Forgiveness Sunday 2013

[Maria]

Romans 13:11-14 (NKJV), Orthodox Study Bible, Thomas Nelson Publishers: 2008, p. 1545.

• 11 - And do this, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep;
  for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed.
  12 - The night is far spent, the day is at hand.
  Therefore let us cast off the works of darkness,
  and let us put on the armor of light.
  13 - Let us walk properly, as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness,
  not in lewdness and lust, not in strife and envy.
  14 - But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh,
  to fulfill its lusts.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, please forgive me a sinner.
I forgive each of you, and the Lord forgives.

[joasia]

Maria,

God forgives. Forgive me a sinner.

Joanna

[Maria]

God forgives. (gives a cyber hug)

[Barbara]

That's looks so cute, a cyber hug ---!

Please all of you, forgive me, too.

Hoping for the most successful spiritually Great Lents ahead... God willing, AND protecting !

[jgress]

God forgives! Forgive me, too.

[soldier]

The Orthodox have become expert at presenting a facade of piety when they know people are looking at them in church. But how many of these people actually take the principle of Forgiveness Sunday, and carry it through consistently? How many of these people humble themselves and contact people they've held grudges against from some petty email dispute they had years before? It's difficult to act righteous when no one is watching you.

[Maria]

Soldier, we all fail at least seven times a day, probably much more.

It is therefore, safe to say that all of us need to forgive one another daily, and that once a year is better than never.

When I was in World Orthodoxy, I noticed that only the ROCOR and the OCA devoted time to Forgiveness Sunday Vespers, which was usually celebrated immediately following the Sunday Divine Liturgy. The Greeks and Antiochians did not bother with such a service unless it was a Pan-Orthodox parish. However, the Slavs, Greeks, and Antiochians would greet each other and forgive each other in the Resurrection on Pascha.