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, their descendants, must also grapple with these consequences, our mortality and corruptibility. But today’s forgiveness is also a preliminary: we must forgive each other our trespasses first. Only then can we know the forgiveness of the heavenly Father, which is available to us through repentance (the task of Great Lent) and the work of his Son (the focus of Holy Week).
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