Holy and Great Lent is an invitation for us to discover the Church as a place and way of sanctification and sanctity, as a foretaste and image of the splendid radiance, of the fullness of life and of the complete joy in the eschatological Kingdom. Experientially and theologically, it is impossible for us to comprehend the spirit of Holy and Great Lent if we do not perceive it as a journey toward Pascha. The entire period of fasting preserves the “paschal perception” of life. Gloomy asceticism is a perversion of the Christian experience; it is the ignorance of the imminent grace and future Kingdom; it is life “as if Christ never came,” without expectation of the “resurrection of the dead” and of “life in the age to come.”

+ BARTHOLOMEW
Read entire homily HERE

THE TRIODION, THE BOOK OF GREAT LENT by Christopher Klitou

This Sunday the Church enters the Period known as the Triodion. For those of you who have never heard of this word before it is basically the service Book used by the Church for 70 days beginning from this Sunday and throughout Great Lent until the last service on Holy and Great Saturday night just before the Resurrection service, which then begins a new period in the Church cycle known as the Pentecostarion.

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The story of the blind man now known to the church as Bartimaeus is a powerful example to us of how it pleases Jesus for our faith to see its opportunity, grasp it, and refuse to let it go until we receive what we need from God. Who would have thought this beggar would instantly become a giver!

The fathers also give a spiritual interpretation to this miracle, with the blind men symbolizing future generations who would come to faith only by hearing, without the benefit of seeing Christ in person (see Jn 20:29). Those who tried to silence the blind man are persecutors and tyrants who, in every generation try to silence the Church. Nevertheless, under persecution the Church all the more confesses Jesus Christ and calls us to do the same.

Brothers and sisters let as ask ourselves what can our faith help us become?

You can read more HERE

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