The last of the preparatory Sundays has two themes: It commemorates Adam's expulsion from Paradise, and it is also the Sunday of Forgiveness. There are obvious reasons why these two things should be brought to our attention as we stand on the threshold of the Great Fast. One of the primary images of the Triodion is that of the return to paradise.

My beloved spiritual children in Christ Our Only True God and Our Only True Savior,
CHRIST IS IN OUR MIDST! HE WAS, IS, AND EVER SHALL BE.

+

HOLY AND GREAT LENT: THE FORTY DAYS (Part II)

Saturday in the First Week. After the penitential fasting of the first five days of Lent, Saturday and Sunday are kept as feasts of joyful thanksgiving. On Saturday we commemorate the Great Martyr and Saint Theodore Tyron or Tire, we commemorate the 'Recruit', a Roman soldier in Asia Minor, martyred in the early 4th century under the pagan emperor Maximian (286-305 A.D.). Here may be seen at work a rule applied by the Church since the 4th century: as the full Liturgy cannot be offered on weekdays in Lent, Saints' memorials which in the fixed calendar occur during the week are transferred to Saturday or Sunday. So the memorial of Saint Theodore, whose feast falls on 17 February, has been transferred to the First Saturday. The texts for the day in the Triodion make frequent reference to the literal meaning of the name Theodore, "Gift from God'.

There is a specific reason why Saint Theodore has come to be associated with the first week of Lent. According to the Tradition recorded in the Synaxarion, the emperor Julian the Apostate (reigned 361-3), as part of his campaign against the Christians, attempted to defile their observance of the first week of Lent by ordering all the food for sale in the market of Constantinople to be sprinkled with blood from pagan sacrifices. Saint Theodore then appeared in a dream to Evdoxios, Archbishop of the city, ordering him to warn his flock against buying anything from the market; instead, so the Saint told him, they should boil wheat (kolyva) and eat this alone. in memory of this event, after the Presanctified Liturgy on the first Friday, a Canon of intercession is sung to Saint Theodore and a dish of kolyva is blessed in his honor.

But, quite apart from this historical association of the Great Martyr Theodore with the first week of the Fast, it is also spiritually appropriate that he should be commemorated during these days. The Great Fast is a season of unseen warfare, of invisible martyrdom when by our ascetic dying to sin we seek to emulate the self-offering of the martyrs. That is why, in addition to such commemorations as that of Saint Theodore n the First Saturday, there are also regular hymns to the martyrs on all the weekdays of Lent. Their example has a special significance for us in our ascetic efforts during the Great Forty Days. (Source: The Lenten Triodion)

(To be continued)

_________________________

"Glory Be To GOD For All Things!"-- Saint John Chrysostomos

+++

With sincere agape in His Holy Diakonia (Ministry),
The sinner and unworthy servant of God

+Father George

The two preceding Sundays, of the Last Judgment and of Forgiveness, together constitute - albeit in reverse order - a recapitulation of the whole range of sacred history, from its beginning point, Adam in Paradise, to its end-point, the Second Coming of Christ, when all time and history are taken up into eternity. During the Forty Days that now follow, although this wider perspective is never forgotten, there is an increasing concentration upon the central moment in sacred history, upon the saving event of Christ's Passion and Resurrection, which makes possible man's return to Paradise and inaugurates the End. Great and Holy Lent is, from this point of view, a journey with a precise direction; it is the journey to Pascha.

It is interesting to emphasize another form of the Synodical System, which accentuates the importance of Holy Tradition: the Eucharist itself. In the Divine Eucharist, all Orthodox Christians meet together and in absolute agreement, in Doctrine and practice witness the presence of the Holy Trinity on the altar of the Church. The bishop and the priest pray to God the Father to send the Holy Spirit and transform the bread and wine into the very Body and Blood of Christ.

As has already been noted, the authority, the power, and the impact of Holy Tradition are found in the Holy Scripture and the Patristic teaching as a total and unified expression of the revelation of the Holy Trinity in the world. Christ, as the ultimate and Supreme Teacher, Shepherd and King, exercises His authority in the Holy Spirit through the holy Apostles and their successors.

The inner significance of fasting is best summed up in the triad: prayer, fasting, almsgiving. Divorced from prayer and from the reception of the Holy Mysteries (Sacraments) unaccompanied by acts of compassion, our fasting becomes pharisaical or even demonic. It leads, not to contrition and joyfulness, but to pride, inward tension, and irritability. The link between prayer and fasting is rightly indicated by Father Alexander Elchaninov. A circle of fasting says to him: 'Our work suffers and we become irritable...I have never seen servants [in pre-revolutionary Russia] so bad-tempered as during the last days of Holy Week. Clearly, fasting has a very bad effect on the nerves.' To this Father Alexander replies: 'You are quite right...If it is not accompanied by prayer and an increased spiritual life, it merely leads to a heightened state of irritability. It is natural that servants who took their fasting seriously and who were forced to work hard during Lent, while not being allowed to go to church, were angry and irritable.