The Sunday before Lent begins is Forgiveness Sunday in the Orthodox Church. It is a day to ask everyone for their forgiveness for any offenses we may have committed against them in the past year, and a day where we also forgive everyone who has offended against us.
Ramadan began March 1st, the Eastern Church's Great Lent begins tomorrow, and Western Lent begins Wednesday. It seems that a couple billion of us will all be fasting and praying for the next month, then some of us for a bit longer. It is always a blessing to me when Eastern Pascha and Western Easter fall on the same day. Since most Christians in the US belong to the Western churches, it puts me out of synch with my Western brothers and sisters when it doesn't.
For the East, the fast is from meat, fish, dairy, and alcohol, from tomorrow until Pascha. However, in the tradition of feast days which fall on fast days, alcohol is allowed on the Sabbath and Lord's Day each week. It was suggested in services today that we also fast from controversies this Lent, and that seems a particularly good addition this year.
I have decided to read two books during this season. Some of the violence in the Old Testament has troubled me for decades, so maybe Fr Stephen De Young's short God Is a Man of War: The Problem of Violence in the Old Testament will help me at least understand it. As I love poetry, I think poet and professor Donald Sheehan's The Shield of Psalmic Prayer: Reflections on Translating, Interpreting, and Praying the Psalter will be a good balancing influence after the study of ancient wars.
There is a great deal to pray for this year. In addition to America's attempt to renew itself, which is by no means guaranteed to succeed, there are the conflicts involving Ukraine and Russia, Israel and Gaza, and many other tribulations around the world that we don't hear as much of. And then there are our civic leaders and warriors and clergy and faithful, the sick, the old, the newborn, the catechumens, the lost, the travelers by sea and land and air, and personal prayers as well.
And so, in the short time before Great Lent begins, I ask all of you for your forgiveness for any offenses I may have committed against you this past year, and I ask your prayers for me, all of you who pray. I look forward to hearing about everyone's Lenten journey, all who care to share it.
5 comments:
For myself, I forgive you freely for everything.
I’m probably going to be the same monster next year as the last ones. Forgive me if you want to do. I won’t likely be getting better. I’ll ask God for forgiveness, as I often do, and if he grants it who needs any other forgiveness?
It’s going to be bikes and blades and beer and guns another year here. May God forgive me wherever I go wrong. I trust him to get that part right.
I don't know that you've done anything that wants forgiveness; I do know that you've done nothing to me that wants forgiveness.
Nonetheless, I freely forgive you for anything and everything that it's my place to forgive.
Eric Hines
Thank you both, and likewise, although it's true I can't think of any offenses you've committed against me.* Strange ritual, isn't it? But I guess it covers things we may not know we've done.
I’m probably going to be the same monster next year as the last ones.
Yeah, me too, which is I guess why the liturgical calendar is cyclical.
Forgive me if you want to do. I won’t likely be getting better. I’ll ask God for forgiveness, as I often do, and if he grants it who needs any other forgiveness?
Actually, I think it's a dirty plot by the clergy. As you say, we don't need anyone's forgiveness but God's. God, on the other hand, seems, in part at least, to condition his forgiveness on whether or not we forgive others. Clearly, Forgiveness Sunday is a conspiracy to get us to forgive others and so save our souls, the sneaky bums.
There is also forgiveness that isn't related to eternal salvation. James tells us, "Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed."
*Well, Grim did give me a lot of archaic grammar to read ... :-D
"God, on the other hand, seems, in part at least, to condition his forgiveness on whether or not we forgive others."
Yes, that's true. It's a good reason to be very forgiving, recognizing our own great need for such forgiveness.
if he grants it who needs any other forgiveness?
I don't entirely agree. If we satisfy ourselves with God's forgiveness alone, that leaves us free to deny forgiveness to those around us who have offended us or we merely think have done so (and deny the grace we give ourselves with such forgiveness). That simply allows the bitterness and hatred to fester, to our detriment and that of those around us.
Eric Hines
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