Category Archives: Lent

Adam wept.

icons, Lent, quotes, ,

And we’ve got to get ourselves back to the Garden…     Joni Mitchell (1969)

expulsion Adam & Eve - Decani Monastery

“And it is prayer that leads us back to Paradise. It is said that when a priest stands before the closed gates of the altar at the beginning of Vespers, he represents Adam weeping before the closed gates of Paradise. I think of that image often as I stand quietly waiting for the Reader to end the prayers of the ninth hour. For as I stand before those holy gates, all humanity stands in me. We all stand before the closed gates of paradise. Many times I find the gates closed even to the Paradise of the heart. My thoughts swirl with a thousand distractions and the gates of hell threaten my undoing.

“But it is good to stand still and to bow the head and to weep with Adam. For the doors that are shut will be opened. The gates that are closed will be lifted up. In the wonder of the Divine Liturgy the fruit of the Tree of Life will be brought forth with the invitation, ‘In the fear of God and with faith, draw near!’”

I’m posting this because today is the Sunday of Forgiveness, the day before Orthodox Lent begins, when we remember how Adam and Eve were expelled from Paradise.  Read more of this article by Fr. Stephen

(Fresco above is in Decani Monastery in Kosovo.)

Songs of Ascent

church, Lent, poetry
lazarus_miracle_icon_sinai_12th_century
Lazarus is raised

I’ve been trying through a few calendar cycles to write something about our Orthodox Lenten services on Wednesday evenings, and I almost gave up. But I have to say that they are the most soul-nourishing and sweet times, and maybe my favorite part of Lent. It took me several years to become familiar enough with the format to be able to settle down and receive this great blessing the Church has given us to facilitate repentance.

“O taste and see that the Lord is good….” This refrain is repeated many times to the quieter tones of these midweek services that are designed to sustain our souls and bodies with spiritual food as we make our journey to Pascha.

And the Songs of Ascent! These Psalms (120-134) have always been my favorites, from the Jesus People days when we sang so many of them to folk tunes. The words lodged themselves in my heart accompanied by visions of the Hebrews walking for days to the Holy City on pilgrimage to one of the major Jewish feasts. They are read in their entirety every weekday at Vespers during about the first half of Lent, and I can think about how I am on my way, too, to the feast of feasts, The Resurrection of Christ, Pascha. Now we are only a week away from Lazarus Saturday, and a different section of the book of Psalms is set for Vespers, but I will still meditate on this one from last week:

O Lord, My heart is not exalted,

Neither are my eyes raised up;

Neither am I carried along in great things,

Nor in things too marvelous for me.

If I were not humble-minded,

But exalted my soul,

Like a child weaned from his mother,

So you would reward my soul.

Let Israel hope in the Lord

From this present time and unto the ages.

Psalm 131

The satisfaction of pride.

Lent, poetry, ,

This poem would have been perfect for the Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee, but I don’t want to wait another year to post it. Anyway, something on pride is very fitting for Lent.

THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS

Forget about the other six, says Pride.
They’re only using you.
Admittedly, Lust is a looker,
but you can do better.

And why do they keep bringing us
to this cheesy dive?
The food’s so bad that even Gluttony
can’t finish his meal.

Notice how Avarice
keeps refilling his glass
whenever he thinks we’re not looking,
while Envy eyes your plate.

Hell, we’re not even done, and Anger
is already arguing about the bill.
I’m the only one who
ever leaves a decent tip.

Let them all go, the losers!
It’s a relief to see Sloth’s
fat ass go out the door.
But stick around. I have a story

that not everyone appreciates—
about the special satisfaction
of staying on board as the last
grubby lifeboat pushes away.

— Dana Gioia

Published in First Things Aug/Sept 2010

Challenge the great Liar.

church, Lent, quotes,

Often I don’t have the words or confidence to write about Orthodox spirituality, so today I am just going to quote Fr. Schmemann, whose books have helped me so much.

 …fasting is the only means by which man recovers his true spiritual nature. It is not a theoretical but truly a practical challenge to the great Liar who managed to convince us that we depend on bread alone and built all human knowledge, science, and existence on that lie. Fasting is a denunciation of that lie and also proof that it is a lie….
….
Let us understand …that what the Church wants us to do during Lent is to seek the enrichment of our spiritual and intellectual inner world, to read and to meditate upon those things which are most likely to help us recover that inner world and its joy. Of that joy, of the true vocation of man, the one that is fulfilled inside and not outside, the ‘modern world’ gives us no taste today; yet without it, without the understanding of Lent as a journey into the depth of our humanity, Lent loses its meaning.

from Great Lent by Father Alexander Schmemann