The Sunday of Forgiveness
For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. Moreover, when you fast, do not be like the hypocrites, with a sad countenance. For they disfigure their faces that they may appear to men to be fasting. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, so that you do not appear to men to be fasting, but to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly. Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. - Matt. 6:14-21
Some Thoughts...
- It's not only certain foods that we are to abstain from during Lent, but like during every other fasting period, we are to abstain from sexual relations as well. (I don't commonly see this latter aspect of Lent mentioned, I imagine it's quite unpopular). Many also choose other things in their lives that they typically enjoy, and cut them out of their lives until after Pascha. Some stop watching TV, some stop going onto the internet, some give up a favorite food or drink (even when it's permitted according to the fasting guidelines), etc.
- "Lent is the liberation of our enslavement to sin, from the prison of 'this world.' And the Gospel lesson of this last Sunday (Matt. 6:14-21) sets the conditions for that liberation. The first one is fasting--the refusal to accept the desires and urges of our fallen nature as normal, the effort to free ourselves from the dictatorship of flesh and matter over the spirit. To be effective, however, our fast must not be hypocritical, a 'showing off'... The second condition of forgiveness--'If you forgive men their trespasses, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you'. The triumph of sin, the main sign of its rule over the world, is division, opposition, seperation, hatred. Therefore, the first break through this fortress of sin is forgiveness: the return to unity, solidarity, love. To forgive is to put between me and my 'enemy' the radiant forgiveness of God Himself. To forgive is to reject the hopeless 'dead-ends' of human relations and to refer them to Christ. Forgiveness is truly a 'breakthrough' of the Kingdom into this sinful and fallen world." - Alexander Schmemann, Great Lent: Journey to Pascha, (Saint Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1990), p. 28
- "Before we cross that threshold and step out into the 'arena of the virtues', we are reminded that no solidarity can ever truly coexist in the same framework as hatred, anger and resentment. A house divided against itself will not long stand. We are called, at this the doorway of the Fast, to do what Christ commands us always to do: to forgive one another in all love before presenting our offering at His temple. Too often do we ignore this command. 'Often when I offer praise to God, I am found to be committing sin; for while I sing the hymns with my tongue, in my soul I ponder evil thoughts. But through repentance, Christ my God, set right my tongue and soul, and have mercy upon me.'" - Matthew Steenberg, Sunday of Forgiveness (Quotes: Penitential sticheron in Tone Three, as used on Sunday evenings during the first five weeks of the Fast)
- "On this Sunday the Holy Church focuses on the memory of the exile of our ancestral parents from paradise for disobedience and intemperance in order that through misfortune it more evidently emphasizes the importance of the presented ascetical effort for all, and in the loss of the blessedness of paradise it specifies a subject, worthy of repentance and tears. The example of the ancestral parents shows us the whole weight of sin and its fatal consequences and teaches us to avoid intemperance as the beginning and the source of sin, and to turn to repentance, as to the unique means of deliverance from the anger and judgment of God.
...The Fast should begin with the forgiveness by the people of their trespasses and their rejection of the deeds of darkness consisting of an unfeigned fulfillment of the rules of keeping the fast and not to judge their neighbor. Reconcilement with all, the pardon and remission of all our transgressions, is the first, main and necessary condition of our reconcilement with God, cleansing and correcting our sins. Without this reconcilement with all, without this putting an end to mutual conflicts and enmity among us, it is impossible to draw near to the Lord. It is impossible even to begin the holy journey to Lent and repentance." - S.V. Bulgakov, Sunday of Forgiveness
- "The first of all the virtues is love. Then there is also abstinence from unseemly works and acts, which is accomplished with the intellect, and finally, fasting itself--not only from foods, but also from inappropriate speech, from anger, from looking at evil, and in short, the cessation and estrangement from everything wicked." Synaxarion of the Lenten Triodion, (HDM Press, 1999), p. 42
- "We have a blueprint for our life in the Gospel today... We are going to do violence now. We are setting out on a path of doing violence to the violent one. We are casting that which is corrupt within us, and the Church has given us a path to do so. Our Lord said, first of all, if ye forgive men their trespasses, your Heavenly Father will forgive you. First and foremost in the Christian life is to forgive. To forgive is to be like God - because God forgives all. God loves all, without any respect for persons. So when we forgive, we are participating in the energy of God. We are acting like God - and indeed - that is what we are to do. In the scripture it says, 'Ye are gods' (Psalm 82:6, Isaiah 41:23, John 10:34). We are to act like gods. We are to acquire virtue, compassion, holiness. Yea, even perfection, because the scriptures also say 'Be ye perfect, as my heavenly Father is perfect'. (Mat 5:48 )
So one must become like unto God, and the first step is to forgive. And he says, 'But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.' (Mat 6:15) This is actually a promise and a threat, but the promise is so much more powerful than the threat. Oh, yes, if you do not forgive, you won't be saved. If you hold grudges, even though someone has harmed you greatly in this life, you won't be saved, because, over and over, the Church says, the Holy Scripture says, the saints say, the Holy Spirit says: forgive, forgive, forgive. And if you do forgive, what will happen? You will see Christ. You won't be corrupt anymore. You'll have peace, you'll have rest. The promise is greater than the threat. Absolutely." - Sermon on the Sunday of Forgiveness
- "Here we should not overlook that of all the petitions enjoined by the Lord, He judged that most worthy of further enforcement, which relates to forgiveness of sins, in which He would have us merciful; which is the only means of escaping misery." - Augustine (Quoted in: Thomas Aquinas, Catena Aurea, Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 6:14-15)
- "For pain is a worm and a moth, which wounds the heart which has not its treasures in heaven and spiritual things, for if a man has his treasure in these--'for where the treasure is, there will the heart be also,'--he has his heart in heaven, and on account of it he says, 'Though an host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear.' And so neither can thieves in regard to whom the Saviour said, 'All that came before Me are thieves and robbers,' break through those things which are treasured up in heaven, and through the heart which is in heaven and therefore says, 'He raised us up with Him, and made us to sit with Him in the heavenly places in Christ,' and, 'Our citizenship is in heaven.'" - The heretic Origen, Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, 10, 14
- "'For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father also will forgive you.' So that the beginning is of us, and we ourselves have control over the judgment that is to be passed upon us. For in order that no one, even of the senseless, might have any complaint to make, either great or small, when brought to judgment; on thee, who art to give account, He causes the sentence to depend; and 'in what way soever thou hast judged for thyself, in the same,' saith He, 'do I also judge thee.' And if thou forgive thy fellow servant, thou shalt obtain the same favor from me; though indeed the one be not equal to the other. For thou forgivest in thy need, but God, having need of none: thou, thy fellow slave; God, His slave: thou liable to unnumbered charges; God, being without sin. But yet even thus doth He show forth His lovingkindness towards man.
Since He might indeed, even without this, forgive thee all thine offenses; but He wills thee hereby also to receive a benefit; affording thee on all sides innumerable occasions of gentleness and love to man, casting out what is brutish in thee, and quenching wrath, and in all ways cementing thee to him who is thine own member. For what canst thou have to say? that thou hast wrongfully endured some ill of thy neighbor? (For these only are trespasses, since if it be done with justice, the act is not a trespass.) But thou too art drawing near to receive forgiveness for such things, and for much greater. And even before the forgiveness, thou hast received no small gift, in being taught to have a human soul, and in being trained to all gentleness. And herewith a great reward shall also be laid up for thee elsewhere, even to be called to account for none of thine offenses. What sort of punishment then do we not deserve, when after having received the privilege, we betray our salvation? And how shall we claim to be heard in the rest of our matters, if we will not, in those which depend on us, spare our own selves?" - John Chrysostom, Homily 19 on Matthew
- "'Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth.' Thus, after He hath east out the disease of vainglory, and not before, He seasonably introduces His discourse of voluntary poverty. For nothing so trains men to be fond of riches, as the fondness for glory. This, for instance, is why men devise those herds of slaves, and that swarm of eunuchs, and their horses with trappings of gold, and their silver tables, and all the rest of it, yet more ridiculous; not to satisfy any wants, nor to enjoy any pleasure, but that they may make a show before the multitude.
Now above He had only said, that we must show mercy; but here He points out also how great mercy we must show, when He saith, 'Lay not up treasure.' For it not being possible at the beginning to introduce all at once His discourse on contempt of riches, by reason of the tyranny of the passion, He breaks it up into small portions, and having set free the hearer's mind, instills it therein, so as that it shall become acceptable. Wherefore, you see, He said first 'Blessed are the merciful;' and after this 'Agree with thine adversary;' and after that again, 'If any one will sue thee at the law and take thy coat, give him thy cloak also;' but here, that which is much greater than all these. For there His meaning was, 'if thou see a law-suit impending, do this; since to want and be freed from strife, is better than to possess and strive;' but here, supposing neither adversary nor any one at law with thee, and without all mention of any other such party, He teaches the contempt of riches itself by itself, implying that not so much for their sake who receive mercy, as for the giver's sake, He makes these laws: so that though there be no one injuring us, or dragging us into a court of justice, even so we may despise our possessions, bestowing them on those that are in need." - John Chrysostom, Homily 20 on Matthew
