What should we read for Lent?

[Tessa]

Any suggestions?

In Christ,
Tessa

[Jean-Serge]

Each Sunday of the Lent has a determined theme : so in order to prepare oneself, why not reading during the week a book related with such theme

"The Holy Ladder" by Saint John of the Ladder (Climacus)
Something about Essence and Energy (Saint Gregory Palamas)
etc

By the way, you can read also out of the Lent period

[尼古拉前执事]

If people want to do another group book reading, please post some ideas here and then we can vote again and do a group reading and review.

[CorpusChristi]

"Great Lent, Our Exile"

"By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down,
yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion."

In these words of the Lenten psalm, we Orthodox Christians, the New Israel, remember that we are in exile. For Orthodox Russians banished from Holy Russia, the psalm has a special meaning; but all Orthodox Christians, too, live in exile in this world, longing to return to our true home, Heaven. For us the Great Fast is a season of exile ordained for us by our Mother, the Church, to keep fresh in us the memory of the Zion from which we have wandered so far. We have deserved our exile and we have great need of it because of our great sinfulness. Only through the chastisement of exile, which we remember in the fasting, prayers, and repentance of this season, do we remain mindful of our Zion.

ТIf I forget thee, O JerusalemЙУ

Weak and forgetful, even in the midst of the Great Fast we live as though Jerusalem did not exist for us. We fall in love with the world, our Babylon; we are seduced by the frivolous pastimes of this Тstrange landУ and neglect the services and discipline of the Church which remind us of our true home. Worse yet, we love our very captors - for our sins hold us captive more surely than any human master - and in their service we pass in idleness the precious days of Lent when we should be preparing to meet the rising sun of the New Jerusalem - the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.

There is still time; we must remember our true home and weep over the sins which have exiled us from it. Let us take to heart the words of St. John of the Ladder: ТExile is separation from everything in order to keep the mind inseparable from God. Exile loves and produces continual weeping.У Exiled from Paradise, we must become exiles from this world if we hope to return. This we may do by spending these days in fasting, prayer, separation from the world, attendance at the services of the Church, in tears of repentance, in preparation for the joyful Feast that is to end this time of exile; and by bearing witness to all in this Тstrange landУ of our remembrance of that even greater Feast that shall be when our Lord returns to take home His people to the New Jerusalem, from which there shall be no more exile, for it is eternal.

Father Seraphim Rose.

[Tessa]

Good thoughts everyone...

well I got my "Light & Life" Paschal catalog...I was thinking we could read something like, Journey to Pascha or even a title by good ole' Dr. Dobson...

NOT!!!

Just kidding, couldn't resist. JeanSerge, very good suggestion. I will do that along with another "big" book. However, I don't know if I am going to go "offline" for Lent. Probably should anyway.

Any book suggestions, Fr. Nikolai?

In Christ
Tessa

[尼古拉前执事]

Any book suggestions, Fr. Nikolai?

I would suggest, "Genesis, Creation and Early Man" as a good Lenten book. Nice and big. Anyone game?

[CorpusChristi]

I would recommend a small book that would allow you to read a page or two a week- in fact they are sermons by Archbishop Andrei (ROCOR-Novo/diveevo convent) the title of the book is;
THE ONE THING NEEDFUL..it has sermons for every sunday from the Nativity of Christ to 28th sunday after pentecost-The Holy Fathers...