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Daily Meditations

THE MEANING OF THE GREAT FAST (Part VII)

03/19/2015

By Mother Mary and Bishop Kallistos Ware We can apply this approach also to the question of abstinence from sexual relations. It has long been the Church’s teaching that during seasons of fasting married couples should try to live as brother and sister, but this does not at all signify that sexual relations within marriage are in themselves sinful. On the contrary, the Great Canon of St. Andrew of Crete – in which, more than

THE MEANING OF THE GREAT FAST (Part VI)

03/18/2015

By Mother Mary and Bishop Kallistos Ware The season of Lent, it should be noted, falls not in midwinter when the countryside is frozen and dead, but in spring when all things are returning to life. The English word ‘Lent’ originally had the meaning ‘springtime’; and in a text of fundamental importance the Triodion likewise describes the Great Fast as ‘springtime’: The springtime of the Fast has dawned, The flower of repentance has begun to

THE MEANING OF THE GREAT FAST (Part V)

03/17/2015

By Mother Mary and Bishop Kallistos Ware If we are to understand correctly the text of the Triodion and the spirituality that underlies it, there are five misconceptions about the Lenten fast against which we should guard. In the first place, the Lenten fast is not intended only for monks and nuns, but is enjoined on the whole Christian people. Nowhere do the Canons of the Ecumenical or Local Councils suggest that fasting is only for monks

Journey to Pascha

03/16/2015

Desiring to commune with the Divine Pascha . . . let us pursue victory over the devil through fasting. (First hymn of the aposticha for Vespers, Thursday of the first week of Lent) Having thus been encouraged and inspired by the memory and veneration of the Cross on which Christ suffered for our sakes, we are persuaded to continue our own Lenten effort, to carry on bearing our cross for His sake, and to walk

THE SUNDAY OF THE CROSS

03/13/2015

Having passed beyond the middle point in this holy season of the Fast, with joy Let us go forward to the part that still remains, anointing our souls with the oil of almsgiving. So may we be counted worthy to venerate the divine Passion of Christ our God, and to attain His dread and holy Resurrection. (Third troparion of Vespers, fourth Sunday of Lent) 12 THE THIRD SUNDAY OF LENT is dedicated to the Cross.

THE MEANING OF THE GREAT FAST (Part IV)

03/12/2015

By Mother Mary and Bishop Kallistos Ware Prayer and fasting should in their turn be accompanied by almsgiving – by love for others expressed in practical form, by works of compassion and forgiveness. Eight days before the opening of the Lenten fast, on the Sunday of the Last Judgment, the appointed Gospel is the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats (Matt. 25′: 31-46), reminding us that the criterion in the coming judgment will not

THE MEANING OF THE GREAT FAST (Part III)

03/11/2015

By Mother Mary and Bishop Kallistos Ware If it is important not to overlook the physical requirements of fasting, it is even more important not to overlook its inward significance. Fasting is not a mere matter of diet. It is moral as well as physical. True fasting is to be converted in heart and will; it is to return to God, to come home like the Prodigal to our Father’s house. In the words of

THE MEANING OF THE GREAT FAST (Part II)

03/10/2015

By Mother Mary and Bishop Kallistos Ware One reason for this decline in fasting is surely a heretical attitude towards human nature, a false ‘spiritualism’ which rejects or ignores the body, viewing man solely in terms of his reasoning brain. As a result, many contemporary Christians have lost a true vision of man as an integral unity of the visible and the invisible; they neglect the positive role played by the body in the spiritual

THE MEANING OF THE GREAT FAST (Part I)

03/09/2015

By Mother Mary and Bishop Kallistos Ware ‘We waited, and at last our expectations were fulfilled’, writes the Serbian Bishop Nikolai of Ochrid, describing the Easter service at Jerusalem. ‘When the Patriarch sang “Christ is risen”, a heavy burden fell from our souls. We felt as if we also had been raised from the dead. All at once, from all around, the same cry resounded like the noise of many waters. “Christ is risen” sang

The Second Sunday of Lent: Our Holy Father Gregory Palamas

03/06/2015

On the Second Sunday of Lent the Orthodox Church commemorates our Holy Father Gregory Palamas, Archbishop of Thessalonica, the Wonderworker. The feast day of Saint Gregory Palamas is November 14, however, he is commemorated on this Sunday as the condemnation of his enemies and the vindication of his teachings by the Church in the 14th century was acclaimed as a second triumph of Orthodoxy. One day in a dream, he saw that he was full

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