Benefit of Lenten discipline

The value of fasting consists not in abstinence only from food, but in a relinquishment of sinful practices, since he who limits his fasting only to an abstinence from meat is he who especially disparages it.  The change in our way of life during these blessed days will help us to gain holiness.  Therefore, we should let our soul rejoice during the fast.  St. John Chrysostom 

Readying ourselves for Great Lent

Those who in secret pursue virtue are receptive to spiritual gains, not by way of their stage triumphs but rather those things which are produced remain within the heart.  He who sees all things done in secret gives us the reward of sobriety.  Let us fast today, not by bending down our heads, but by praying, within the chamber of our souls.  Hymn of the Triodion

Prepare for Forgiveness Sunday Vespers

By +Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh

In the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. The weeks that have preceded Forgiveness Sunday are weeks during which, in the form of stories that actually took place or of parables, we are presented with the basic sins, the basic brokenness of ours. This was the time when we should have examined ourselves deeply, deeply; stood before God, at times with horror at what we have accepted to be, at times with pain at what has become of us in the consequence of the life which was ours. And now we have come to a point which is called Lent. Lent is an Old English word derived from the German that means spring, the beginning of life. Lent is no longer the time allotted to us for repentance. It is the time which, having repented week after week, we should be able together to move along a path that will lead us, through the examples of saints, first to Calvary with Christ and see there what the consequences are of our own sinfulness; because as we read in the life of one saint, in response to a priest who was begging Christ to punish the evil-doers, the Lord appeared to him and said, 'Never ask Me for that. If there was only one sinner in the world I would become man again, and again die upon the cross for him or her to be saved.' When we will stand together at the foot of the cross on Great Thursday night or by the tomb of Christ on Great Friday, we must realise that this has happened because of each of us — not for the totality of mankind taken wholesale, but because of each of us. Christ died for each of us. And we must at that moment bring to Him ourselves in such a way as to show Him that for us, His death upon the cross was not in vain. And then move towards the Resurrection to rise with Him, to rise in exultation, to rise in gratitude, but to rise also renewed, a new creature — not perfect yet, because we have years during which we will have to follow the same path step by step, again and again, until we reach our full maturity and can enter into God's Kingdom. Today we will ask forgiveness from one another. This is totally unrealistic if we imagine that we can approach each of those who have hurt us, wounded us, at times destroyed our lives, and say, 'Let us agree that the horror that you have brought into my life does not exist. I forgive you. Go in peace.' We are not mature enough for this. The martyrs were capable of this; we are not. But a thing which we can do, which each of us can do, is to say, 'Because you are so loved of God, so loved by Christ, that He became man, lived, taught and died for you, and not only for me, I accept you as you are. Indeed, I would be so happy if you were different, if you were not a cross on my shoulders, a wound in my heart, a terror in my life, a humiliation. But there is still time ahead of us, and for the moment I accept you as you are and I shall carry you, this acceptance, on my shoulders. As St Paul says, 'Carry one another's burdens, because it is the way in which you will have fulfilled the law of Christ.' And carrying the burden upon our shoulders means primarily to accept my neighbour as he is, hoping that things will change, praying for him or for her that the grace of God should transform, transfigure this person — but also me, because what judge am I of another's sins while I am a sinner, while I am a temptation, a wound in the life of so many others? So let us make this attempt. When we come to one another and say, 'Forgive me' it will not mean, if you answer 'Yes I do' that nothing that was wrong between us is annihilated, exists no more. But it means 'I accept you as you are, sinful, a wound in my flesh, a wound in my heart, a problem in my life — but I accept you and I will carry this acceptance, and you, throughout life, and pray for God's blessing to be on you and pray for God to heal both of us, that I should become such that I do not lead you into temptation, be the cause of your own fall. Let us therefore pray together during this service, bring to God true repentance of what we are and what we have been, but also bring one another to God. Moving towards Calvary, moving towards the resurrection has been compared by one of the ancient writers to travellers who board the same ship. They will never arrive safe if there are quarrels between them, if they are not at one. Let us be at one, with Christ who is at the rudder, with Christ who has given His life for each of us, however difficult we are for one another. And when we say, 'Yes, I forgive,' it means, 'I accept you as you are with whatever consequences to me. I accept you, and give my life as an offering for yours.' Amen.

Fasting and Forgiveness

Portrait of Metropolitan Anthony Bloom

By Metropolitan Anthony Bloom

sermon preached on Forgiveness Sunday, February 25, 1996

Today two themes dominate the readings of the Holy Scriptures; St Paul speaks to us about fasting and the Lord about forgiveness, and St Paul insists on the fact that fasting does not consist simply of depriving oneself of one form of food or another, neither does it, if it is kept strictly, obediently, worshipfully, give us any ground to be proud of ourselves, satisfied and secure, because the aim of fasting is not to deprive our body of the one form of food rather than the other, the aim of fasting is to acquire mastery over our body and make it a perfect instrument of the spirit. Most of the time we are slaves of our bodies, we are attracted by all our senses to one form or another of enjoyment, but of an enjoyment which goes far beyond the purity which God expects of us.

And so, the period of fasting offers us a time during which we can say not that I will torment my body, limit myself in things material, but a time when I will re-acquire mastery of my body, make it a perfect instrument. The comparison that comes to my mind is that of tuning a musical instrument; this is what fasting is, to acquire the power not only to command our body, but also to give our body the possibility to respond to all the promptings of the spirit.

Let us therefore go into fasting with this understanding, not measuring our fasting by what we eat and how much, but of the effect it has on us, whether our fasting makes us free or whether we become slaves of fasting itself.

If we fast let us not be proud of it, because it proves simply that we need more perhaps than another person to conquer something in our nature. And if around us other people are not fasting let us not judge them, because God has received the ones as He receives the others, because it is into the heart of men that He looks.

And then there is the theme of forgiveness, of which I will say only one short thing. We think always of forgiveness as a way in which we would say to a person who has offended, hurt, humiliated us, that the past is past and that we do not any more hold a grudge against this person. But what forgiveness means more deeply than this is that if we can say to a person: let us no longer make the past into a destructive present, let me trust you, make an act of faith in you, if I forgive you it means in my eyes you are not lost, in my eyes there is a future of beauty and truth in you.

But this applies also to us perversely, we think very often of forgiving others, but we do not think sufficiently of the need in which we are, each of us personally, of being forgiven by others. We have a few hours left between the Liturgy and the Service of Forgiveness tonight, let us reflect and try to remember, not the offenses which we have suffered, but the hurts which we have caused; and if we have hurt anyone in one way or another, in things small or great, let us make haste before we enter into Lent tomorrow morning, let us make haste to ask to be forgiven, to hear someone say to us: in spite of all that has happened I believe in you, I trust you, I hope for you and I will expect everything from you, and then we can go together through Lent helping one another to become what we are called to be — the disciples of Christ, following Him step by step to Calvary, and beyond Calvary to the Resurrection. Amen.

 Thank you to the Metropolitan Anthony Archive for use of this sermon.



On forgiveness and healing

Return of the Prodigal Son by Rembrandt (1636)

To forgive does not mean to forget what has happened, but to shoulder the weight of another person’s frailty or even another person’s evil. St. Paul says, “Learn to carry one another’s burdens.” These burdens are often the failure of each of us to be worthy of our calling, our incapacity to love one another, to accept one another, to serve one another, to help one another on the way that leads to God. Let each of us pass a judgement on our whole soul, on our whole life, judge ourselves honestly, and ask forgiveness not only from God but from our neighbor, which is sometimes much harder than asking forgiveness from God.

We are all frail. We are all in need of support. Do we give this support to one another? Or do we choose those whom we want to support because we like them, because supporting them is a joy, because supporting them means that they also respond to us by gratitude, by friendship? Let us avoid seeking reasons not to forgive.

I remember a man who said to me, “I can forgive every person who has sinned against me, I can even love them, but I must hate the enemies of God.” I thought of something which is told to us in the life of one of the saints, in which a priest was praying to God to punish those who betrayed Him by their lives if not by their words. And Christ appeared to him and said, “Never pray for the punishment or the rejection of anyone. If there was only one sinner in the world, I would choose to be incarnate again, and again to die upon the cross for this only sinner.”

Remember, if we do not forgive our brother, it is not only he who goes away with pain and tears in his heart, but we are wounded. If we do not forgive, we are ourselves not healed. The evil that occurred to us at the hands of another person remains with us, damaging our soul, destroying us.

Let us learn to forgive, so that others may be healed, but also that we may be healed ourselves. Come and bow down before the icon of Christ and of the Mother of God, and then turn to one another with the readiness to be forgiven and to forgive, whatever the cost to us.

+Metropolitan Anthony Bloom of Sourozh
from a Forgiveness Vespers sermon given in 1999

Source:  In Communion magazine #55, 2010

On humility by St. Ephraim the Syrian

Humility is so powerful that even the all-conquering God did not conquer without it.  Humility was even able to bear the burden of a stiff-necked nation in the desert.  Moses, the humblest of men, was given charge of the nation that was the most stubborn of all men.  God, Who needed nothing to save His people, later found Himself in need of the humility of Moses just to abide the grumbling and complaining of His critics.  Only humility could tolerate the perversity of a nation that dismissed signs in Egypt as well as wonders in the desert.  Whenever pride caused divisions in the nation, the prayer of humility healed their divisions.  Now, if the humility of a tongue-tied man endured six hundred thousand, how much more does His humility endure, Who granted speech to the tongue-tied!  For the humility of Moses is a mere shadow of the humility of our Lord.  St. Ephraim the Syrian

Poison in your heart

The memory of insults is the residue of anger.  It keeps sins alive, hates justice, ruins virtue, poisons the heart, rots the mind, defeats concentration, paralyses prayer, puts love at a distance, and is a nail driven into the soul.

If anyone has appeased his anger, he has already suppressed the memory of insults, while as long as the mother is alive the son persists.  In order to appease anger, love is necessary.

Remembrance of Jesus’ passion will heal your soul of resentment, by making it ashamed of itself when it remembers the patience of the Lord.

Some people have wearied themselves and suffered for a long time in order to extract forgiveness.  By far the best course, however, is to forget the offences, since the Lord says, ‘Forgive at once and you will be forgiven in generous measure.’ (cf. Luke 6:37-38)

Forgetting offences is a sign of sincere repentance.  If you keep the memory of them, you may believe you have repented, but, you are like someone running in his sleep.

Let no one consider it a minor defect, this darkness that often clouds the eyes even of spiritual people.  St. John Climacus

From the July 16^th entry in Drinking from the Hidden Fountain, A Patristic Breviary by Thomas Spidlik, Cistercian Publications