great Lent

In his hymns for today’s feast, Saint John of Euchaita refers to this day as “heralding from afar the coming feast of the Resurrection,” stating that “this present time of relief prefigures the coming feast” of Pascha. These joyful words remind us that, even throughout these forty days of sustained ascetical effort, there are times when we…

Reflection on Clean Monday

After a month of preparation, we begin the forty days of Great Lent. During these days of ascetic struggle, may we all take refuge in the prayers and instructions of the holy ascetics who have gone before us. May we guard ourselves against all temptation by the Cross of the Lord. May the Mother of God be a joyous presence during this time, as we…

Address to the faithful during Forgiveness Vespers

Saint Tikhon’s Monastery
South Canaan, PA

met tikhon

In the reading from the prophecy of Isaiah on the first day of the fast, we hear a word of caution. Our annual observance of times and seasons, our gatherings to worship, are not, in and of themselves, pleasing unto God. “What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? Who requires of you this trampling…

Reflection on Forgiveness Sunday

Though we commonly call today “Forgiveness Sunday,” liturgically it is known as Cheesefare Sunday, or the Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise. As the last day before Lent, it is a day of preliminaries. Before Adam and Eve could find their way back from their fall, they had to leave the garden behind and know death and its consequences. We,…

The Pascha No One Wants

By Father John Parsells

pascha

True leadership brings people where they need to be but don’t want to go.

No Christian worth their salt believes Christ went to His crucifixion subservient to the Jewish leaders and Roman state. Even though the Jewish high priest, Caiaphas, gave voice to the common plot to put Jesus to death when he said “it would be…

“On behalf of all and for all”

by Fr. Paul Yerger

At the direction of our Archbishop Alexander, I served the Divine Liturgy Sunday with only four people present: the choir director, one singer, one altar server, and myself. I found it to be a very sad experience: what is usually a joyful gathering of the faithful now a handful.

In his letter Archbishop Alexander calls our…

The Joy of the Cross

by Fr. Jonathan Lincoln

“Rejoice in the Lord; rejoice in the Lord; rejoice in the Lord. May the Lord guard your soul and body and spirit from every evil, as well as from every opposition of the devil and every troubling imagination. The Lord will be your light, your protection, your way, your strength, your crown of gladness and eternal help.”

Lenten Distancing

by Matushka Donna Farley

Church closed.

Community members scattered widely.

Weeks without normal daily and weekly routine, without spiritual instruction, without icons to venerate, without Sunday eucharist, without community agape meals.

This was the deliberate practice of the monastery of Abba Zosima in the sixth century Palestinian desert,…

The Triumph of Orthodoxy, Us, and The Resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ

By John Lickwar

We have completed the first week of the Great Fast! We began it one week ago by receiving the universal impetus gathered as the Church in worship to surrender our hearts to the direction given at the service of vespers, ‘to cleanse our soul as we cleanse our flesh,’ and ‘to abstain from passion as we abstain from food.’  We do this…

What Kind of Fire?

by Matushka Valerie Zahirsky

The image of fire appears frequently in the Orthodox Church’s prayers and teachings concerning our eternal destiny as human beings. For example, on the Sunday of the Last Judgment (Meatfare Sunday) we sang in the kontakion, “When You, O God, shall come to earth with glory, all things shall tremble, and the river of…

The Last Judgment

Knowing the commandments of the Lord, let this be our way of life:
Let us feed the hungry, let us give the thirsty drink.
Let us clothe the naked, let us welcome strangers.
Let us visit those in prison and the sick.
Then the Judge of all the earth will say even to us:
“Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you”
[Vespers for…

The Prodigal Son: Re-Centering Until Our Last Breath

“God requires of us to go on repenting until our last breath” [Saint Isaias the Solitary].

“Repentance…. It means not self-pity or remorse, but conversion, the re-centering of our whole life upon the Trinity ... It is to see, not what we have failed to be, but what by divine grace we can now become; and it is to act upon what we see” [Metropolitan…