February 19, 2008

Repentance

Triodion (72 days in three parts ~ Pre-Lenten period, Great Lent, Holy Week)

1. The services and hymns of the Triodion are built around repentance   

2. Pride, judgment, criticism is immediate spiritual death.

3. Open the doors of your soul to see yourself. Who are you before God?  a sinner, a supplicant, a person in need of God. 

4. When we recognize our need for God, tears will ensue.  The person who does not need God is full of himself and becomes a god of gods in his own mind.  We must realize that our salvation is not what we do or our works but our recognition of what Jesus does for us.  Salvation is a gift.  It not earned and not based on what we have done.  He has already saved us.  Now it is up to us to claim it. Putting on Christ will compel us to do good works, and for His Glory, not as reward for us.

5. After the tears of repentance, what is the next step?  We have to be broken and released as the harlot broke the alabaster jar and mingled the myrrh with her tears.  Tears will lead to our breaking and cleansing and renewal and finally to give of ourselves, thus imitating Christ.

6. On Fasting:  Lent should not be reduced to a set of dietary restrictions.  Fasting is just a means, not an end.  We are called to fast not only from food, but of our time, our passions et al.  The point is not to deny ourselves, not self-sacrifice for the purpose of suffering, but to offer whatever we deny ourselves to give to others.  . In this way, we take care of each other, being in the family that Christ created for us. 

A hymn says this about the type of fasting we are to do:

7. “Let us observe a fast acceptable and pleasing to the Lord. True fasting is to put away all evil, to control the tongue, to forbear from anger, to abstain from lust, slander, falsehood and perjury.  If we renounce these things, then is our fasting true and acceptable to God.”

8. St. John Chrysostom says that it is better to devour a steak on Holy Friday then to devour your brother.

9. Original sin:  Another one of the important hymns is that of Adam, repenting of his sin.  His sin was not that he ate of the tree in and of itself but that he ate it separate from God, trying to hide his action from God.  God created Adam and Eve as if they were infants and had to grow.  They were not ready for the tree of knowledge.

10. Abstention:  The reason for our absolute fast (between midnight and the morning of that we receive communion is that the first thing we take is the Holy Communion that God gives us.  In the liturgy, we offer the gifts, the bread and wine, which are gifts of God’s creation that we toiled to create into bread and wine, back to God.  He then consecrates them through His Holy Spirit and gives them to us.

11. In the hymn, Adam is lamenting of sin => his separation from God and his expulsion from Paradise.  He prays through Paradise to God, that once more he may be in Paradise and partake of its flowers, symbolizing its gifts.  The reason we receive a flower on Holy Friday is that it is a memento, symbolizing that Paradise is opened up to us again and we can reenter Paradise.

12. Putting on of clothes – the animal skins – is a reference to our baptism – the putting of new clothes which represent the putting on of Christ on each of us as a new person.  The animal is a lamb which foreshadows the sacrifice of Christ for our benefit.

13. Intercessory Prayers:  We always pray to God for only He can save.  We don’t pray to the Panagia or the saints, but rather through them, as intercessors.  Likewise, the praying through Paradise is also indicative of intercessory prayers.