Great Fast Archives - Saint Sophia

The First Tuesday of Great Lent: On the Beginning of the Great Fast

03/19/2024

Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes at Forgiveness Vespers at the start of Great Lent on Sunday, March 13, 2016 I always look forward to this night because it is so beautiful, so quiet, so peaceful, so instructive. We have begun the great fast again, and I’ve been thinking about it: every year we go through the Fast, we reach Pascha, we have a great celebration, and then we start life all over again as

The Interior Focus of Great Lent

03/14/2024

Sermon preached by Fr. Antony Hughes on Sunday, February 26, 2017 The Reading from the Holy Gospel according to St. Matthew. (6:14-21) As we prepare to begin the Great Fast, here are a few important points to remember. First, God is love, a kind and compassionate father to us. We must never forget that because love is the reason for all spiritual effort. “God does not love us because we are good, but because he

The First Tuesday of Great Lent. The Lenten Journey. Repentance.

03/16/2021

The Lenten Journey: Transformation through the Lenten Journey By Abbot Tryphon, February 27, 2020 The Byzantine Court was filled with sycophants, busying themselves with building alliances that would help them rise in status and influence. During the thousand years of the empire, a few emperors were tricked into believing these sycophants were truly their friends, and could be trusted, when in actuality they were being played, and these flatterers were not their friends. These sycophants

Second Wednesday after Pascha: The Closure of our Churches

04/29/2020

By Abbot Tryphon, April 14, 2020 We must receive the closure of our churches with a peaceful heart I remember hearing, early on in my monastic life, of a holy elder who lived as a hermit, far from any group of other monks, and deprived of the chance to participate in the celebration of the Divine Liturgy. Hearing of this, I thought to myself, how could such a man survive without the Holy Body and

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

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

Archive

The First Tuesday of Great Lent: On the Beginning of the Great Fast

The Interior Focus of Great Lent

The First Tuesday of Great Lent. The Lenten Journey. Repentance.

Second Wednesday after Pascha: The Closure of our Churches

THE MEANING OF THE GREAT FAST (Part VII)

THE MEANING OF THE GREAT FAST (Part VI)

THE MEANING OF THE GREAT FAST (Part V)

THE SUNDAY OF THE CROSS

THE MEANING OF THE GREAT FAST (Part IV)

THE MEANING OF THE GREAT FAST (Part III)

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